I am relatively new to creative writing, so please bear with me. The story I'm writing has text from a 17th century book inserted verbatim within the story. The inserted text has nothing to do with the story other than to visually illustrate it comes from a very old book. I have purposely changed the font of this passage throughout my story to one in keeping with the time it was written. The excerpts I'm using were reprinted/published by the Cambridge University Press in 1984. Am I obligated to cite this work or get permission of any kind to use this text for publishing purposes?
you still need to cite the source of the text, since it is not your own work... but not need permission to use it, since the author is long-dead, as long as you have not included any editorial comments from that edition, along with the original books verbatim text... as for using a different font, that's ok if you are going to self-publish, but if you will be submitting your ms to agents and/or traditional publishers, the entire ms must be in the same font... the quoted text should, in both cases, be inserted as a block indent... btw, i just noticed you posted this question in two different threads... you should ask a moderator to combine this thread with your duplicate you posted under a different title, since it is otherwise the same...
Even the works of a long-dead offer may require permission. The estate of Arthur Conan Doyle will come after you if you "borrow" substantively from Sherlock Holmes without permission, for example.