In Search of Sir Thomas Browne: The Life and Afterlife of the Seventeenth Century’s Most Inquiring Mind

In this delightful study, part biography and part history of both science and literature, English science writer Aldersey-Williams (Anatomies) revives the thought of Sir Thomas Browne, a 17th-century writer, physician, and philosopher, for modern readers. Browne studied medicine at Montpellier, Padua, and Leiden, eventually opening a practice in Norwich. Over the next 50 years, his insatiable curiosity and his wide-ranging interests led him to produce studies about a diverse array of topics. Aldersey-Williams leads the reader through Browne’s works, illuminating his innovative ideas as well as the philosophical outlook that motivated him. Religio Medici, Browne’s first and perhaps most famous work, was a rationalist discussion of religion that ended up on the papal index of prohibited books and put Browne “in the excellent company of Rabelais, Galileo, Bacon, Hobbes and Spinoza.” He later examined plants, hoping to discover signs of the original Garden of Eden, and dabbled in natural history, collecting notes about animals as varied as bitterns, owls, sperm whales, and moles. Browne, like a scientific Shakespeare, also introduced many neologisms that remain in the English language today, such as medical, precarious, insecurity, and hallucination. Aldersey-Williams’s brilliant reflections encourage us to pick up Browne and read him for ourselves. Illus. [em](June) [/em]