‘A Witty Book, but Mostly Feigned’: William Richards’ Wallography and Perceptions of Wales in Later Seventeenth-Century England

Wallography narrates a journey from London to Wales, through a sequence of landscapes, and encountering a variety of occupational types, from rat-catcher to schoolmaster, and fisherman to miller. In February 1682 the Oxford antiquary Anthony Wood paid one of the city's booksellers 9d for a copy of Wallography or the Britton described. Yet William Richards' quotable phrases can be deliciously ambiguous, and Anthony Wood later came to describe his work more intriguingly as 'a witty book, but mostly feigned'. Indeed, when read in its entirety, and in context, Wallography presents a more complicated account of the relationship between England and Wales than is commonly supposed. The Richards viewed abuse of Wales as an ironist is also suggested by the intellectual ambition of his other works. These included a translation and commentary on a late sixteenth-century work by Guido Panciroli, Nova Reperta.