Ethnographies of Paper in Early Modern England

In his lengthy poem ‘The praise of hemp-seed’, John Taylor (1578-1653) dwells on the manufacture of paper. This article argues that Taylor is concerned not only with paper’s origins as fabric and plant, but also with its etymological and global histories. Putting Taylor’s poem into conversation with travel narratives that described paper and other writing substances in sometimes excruciating detail, the article makes the case that Taylor invokes paper’s ancient histories and global traditions in order to efface them, claiming this remarkable substance as quintessentially British, or rather English.