Odd Tom Coryate

by R.E. Pritchard

Thomas Coryate (1576-1617) was one of the great early travellers, opening up Europe, the eastern Mediterranean, the Holy Land and Mogul India to his amazed - and sometimes disgusted - readers. In 1608 he set out to travel - mostly on foot - through France and Italy to Venice, returning through Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands. His book reporting on what he had seen and experienced, Coryats Crudites, was published in 1611 and was a huge success, providing both useful information and entertainment through the reported encounters and mishaps of the apparently tireless author. Nowadays few people have actually read the work, which stretches to over a million words, but Coryate demands to be known more widely, since he was the person almost single-handedly responsible for the creation of the Grand Tour, that inescapable finishing process which was to mark a rite of passage for the aristocracy and the upper middle classes of Britain for over 150 years. As one modern editor of Coryate has 'the scope, reliability and, not least, the entertainment value of the Crudites give it an assured place among the best in the literature of travel'.

Genres: Biography

288 pages, Hardcover

First published October 14, 2004

Reviews

[Stuart McMillan · Rating 2 out of 5]

For completists only. Tom Coryate led a interesting and varied life but this account of his travelling life is probably only of interest to scholars - I found it a tiresome read and struggled with the continual references to 'goodly' this and 'goodly' that.

Tim Moore wrote a more accessible introduction to the itinerant wanderings of TC in his 'Continental Drifter'. I'd commend Moore's volume as a stripped to the bone piece of commentry around TCs travels with only the nuggets left - there's too much spoil in this volume to make it an interesting read unless you're academically immersed in the history of this period.