The Invention of the Newspaper English Newsbooks 1641-1649

by Raymond, Joad

• ISBN13: 9780199282340
• ISBN10: 019928234X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-09-15
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The first weekly English newsbooks appeared in November 1641, on the eve of the civil war. Though they provoked animosity and fanned the flames of civil war, they have survived almost without interruption to the present day, transformed into the modern newspaper. The Invention of the Newspaperis the first detailed account of the origins and early development of the English newspaper, using a wealth of new evidence to show the causes of the first newsbooks, and their many and complex roles in the turbulent society in which they participated.Newsbooks were widely read and exerted considerable influence not only over immediate perceptions of news, but also over subsequent histories of the seventeenth-century, extending even to the present day. Using and synthesising approaches from literary criticism, history, and the 'socoiology oftexts', The Invention of the Newspaper shows how newsbooks transformed print culture, fed the public hunger for news, and in turn created a market for news periodical. Charting the newsbook's development as a form and a commercial enterprise, its literary qualities, and its relationship to othermeans of communication, The Invention of the Newspaper shows the newsbook's gradual and irresistible dominance of the market for information.

Table of Contents

Format of references	xvii
Abbreviations	xix
Introduction: What News?	1	(19)
A Narrative History of the English Newsbook, 1641--1649	20	(60)
The Outbreak of the English Newsbook	80	(47)
Newsbooks, Style, and Political Rhetoric	127	(57)
Paper Bullets: Newsbooks, Pamphlets, and Print Culture	184	(48)
Newsbooks, Their Distribution, and Their Readers	232	(37)
The Crisis of Eloquence: Newsbooks and Historiography	269	(45)
Appendix: `Diurnall Occurrences' from Manuscript to Print	314	(7)
Bibliography	321	(46)
Indexes	367