The World of John Taylor the Water-Poet, 1578-1653 [Hardcover]

John Taylor was a prolific and colorful popular writer whose work provides a unique picture of England from James I to the civil war through the eyes of a London waterman. This book is the first full study of the self-styled King's Water-Poet, who carved out a pioneering role for himself as a media celebrity and became a national institution.

Bernard Capp's informative new book analyzes the life and writings of one seventeenth-century 'Amphibium,' John Taylor the Water-Poet. Previously neglected by both historians and literary scholars, Taylor emerges from Capp's lucid, richly detailed study as a man who strove to create an identity for himself by negotiating the divided and distinguished worlds of early modern English society and culture. --Albion

Though this is, and almost certainly will be for years to come, the definitive book on John Taylor, its true virtue is that it engages with a number of exciting debates within the fields of English social, political, and cultural history. --Renaissance Quarterly

Clearly written and tightly organized, it provides a model of sound argument based on an impressive range of reading in both Taylor's works and the social and cultural history of his times. --Sixteenth Century Journal