Introduction

This is a book for and about the curious: focussed on past interactions between individuals and things of interest, it’s our contribution to defining and developing the field of early modern material culture studies. This is a relatively youthful field which is moving quickly; it is one in which the editors are all involved from very different angles – as a literary scholar and an art historian both with a strong interest in social and cultural history, and as an archaeologist who is also a museum director – and it is an area of scholarship about which we care passionately.