This afterword provides reflections on the richness, diversity, and divergence of loneliness in the early modern era as exhibited in the previous chapters. It argues the case for giving more attention to the ways in which the themes in the texts explored in these chapters served as precursors to many central concerns within Romantic poetry, which is frequently credited with producing the earliest expressions of loneliness in English literature. The afterword also takes the opportunity to suggest future avenues for research centring on the history of loneliness in the pre-modern world. What more can be said about the reception of these lonely texts in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; that is to say, how were later writers inspired by those presented in this volume? How did early modern writers shape the future of literary loneliness to come? What other historical sources would shed light on the experience of loneliness? And how can we best address the silences in the archives which might testify to the loneliness of oppressed individuals in history?