‘Out of Place’: solitude and social isolation in early modern travel writings

This dissertation investigates expressions of solitude and isolation in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English travel autobiography, diary, memoir, and letter. It examines eight case studies: Richard Norwood, John Newton, Edward Barlow, Mary Lacy, Thomas Gray, Mary Coke, Ann Fanshawe and Robert Bargrave. The thesis explores solitude in relation to social intimacy, emotional communities, virtue, and connections to home. It argues that solitude was both a physical space and an imagined construct, and travellers expressed solitude both in company and alone. Drawing on the history of emotions, the dissertation explores the ways early modern travellers expressed and interpreted their own experiences of solitude.