This study focuses on the co-evolution of the essay and the mode of literacy it enabled, and the interactive processes of reading, with a new approach to early modern textuality. It shows how the genre served to record, test and disseminate the skills required; and how the essay was adopted as a mechanism by various intellectual disciplines.

Autorentext
SCOTT BLACK teaches English at the University of Utah, USA. This is his first book, but he has published articles previously in journals such as Eighteenth Century Fiction and Eighteenth Century Studies.

Inhalt
Acknowledgements Introduction PART ONE: OF ESSAYS Draughts of Reading By Way of Essays PART TWO: ESSAY EXAPTED Boyle's Essay Social and Literary Form in the Spectator Fleeting Habitations in Tom Jones Appendices Notes Bibliography Index