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The faerie queeneThe faerie queene disposed into twelve books, fashioning XII. morall vertues Edmund Spenser Date: 1596 Original Language: English Description The faerie queene is an epic poem in six books, each with 12 cantos of 48 stanzas each. The first three books were published as a single volume in 1590, printed in London by William Ponsonbie. These three books, together with three new ones, were printed again in 1596. Spenser planned at least six more, but the work remained unfinished when he died. Most of his …

- Giles Fletcher the Elder Date: 1597 Original Language: English Description Printed for William Stansby by John Windet in London in 1597,  The Policie of the Turkish Empire, the first booke comprises 25 chapters, running to 164 pages. Recto pages have signature pagination, although some are unnumbered. The dedication, to Henry Carey, first Baron Hunsdon, Lord Chamberlain of the Queen’s House (sig. A2v to A2r), is followed by a note to the reader (sig. A3v to A4v, recto is blank). Fletcher’s name does not appear in the text, but the work is routinely attributed to him. The text itself is …

Date of Birth: 30 November 1670 Place of Birth: Ardagh, County Donegal, Ireland Date of Death: 11 March 1722 Place of Death: Putney, London BiographyJohn Toland (also Jean and Johannes Toland, and Joannes Tolandus) was born on 30 November 1670 in Ardagh, County Donegal. He later claimed to have been baptised with the name Junius Janus, but called himself John to escape ridicule at school. His parents’ identities are unknown. His father may have been a Catholic priest, but by the age of 16 Toland had become a Protestant…

- Orientalist tropes, themes and pseudo-Orientalist novels, plays and poetry in 18th-century English literature Date: - Original Language: English DescriptionThis selection is of 18th-century British and Irish writers whose plays, poems or novels have Oriental allusions that challenged or changed traditional assumed attitudes towards Islam. Various schemes have been developed to discuss Oriental references in English literature, among them Martha Pike Conant’s four groupings of imaginative, moralistic, philosophical and satirical ( The Oriental tale, 1908, p. xxvi)…

- Richard Knolles Date: 1603 Original Language: English Description Richard Knolles’s  The Generall Historie of the Turks (in full,  The Generall Historie of the Turkes, from the first beginning of that nation to the rising of the Othoman familie: with all the notable expeditions of the Christian princes against them. Together with the liues and conquests of the Othoman kings and emperours faithfullie collected out of the- best histories, both auntient and moderne, and digested into one continuat historie vntill this present yeare 1603), the result of 12 years of research and…

- Reflections on Mohammedanism and the conduct of Mohammed Date: 1735 Original Language: English Description Reflections on Mohammedanism and the conduct of Mohammed. Occasioned by a late learned translation and exposition of the Koran or Al Koran is a 54-page work published in 1735 by J. Roberts of Warwick Street, London. The author is unknown, and there is nothing in it that points to a possible identity. It draws heavily on George Sale’s  Koran (1734), and was obviously inspired by Sale’s approach to Islam. Like Sale, the author is critical of the view of Muḥamm…

Fynes Moryson’s Itinerary- Fynes Moryson Date: 1617 Original Language: English Description Moryson first began work on his Itinerary in about 1598. However, he more or less started again in 1609, setting out to produce a shorter, more publishable version. This was eventually published in 1617, printed in four volumes, divided into three parts (its longer title is  An itinerary vvritten by Fynes Moryson Gent. First in the Latine tongue, and then translated by him into English: containing his ten yeeres trauell through the tvvelve domjnions of Germany,…

Pansebeia- Alexander Ross, Hugh Ross, Thomas Ross Date: 1653 Original Language: English Description Alexander Ross’s  Pansebeia, or a View of the religions of the world was first published in 1653. By the end of the century, the text had appeared in six editions (several reprinted) and in Dutch, French and German translations. The 1555, 1658 and 1664 (all Octavo or small folio) editions were bound with  Apocalypsis, ... Faithfully and Impartially translated out of the Latine by J.D. This latter work contains the lives of 17 heretics, including Muḥammad, with copperplate…

Biography Henry Stubbe (also Stubbs and Stubb), described by Wood, a contemporary and friend, as ‘the most noted Person of his age’ ( Athenae Oxonienses, vol. 3, p. 1068), was the son of an Anglican clergyman. He was born on 28 February 1632 in Partney, Lincolnshire. His father’s Separatist sympathies resulted in his ejection from his living, after which the family moved to Ireland. When the 1641 Irish uprising broke out, Henry’s mother took him and another of her children to safety in London, where she supported herse…

Biography Richard Eden was born in about 1520 or 1521, possibly in Herefordshire, into a merchant family, although some of his relatives were ordained. He went to Cambridge in 1534. Biographers speculate that he had a clerical career in mind. He attended Christ’s College, then Queens’ College, graduating with a BA in 1538. At Cambridge, he was taught and influenced by Sir Thomas Smith (1515-77), professor of civil law from 1542 until 1553, later a secretary of state and ambassador to France. Smit…

Date of Birth: 29 January 1677 Place of Birth: Marlborough, Wiltshire Date of Death: 17 February 1720 Place of Death: London BiographyJohn Hughes was born in Marlborough, Wiltshire, on 29 January 1677, and was named John after his father, who worked as a clerk for a London insurance company. The Hughes family were non-conformists, so John attended a dissenting academy run by Thomas Rowe (d. 1705), whose ‘free philosophy’ approach to teaching abandoned traditional texts. Rowe taught many students who later became public figures. Hughes found employment in the Ordnance Office, bu…

Date of Birth: Place of Birth: Date of Death: Place of Death: Biography Primary Sources of Information Secondary Sources of Information Works on Christian-Muslim RelationsReflections on Mohammedanism and the conduct of MohammedClinton Bennett

Biography Thomas Herbert was born in York in late 1606 into a prominent merchant family of Welsh origin. Although his father Christopher (d. 1625) was unsuccessful commercially, Herbert benefitted from his wealthy grandfather’s estate. In 1621, he began legal studies at Trinity College, Cambridge, from where he later transferred to Jesus College, Oxford. Enrolment at one of the Inns of Court probably followed. There are no records of his attending any of these institutions, although Wood and Bliss include his biography in  Athenae Oxonienses. By 1626, through family connection…

- The Life and Death of Mahomet Date: 1637 Original Language: English Description The Life and Death of Mahomet (in full  The Life and Death of Mahomet, The Conquest of Spaine together with the Rysing and Ruine of the Sarazen Empire), published in 1637, was attributed to the explorer and soldier Sir Walter Raleigh (c. 1551-1618), although he almost certainly did not write it. A number of other texts were also spuriously attributed to him. The work is 273 pages long, although there are only 15 full lines of print on each page. It carries a portrait of Sir Walter Raleig…

Biography Andrew Marvell was born at Winestead, East Yorkshire, on 31 March 1621. His father, also Andrew Marvell, became lecturer (indicating his Puritan loyalty) at Holy Trinity Church, Kingston upon Hull, and Master of Charterhouse Hospital, a charitable foundation, in 1624. Marvel attended Hull Grammar School (there is no actual record, though this is generally accepted) then Trinity College, Cambridge, from the early age of 12. He graduated BA in 1638, and proceeded to study for his MA, but …

Date of Birth: 26 September 1679 Place of Birth: East Harnham, Salisbury Date of Death: 8 February 1747 Place of Death: In or near Salisbury BiographyThomas Chubb was born on 29 September 1679 at East Harnham, Salisbury. His father, Henry Chubb, died in 1688, and by 1694 Chubb was apprentice to a glove-maker, though poor eye-sight led him to change his occupation in 1705 to that of assistant to a tallow-chandler. He may briefly have attended a local charity school, but he makes no reference to this in his autobiographical sketch ( Posthumous works, vol. 1, pp. ii-viii) and appears to ha…

- Isaac Barrow Date: Uncertain; probably 1670s Original Language: English Description It is not known precisely when Isaac Barrow preached this sermon, though it was probably in Trinity College chapel in the early 1670s as part of his series of sermons on the Creed. Similar content, at times word for word the same, is found in his ‘Exposition of the Creed’, written in 1669, and this is possibly the reason why this latter work was omitted from the first edition of Barrow’s Works (I. Simon,  Three Restoration divines, Paris, 1967, p. 306). The ‘Exposition’ was published separately i…

- James I Date: 1603-25 Original Language: Latin Description James I corresponded with a number of Muslim rulers, especially with the Ottoman sultan and with the Mughal emperor. He initiated the latter correspondence, while the former had developed under his predecessor Elizabeth I, during whose reign the Levant Company had been formed (1581) and an ambassador appointed to Istanbul (1583). Early in his reign, James received letters from the Ottoman sultan extending friendship. These are archived in State…

Biography Richard Hakluyt was born in London, probably in 1552. His father, also Richard Hakluyt, who died in 1557, was a member of the Skinners’ Company. The name Hakluyt is thought to be of Welsh origin, although Dutch has also been suggested (Laughton, ‘Hakluyt, Richard’, p. 11; variant spellings include Hackellet, Hackeluite, Hackeluett and Hacluit). The younger Richard (also known as Hakluyt the Preacher) was able to attend the prestigious Westminster School from 1564 as a Queen’s scholar. I…

Date of Birth: Probably 1560 Place of Birth: Withcote, Leicestershire Date of Death: 4 July 1591 Place of Death: Husbands Bosworth, Leicestershire Biography Henry Smith was born into a wealthy Leicestershire family, probably in 1560. In 1573, he became a fellow-commoner at Queens’ College, Cambridge, but soon left to study privately with Richard Greenham (1535-94), rector of Dry Drayton, Cambridgeshire, who instructed him in Puritan theology. By 1576, Smith was a student at Lincoln College, Oxford, where he gained his…