Historical literatures

Writing about the past in England, 1660–1740

Noelle Gallagher

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9780719099243
  9780719087622
• eBook ISBN:
  9781526130167
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Historiography
• Index: Literature

Historical literatures recovers a rich, vibrant and complex tradition of Restoration and early eighteenth century English historical writing. Highlighting the wide variety of historical works being printed and read in England between the years 1660 and 1740, it demonstrates that many of the genres that we now view primarily as literary – verse satire and panegyric, memoir, scandal and chronicle – were also being used to represent historical phenomena.

In surveying some of this period's 'historical literatures', it argues that many satirists, secret historians and memoirists made their choice of historical subject matter a topic of explicit commentary, presenting themselves as historians or inscribing their works in an English historical tradition. By responding to other varieties of history in this self-conscious way, writers like Andrew Marvell, John Dryden, Delarivier Manley, Daniel Defoe and John Evelyn were able to pioneer influential new techniques for representing their nation's past.

Table of contents

• HISTORICAL LITERATURES: HISTORICAL LITERATURES WRITING ABOUT THE PAST IN ENGLAND, 1660-1740
• Title Page
• Half Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: English historiography at its ‘lowest ebb’
• I Memoir
• II Secret history
• III Satire and panegyric
• IV History reconsidered
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index