‘Honest George’: George Thomason and London during the Civil War and Revolution
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eBLJ_2023_article2_Lindley_K_VoR_BY.pdf
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235.4 KB
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Resource type
Journal article
Creator (person)
Lindley, Keith
Peacey, Jason
Date published
January 29, 2024
Abstract
Part of the fascination with Thomason is that he was more than merely a prominent bookseller who collected a vast collection of civil war pamphlets and newspapers. He was also an active participant in public life, in terms of the workings of the Stationers’ Company and in terms of political and religious machinations in London. This chapter utilizes a wide range of contemporary sources, including material from the Thomason Tracts, to trace his involvement in the political and religious affairs of the civil wars, down to the establishment of the republic in 1649. It reveals him to have been a zealous and highly partisan member of both his guild and the civic community, and this not only helps to contextualize his massive collection of contemporary printed material, but also to highlight how print became central to the ways in which he and others participated in the civil wars.
Journal title
Electronic British Library Journal
Volume
2023
Article number
2
Publisher
British Library
Place of publication
London, UK
eISSN
1478-0259
Date accepted
March 3, 2023
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In Copyright
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Additional information
Author notes: Keith Lindley (d. 2017) taught for many years at the University of Ulster, Coleraine, and published extensively on the English civil wars, and on the social, religious and political history of early modern London. His major works included Fenland Riots and the English Revolution (1982) and Popular Politics and Religion in Civil War London (1997), as well as an edition of The Journal of Thomas Juxon, 1644-1647 (co-edited with David Scott, 1999), and The English Civil War and Revolution: A Sourcebook (1998). Jason Peacey is Professor of Early Modern British History at UCL. He has published widely on the English Revolution, including edited collections such as The Regicides and the Execution of Charles I (2001), and books such as Politicians and Pamphleteers. Propaganda in the Civil Wars and Interregnum (2004), and Print and Public Politics in the English Revolution (2013). His most recent book is The Madman and the Churchrobber. Law and Conflict in Early Modern England (2022). He is also one of the editors of The Letters, Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell (2022).
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