Coryat's writings were hugely popular at the time. His accounts of inscriptions, many of which are now lost, were valuable; and his accounts of Italian customs and manners—including the use of the table fork—were influential in England at a time when other aspects of Italian culture, such as the madrigal, had already been in vogue for more than twenty years. He is considered by many to have been the first Briton to do a Grand Tour of Europe; a practice which became a mainstay of the education of upper class Englishmen in the 18th century.