London's News Press and the Thirty Years War

Description

London's News Press shows that seventeenth-century England was very much part of a European-wide news community. The book presents a new print history that looks across Europe and the interconnecting political and religious groups with international networks. It tells the story of which printers and publishers were engaged in the earliest, illicit publications, their sources and connections in Germany as well as the Netherlands, and the way legitimacy was achieved. These were the earliest printed periodical news publications. Periodicity and its implications for trade and customers is explored as well as the roles of publishers and editors. The period saw a much bigger circulation of news than had ever been experienced before. The book also describes the lively nature of relationships that ensued between news networkers (editors, writers and readers along the interconnecting chains). The subject is topical. Our understanding of reading and communications is undergoing major changes through the introduction of the internet and the real time transmission of moving pictures. James I and Charles I faced new media and an unprecedented growth in informed public opinion fuelled by a flow of information that was essentially beyond the reach of government control. So there are parallels with the contemporary struggle to adapt, and there is a corresponding growth in the publication of history books reflecting upon the origins of the public sphere and the development of public opinion. JAYNE E. E. BOYS is an independent scholar who lives in Suffolk. Contents Illustrations Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction Part One: The Press and the Trade 1. An Appetite for News? Media and the London News Market before the Battle of White Mountain 2. The Developing European News Trade: Methods and Content 3. English Corantos and Periodical Newsbooks 1620–2: A Publishing Initiative 4. Commercial Production and the Implications of Periodicity Part Two: News Editors and Readers 5. Editing and the Work of Thomas Gainsford 1622–4 and William Watts 1631–2 6. Readers and Press Reactions 1622–48: A Developing Dialogue Part Three: News and its Political Implications 7. James I and Sir Francis Cottington 8. Charles I and Georg Weckherlin 9. War in Britain and Peace at Westphalia Conclusions Appendix 1 Appendix 2 Appendix 3 Select Bibliography Index