In this volume, Elizabeth Yale argues for the importance of scientific correspondence as the ground on which Britain was constructed as a topographical object. She first sets out what it meant to be British in the early modern world, focusing on topographers and naturalists such as Joshua Childrey, whose Brittania Baconica (1660) was a portable guidebook to Britain's wonders, and their definition of ‘Britain’. To some, it meant England, to others, the entire island. To the Welshman Edward Lhuyd, author of the Archaeologia Brittanica (1707), it could mean either, or even relate solely to Wales. Topography was not only geographical, but also linguistic: Lhuyd, as well as others such as John Ray and John Aubrey, sought to map the linguistic diversity they encountered through their travels, and through those of their correspondents. Analysing especially the importance of the correspondence networks of Lhuyd, Aubrey and Robert Plot, Yale also describes in vivid detail the movements of objects and people, painting the background against which antiquarians and naturalists had to operate. Take, for instance, what befell Lhuyd in Brest, where he was collecting notes on the Breton language. Despite having letters of introduction from two Paris abbots, he was arrested by the local magistrate on suspicion of treason and held in the castle prison for two weeks before he was finally released but ordered to return to England forthwith. So far for research.

The heart of Yale's study is formed by a number of collaborative works, in particular John Aubrey's The Naturall Historie of Wiltshire (Aubrey started the work in 1656, but it was neither finished nor published). Making full use of the available manuscript record, she provides a thorough analysis of how Aubrey decided not to publish his incomplete treatise, but instead have it circulate amongst other naturalists and men of knowledge whom he solicited to add from their own findings and knowledge. These included the botanist John Ray; Thomas Gale, the Master of St Paul's School in London; and the diarist John Evelyn. Each of these contributed to Aubrey's work by annotating the manuscript on those areas they were most familiar with. Evelyn went a little further by copying several pages of the Naturall Historie for his own use, often slightly changing the original text, as Yale shows in her comparison of both manuscripts. Lhuyd, on the other hand, employed a different correspondence strategy. He remained in full control of the manuscript of his Archaeologia Brittanica, and instead sent out four thousand copies of Parochial Queries (1696), a four-page questionnaire asking locals about the particulars of their village and its surrounding. Only about 150 were returned, but these still provide us with valuable insight in the topographical areas they cover, and in Lhuyd's methodology.

In the remainder of her volume, Yale devotes attention to several other aspects of publishing, in particular the financial side and the use of subscription. Whereas John Aubrey failed miserably in generating funds for the publication of his Monumenta Brittanica, Lhuyd managed to convince his connections to provide ample support for his Lithophylacii Brittanici Ichnographia (1699), not only for its publication, but also in particular to sponsor his research, a feat he repeated with the Archaeologia Brittanica. Yale's analysis of why Lhuyd was successful shows the importance of social networks, as Hans Sloane and Samuel Pepys decided to take up his cause and secure subscription from a number of Royal Society fellows. Unfortunately, she does not provide a convincing case why Aubrey in his turn was unsuccessful, only stating that Aubrey by that time had a history of unfinished projects and that his timing might have been off, since it coincided with Gibson's revision of William Camden's Brittanica (1610).

In Sociable Knowledge, Yale demonstrates a deep engagement with the many manuscripts she inspected. Especially her analysis of the editorial history of The Naturall Historie of Wiltshire is a fascinating example of thorough scholarship. It is therefore a shame that her efforts are overshadowed by the claims she makes in the introduction, namely that

For all its eruditeness, the book does not deal with the development of science and nation, seeing as it hardly touches upon anything science apart from the natural-historical, and on anything national apart from the perceived identities in the volumes she so painstakingly analyses. There is no discussion of the construction of scientific knowledge, even broadly defined, and only a minimal description of the concept of Britain as a nation outside the naturalists’ world. Regretfully, it is a trend she adheres to throughout the volume, making generalized claims from rather specialized cases, which takes away from the otherwise excellent scholarship. Not taking this into account, and ignoring the overabundance of repeated facts and parenthetical remarks, Sociable Knowledge is still to be recommended for its convincing analysis of the social networks underlying the naturalist and antiquarian works of Aubrey, Lhuyd and their colleagues.