ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an important supplement in literary criticism on the connections between travel and natural philosophy, focusing squarely on the social, epistemological, and narrative problem of establishing reliable knowledge of the world in early modern English society. It aims to integrate into the discussion of English 'travel knowledge' insights gained from social as well as intellectual history. Early seventeenth-century knowledge about foreign lands and peoples was uncharted, and the forms of reporting as unsettled as those in early modern natural philosophy. It seem that early modern travelers lacked a similar institution to aid in the regularization of reporting travel, the chapter argue that a similar dynamic was at work in an equally powerful set of corporate bodies: long-distance trading companies. As their primary goal was recording the movement and sale of goods, the authors of company travel reports were also far less concerned than their gentlemanly counterparts with demonstrating social skill in dealing with foreigners.
