Writing and Society - Literacy, Print and Politics in Britain 1590 - 1660

Writing and Society is a stunning exploration of the relationship between the growth in popular literacy, and the development of new readerships and the authors addressing them. Nigel Wheale looks at the relevant debates in literary critical theory and historiography and the book includes facsimile pages with commentary from the most influential books of the period. He describes and analyzes the development of literacy by status, gender and region in Britain, structures of patronage and censorship, the fundamental role of the publishing industry, the relationship between elite literary and popular cultures, the remarkable growth of female literacy and publication and the impact of English policies of state formation on the traditions of Celtic literary cultures.

This groundbreaking book brings together the materials necessary to understand Elizabethan, Jacobean and Carolean culture in relation to early modern British literary cultures.