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.

Memory's Library - Medieval Books in Early Modern England

“Libraries,” wrote Francis Bacon in 1605, “are as the shrines, where all the reliques of the ancient saints, full of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved, and reposed.” But in Jennifer Summit’s account, libraries are more than inert storehouses of written tradition; they are volatile spaces that actively shaped the meanings and uses of books, reading, and the past.

The English Wars and Republic 1637 - 1660

The English Wars and Republic explores the period of turmoil in British history from 1637 and the latter part of the reign of Charles I, to the restoration with Charles II in 1660. The religious and political crises surrounding the Civil Wars, and the key personalities of Charles I and Oliver Cromwell are discussed in detail.

The Reigh of Elizabeth I - Court and Culture in the Last Decade

This book is about the politics and political culture of the "last decade" of the reign of Elizabeth I, in effect the years 1585 to 1603. It takes a critical and provocative look at the declining Virgin Queen. Many teachers and their students have failed to consider the "last decade" in its own right, or have ignored it, having begun their accounts in 1558 and struggled on to the defeat of the Armada in 1588. Only two major political surveys have been attempted since 1926. Neither allots adequate space to Crown patronage, Puritanism and religion, society and the economy, political thought, and literature and drama. This book will be indispensable to a fuller understanding of the age.

Poetry and the Cromwellian Protectorate - Culture, Politics and Institutions

Poetry and the Cromwellian Protectorate asks how poetry confronted questions that were complicated by institutional practices, how poets tried to square their wider cultural sympathies with their interests in a particular parliamentary or university crisis, and how changes in institutions afforded poets critical insights into their society's problems and its place in the world. The readings in this book challenge previous representations of Protectorate culture as a phase of conservative backsliding, or pragmatic compromise, under a quasi-monarchical order.