A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images. Books are typically composed of many pages, bound together and protected by a cover. Modern bound books were preceded by many other written mediums, such as the codex and the scroll. The book publishing process is the series of steps involved in their creation and dissemination.
The Levellers were a political movement active during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms who were committed to popular sovereignty, extended suffrage, equality before the law and religious tolerance. The hallmark of Leveller thought was its populism, as shown by its emphasis on equal natural rights, and their practice of reaching the public through pamphlets, petitions and vocal appeals to the crowd.
The history of literature is the historical development of writings in prose or poetry that attempt to provide entertainment or education to the reader, as well as the development of the literary techniques used in the communication of these pieces. Not all writings constitute literature. Some recorded materials, such as compilations of data are not considered literature, and this article relates only to the evolution of the works defined above.
A pamphlet is an unbound book. Pamphlets may consist of a single sheet of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths, called a leaflet or it may consist of a few pages that are folded in half and saddle stapled at the crease to make a simple book.
A pamphleteer is a historical term used to describe someone who creates or distributes pamphlets, unbound booklets intended for wide circulation.
The Eikon Basilike, The Pourtraicture of His Sacred Majestie in His Solitudes and Sufferings, is a purported spiritual autobiography attributed to King Charles I of England. It was published on 9 February 1649, ten days after the King was beheaded by Parliament in the aftermath of the English Civil War in 1649.
John Gauden was an English cleric. He was Bishop of Exeter then Bishop of Worcester. He was also a writer, and the reputed author of the important Royalist work Eikon Basilike.
A tract is a literary work and, in current usage, usually religious in nature. The notion of what constitutes a tract has changed over time. By the early part of the 21st century, a tract referred to a brief pamphlet used for religious and political purposes, though far more often the former. Tracts are often either left for someone to find or handed out. However, there have been times in history when the term implied tome-like works. A tractate, a derivative of a tract, is equivalent in Hebrew literature to a chapter of the Christian Bible.
Popular prints is a term for printed images of generally low artistic quality which were sold cheaply in Europe and later the New World from the 15th to 18th centuries, often with text as well as images. They were some of the earliest examples of mass media. After about 1800, the types and quantity of images greatly increased, but other terms are usually used to categorise them.
William Marshall was a seventeenth-century British engraver and illustrator, mostly known for his allegorical portrait of King Charles I of England as a Christian martyr, which was published as the frontispiece to the Eikon Basilike.
Elizabeth Cellier, commonly known as the "Popish Midwife", was a notable Catholic midwife in seventeenth-century England. She stood trial for treason in 1679 for her alleged part in the "Meal-Tub Plot" against the future King James II, but was eventually freed. Cellier was later imprisoned for allegations made in her 1680 work Malice Defeated, in which she recounted the events of the alleged conspiracy against the future King. She later became a pamphleteer and advocated for advancements in the field of midwifery. Cellier published A Scheme for the Foundation of a Royal Hospital in 1687, where she outlined plans for a hospital and a college for instructions in midwifery, as well as proposing that midwives of London should enter into a corporation and use their fees to establish parish houses where any woman could give birth. Cellier resided in London, England until her death.
Richard Royston was an English bookseller and publisher, bookseller to Charles I, Charles II and James II.
William Levett, Esq., was a long serving courtier to King Charles I of England. Levett accompanied the King during his flight from Parliamentary forces, including his escape from Hampton Court palace, and eventually to his imprisonment in Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight, and finally to the scaffold on which he was executed. Following the King's death, Levett wrote a letter claiming that he had witnessed the King writing the so-called Eikon Basilike during his imprisonment, an allegation that produced a flurry of new claims about the disputed manuscript and flamed a growing movement to rehabilitate the image of the executed monarch.
Eikonoklastes is a book by John Milton, published October 1649. In it he provides a justification for the execution of Charles I, which had taken place on 30 January 1649. The book's title is taken from the Greek, and means "Iconoclast" or "breaker of the icon", and refers to Eikon Basilike, a Royalist propaganda work. The translation of Eikon Basilike is "icon of the King"; it was published immediately after the execution. Milton's book is therefore usually seen as Parliamentarian propaganda, explicitly designed to counter the Royalist arguments.
Politics were an important part of John Milton's life. Milton enjoyed little wide-scale early success, either in prose or poetry, until the production of his later, controversial political works starting with The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates and Eikonoklastes.
William Dugard, or Du Gard, was an English schoolmaster and printer. During the English Interregnum, he printed many important documents and propaganda, first in support of Charles I and later of Oliver Cromwell. He also proved a successful master at a number of schools, including the Merchant Taylor's School, Colchester Royal Grammar School and Stamford School, and wrote a number of non-fiction works.
A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The English word to describe such a work derives from the Italian: novella for "new", "news", or "short story ", itself from the Latin: novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of novellus, diminutive of novus, meaning "new". According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, Medieval Chivalric romance, and in the tradition of the Italian Renaissance novella. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, in the historical romances of Walter Scott and the Gothic novel. Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, and John Cowper Powys, preferred the term "romance". M. H. Abrams and Walter Scott have argued that a novel is a fiction narrative that displays a realistic depiction of the state of a society, while the romance encompasses any fictitious narrative that emphasizes marvellous or uncommon incidents. Works of fiction that include marvellous or uncommon incidents are also novels, including Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. Such "romances" should not be confused with the genre fiction romance novel, which focuses on romantic love.
Early American publishers and printers played a central role in the social, religious, political and commercial development of the Thirteen Colonies in British America prior to and during the American Revolution and the ensuing American Revolutionary War that established American independence.
The Reliquiae Sacrae Carolinae, or The Works of That Great Monarch and Glorious Martyr King Charls the I, is a book that deals with the events leading to the execution of Charles I of England. Originally published in 1650, it is a collective work of the civil and sacred writings on the King. It incorporates the Eikon Basilike as well as speeches and letters by the King during the rise of Oliver Cromwell and the Parliamentarians. It is sometimes referred to as "The King's Works".
