ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a considerable body of new biographical evidence to supplement the extant accounts, and focuses on the Samuel Hartlib archive to provide a more sophisticated analysis of the reception of his work in his own age than can be gleaned from printed sources. The case of Johann Rudolph Glauber also provides a very interesting and well-documented example of the workings of Hartlib’s information network as applied to a given subject or individual. Chemistry was the trade by which Glauber earned his living, partly by teaching, both publicly and privately, partly by seeking employment and patronage from men of rank, and partly by marketing a whole range of the products, principally distillation ovens and other equipment, and chemical medicines. Not only Glauber’s writing but also his equipment was brought to England, or replicated there, by various of the Hartlib’s associates.
