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The article discusses how advertisements placed in British Victorian periodicals specializing in promoting potential matrimonial prospects shed light on Great Britain's social history of its lower middle class. The popular culture street literature typically featured upwards of 500 advertisements by tradesmen and domestics searching for like-minded companions. The British matrimonial press was created during the mid-nineteenth century when newspapers ceased the practice of accepting personal advertisements.

This article considers a passage in George Chapman's The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois in which the hero of the play defends his patron, the Duke of Guise, for his participation in the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre. Investigating why Chapman would have his protagonist make such a controversial utterance, it argues that he was responding to earlier reports of the same period in news-books, pamphlets, Marlowe's Massacre at Paris and his own earlier tragedy Bussy D'Ambois. It is suggested that the faction of Clermont and the Guise consistently voices opinions that might be understood in light of Andrew Hadfield's description of literary republicanism. Therefore, Chapman's reminder to the audience is part of an ongoing attempt to construct a double vision of the Guise: from one perspective he is an admirable character who virtuously resists a tyrannical monarch, but on the other hand echoes of his villainous reputation remain, as a defensive strategy on Chapman's part, to prevent him clashing with censors over the political opinions expressed by this character. Finally, the article suggests that this play constitutes a cautionary warning to Prince Henry not to heed the pro-war voices urging him to attack Catholic Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the controversy surrounding the publication of Davenant's epic romance, Gondibert, in order to demonstrate how a diverse group of royalist writers faced up to the profound absences and strange alterations attending the regicide by contemplating the flaws in Davenant's poetry and physiognomy. Drawing upon manuscript evidence and a very rare edition of a printed miscellany, it suggests that Davenant's nose, lost to venereal disease in the 1630s, became a potent symbol for royalist writers trying to come to terms with the Commonwealth political settlement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the publication and readership of chapbooks published during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, with particular focus given to those produced by Ann and Henry Lemoine, publishers of popular literature. Their status as members of the London, England working class and their work in the book trade as printers, writers, and booksellers are examined. The financial difficulties connected with the literary trade are also discussed.

This essay examines how Victorian newspapers, broadsides and street literature depicted violence against women. The sensationalistic aspects of the grisly reportage fueled sales and reinforced rigid class lines but, according to the author, also triggered a reevaluation of social boundaries. She investigates these contradictions and how they evolved to include the middle class.

Historians are currently debating whether or not leading members of the New Model Army and Parliament decided to execute King Charles 1 in late December 1648 or in late January 1649. In order to comprehend how contemporaries viewed this process, this essay explores the discussions about Charles's fate that occurred in the vibrant print culture thriving in England during the late 1640s. It argues that over the last week of December and the first two weeks of January members of every political faction announced in print that the government planned to judicially execute the king. Thus, while some leaders of the army and Parliament may have been uncertain in their own minds whether they would eliminate the king through the end of the month, it appears that, in the public discourse, the king's fate was sealed even before his trial began on 20 January 1649. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explains that human abnormalities are described in the ballad-sheets or broadsides in Great Britain, the popular street literature during the Elizabethan period, between 1500 to 1700. Titles include the 1561 "A Pycture of a Monsterus Chylde Which Was Bourne at Chechester", and "A Tru Dyscription of Twoo Cheldren Borne at Herne in Kente the xxvijth Day of Auguste Anno 1565".

This article presents information related to the establishment of the Union of Democratic Control as an organization created to secure the control over the foreign policy by the people of Great Britain. It was created for the promotion of international understanding originated in the first days of World War I as a reaction to the governments which had led the world into hostilities. By the time of the first annual general meeting on 29 October 1915, and in spite of hostile press campaigns, 81 branches had been formed throughout Great Britain and 15 pamphlets and 14 leaflets had been issued. The Council's campaign for an openly negotiated peace settlement aroused bitter hostility during the war years, but, though it failed, it led to clearer thinking on the issues of war and peace and brought increasing support for the Council's aims in the years after 1918. The Council, though challenging the obscurity of the aims of World War II, saw it as a totalitarian war--a struggle between the Democracies and the Dictatorships.