Thomas Coryate versus John Taylor: the emergence of the early modern celebrity

Abstract

By pursuing traditional and emergent forms of patronage and by establishing himself as a travel writer in Jacobean London, Thomas Coryate created a public persona that allowed him to promote himself to a broad audience but also made himself vulnerable to appropriation and parody. John Taylor, the Water Poet, took advantage of Coryate’s project and used the traveller as the subject of a series of pamphlets and poems. Plagued by Taylor’s industriousness, Coryate failed to create a reliable public persona but, at the same time, emerged as an early example of a media celebrity.