About

The author of this website is Dr Anna Marie Roos. This project stemmed from my research and analysis of the life and letters of Dr Martin Lister under the auspices of the Project Cultures of Knowledge: An Intellectual Geography of the Seventeenth-Century Republic of Letters, based at the University of Oxford.

I discovered the Pocketbook in the Bodleian Library in the course of writing his biography. Recreating his journey – I retraced his steps with my husband Ian in our caravan during summer 2011 − has been a form of humanistic fieldwork that attempts to enrich our understanding of the early modern peregrinatio medica, as well as the intellectual geography of early modern France (especially Montpellier). My journey was featured in a popular travel magazine, and I provided an overview of the Pocketbook project at the conference Intellectual Geography: Comparative Studies, 1550-1700 (St Anne’s College, University of Oxford, September 5-7 2012):

I am historian of early modern English chemistry and medicine, and a Fellow of the Linnean Society. My biography Web of Nature: Martin Lister (1639-1712), the First Arachnologist, was published by Brill in July 2011. My other books include Salt of the Earth: Natural Philosophy, Medicine, and Chymistry in England, 1650-1750 (2007), and Luminaries in the Natural World: The Sun and Moon in England, 1400-1720 (2001). I have also published several articles in a variety of journals including Medical History, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, Ambix, History of Science, and Notes and Records of the Royal Society.

I was the Lister Research Fellow for the research project Cultures of Knowledge: An Intellectual Geography of the Seventeenth-Century Republic of Letters, for which I edited Lister’s complete correspondence.

I am now a Reader in early modern history at the University of Lincoln. If you have questions about this website, please contact me at martinlisterpocketbook@gmail.com.