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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Joseph HoneORCiD
This is the authors' accepted manuscript of an article that has been published in its final definitive form by Oxford University Press, 2022.
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This article investigates the English underground press in the later Stuart period. Even following the end of pre-publication licensing in 1695, the ongoing threat of government reprisals meant that controversial political and religious tracts continued to be printed in secret. And yet the survival of the underground press into this period has been neglected in recent works of political, religious, social, cultural, and literary history. The dominant view, established by some of the most influential book historians of the past century, is that the materials necessary for a study of secret printing do not survive. This article argues otherwise. Through a detailed case study of the career of one such printer, David Edwards, it illustrates how the clandestine activities of a subset of printers helped shape contemporary debate. Combining historical and bibliographical modes of investigation, this article explores the fundamental mechanics of how controversial tracts, written and printed in secret, reached the reading public. It examines Edwards’s training under the radical Whig printer Thomas Braddyll, his subsequent links to the exiled Jacobite court, and the clandestine techniques he used to disguise his activities and the authorship of books he printed. These included the use of indentures and tokens to ensure against imposters and tweaking copy texts to mask distinctive stylistic ticks. The article concludes by arguing that the vibrant culture of partisan print associated with the later Stuart public sphere was enabled not solely by the demise of pre-publication licensing in 1695, but also by the persistence of the underground press.
Author(s): Hone J
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: The English Historical Review
Year: 2022
Volume: 137
Issue: 584
Pages: 80–108
Online publication date: 11/03/2022
Acceptance date: 08/02/2022
Date deposited: 08/02/2022
ISSN (print): 0013-8266
ISSN (electronic): 1477-4534
Publisher: Oxford University Press
URL: https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/ceac031
DOI: 10.1093/ehr/ceac031
ePrints DOI: 10.57711/pv42-yk94
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