ABSTRACT
This chapter first suggests why property has recently fascinated commentators on early modern culture, and accounts for why debates then and now largely focus on intangible property. Cash and credit are the principal loci for debates about how value is created, held, transferred or destroyed. The chapter then gives a case study from a seventeenth-century mercantile handbook, showing how virtual property is created. Finally, a survey of recent literary criticism on property is followed by some speculation about what research is likely to develop on the topic.
