John Wilkes : The Scandalous Father of Civil Liberty

by Arthur H. Cash

• ISBN13: 9780300108712
• ISBN10: 0300108710
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2006-02-11
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

One of the most colorful figures in English political history, John Wilkes (172697) is remembered as the father of the British free press, defender of civil and political liberties, and hero to American colonists, who attended closely to his outspoken endorsements of liberty. Wilkes's political career was rancorous, involving duels, imprisonments in the Tower of London, and the Massacre of St. George's Fields in which seven of his supporters were shot to death by government troops. He was equally famous for his "private" lifea confessed libertine, a member of the notorious Hellfire Club, and the author of what has been called the dirtiest poem in the English language. This lively biography draws a full portrait of John Wilkes from his childhood days through his heyday as a journalist and agitator, his defiance of government prosecutions for libel and obscenity, his fight against exclusion from Parliament, and his service as lord mayor of London on the eve of the American Revolution. Told here with the force and immediacy of a firsthand newspaper account, Wilkes's own remarkable story is inseparable from the larger story of modern civil liberties and how they came to fruition.

Author Biography

ARTHUR H. CASH is Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Department of English, State University of New York at New Paltz, and biographer of Laurence Sterne.

Table of Contents

Preemptive Glossary	xi
Prologue	1	(4)
The Making of a Gentleman	5	(12)
The Squire of Aylesbury	17	(20)
Into Parliament	37	(28)
The North Briton	65	(31)
Number 45	96	(25)
The Great George Street Printing Shop	121	(22)
Trials and a Trial of Honor	143	(22)
Exile	165	(39)
The Middlesex Election Controversy	204	(33)
Incapacitation	237	(30)
The City of London	267	(45)
My Lord Mayor	312	(16)
Poverty, Paternity, and Parliamentary Reform	328	(23)
Chamberlain	351	(24)
Epilogue	375	(20)
Afterword	395	(2)
Notes	397	(54)
Sources	451	(14)
Index	465