<span><span>Using the letter as its main evidence, </span><span style="font-style:italic;">Literary Sociability in Early Modern England: The Epistolary Record</span><span> examines early-modern English literary networks, especially during the period 1620 to 1720, finding that author manuscripts were increasingly understood as seedbeds of knowledge production and humanistic creativity and therefore as natural predecessors to print. Early modern authors, patrons and even regulators cultivated the letter and theories of friendship to build literary networks that could collaborate on writing projects with strong cultural appeal. By being associated with texts of high cultural value, network participants accrued social capital that could be used to attract state or religious patronage, professional stature among other writers, and financial gains in the marketplace.<br/></span></span>