A Letter to a Friend — Sir Thomas Browne's meditation on the death of a friend, blending medical observation with philosophical counsel on mortality, virtue, and the brevity of life.
Hydriotaphia, or Urn-Burial — Browne's meditation on death, burial, and the vanity of monuments — prompted by the discovery of ancient funeral urns in Norfolk. One of the greatest prose works in English. Published 1658.
Observations upon Experimental Philosophy — Margaret Cavendish's natural philosophy — a systematic critique of experimental science and defense of rational speculation (1666)
Pseudodoxia Epidemica — Sir Thomas Browne's encyclopedia of popular errors — a magnificent seventeenth-century examination of every false belief from whether crystal is frozen ice to whether elephants lack joints. First published 1646.
The Blazing World — One of the earliest works of science fiction in English — a woman enters a world at the North Pole populated by hybrid creatures and becomes their Empress. Written by Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, in 1666.
The Discovery of a World in the Moone — John Wilkins's 1638 treatise arguing that the moon is a habitable world — one of the first works of popular science in English, written by the future Bishop of Chester and co-founder of the Royal Society.
The Garden of Cyrus — Sir Thomas Browne's meditation on the quincuncial pattern in nature, art, and the cosmos — the companion volume to Urn-Burial (1658).
The Mysteryes of Nature and Art — John Bate's 1634 handbook of practical wonders — water engines, fireworks, painting, etching, medicines, and the magnificent experiments of an Elizabethan maker.