Description
Book SynopsisPre-Civil War English political culture was shaped by an extensive pamphlet literature, which has remained unknown due to its handwritten form. Drawing from book history and the history of political thought, Noah Millstone reconstructs the world of manuscript pamphleteering to explain how contemporaries came to see their world as political.
Trade Review'In this learned and impressive book, Millstone provides scholars with such a survey [of scribal pamphleteering in the early Stuart era] and, more importantly, a persuasive argument about the different ways in which the circulation of manuscript pamphlets created, shaped and informed early modern English men and women's participation in and interpretation of politics … a groundbreaking contribution to the study of manuscripts, politics, and practices of dissemination and interpretation. To offer a thorough account of the nature and circulation of key scribal pamphlets in early seventeenth-century England is a significant contribution to scholarship, to simultaneously provide new ways of thinking about the invention of politics in the period is a remarkable achievement.' Alison Searle, Renaissance Studies
'Millstone offers a series of compelling arguments about the nature of early Stuart politics while posing fascinating questions about the long-term origins of the English Revolution. Lucidly written, robustly argued and theoretically informed, this is one of the most impressive debuts I have read in many years. … marvelous.' Alastair Bellany, The Spenser Review
'Noah Millstone's outstanding work supplies an invaluable survey of scribal pamphleteering during the Stuart era and provides rich new insights concerning the significance of their circulation. … By expertly addressing the manner by which 'collectors and diarists treated the texts themselves as forming a … political history of their own times' (167), Millstone bestows us with a modern equivalent that will prove useful to scholars with an interest in Stuart politics, regardless of their discipline.' Mark Kaethler, Renaissance Quarterly
'Millstone has produced a deeply researched and highly sophisticated book that will be of the greatest interest to scholars and students of early seventeenth-century England. He has an admirable capacity to delineate detail without ever losing sight of the broader picture. … In guiding us elegantly through the surviving products of early Stuart scribes it whets the appetite for future works from the author's own pen.' David L. Smith, The English Historical Review
Table of Contents1. Introduction; Part I. Conditions of Production: 2. The social life of handwriting; 3. Tuning the instrument; 4. Performance and parliament; Part II. Subjects and Subjectivity: 5. Bristol's revenge; 6. Historians of the present; Part III. The Secret History of the State: 7. The antiquary and the malcontent; 8. The drift of the personal rule; 9. The ill-affected; 10. Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.
