Dating Civil War Pamphlets, 1641–1644

Abstract

The English Civil War and Interregnum produced an astounding number of political tracts, pamphlets, and broadsides that have long fascinated historians and bibliographers. The lack of any effective control over pamphlet content after the elimination of the Court of Star Chamber in the summer of 1641, coupled with the use of printed propaganda by both the king and Parliament, combined to create a body of free-speaking literature that is unmatched in scope and daring. Extensive microfilming and cataloguing projects have made the pamphlets widely accessible to study, but have failed to answer basic questions about the nature of the pamphlets themselves. Fbr example, how soon after an event could a pamphlet be available? How many pamphlets were actually being printed (and when) as opposed to what was being entered in the registers of the Stationers' Company of London? In other words, what could a concerned citizen find for sale at the bookstalls on a given morning? It is probably impossible to answer these questions for more than a fraction of the pamphlets. Yet, by examining what records do remain, it is possible to gain at least a sense of what the pamphleteers were capable of in serving a public avid for news.

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