Reading Gossip in Early Eighteenth-Century England

Cover......Page 1
Contents......Page 8
List of Illustrations......Page 10
Acknowledgements......Page 11
Introduction: Queen Anne's Bounty......Page 14
The public sphere......Page 16
The reading public......Page 19
Reading gossip......Page 21
1 Gossip and Government: Deciphering the Body of the State......Page 24
Queen Anne's Janus face: somatic and discursive models of power......Page 26
Publicising secrets: gossip and scandal......Page 32
Paper crowns: print, law and royal authority......Page 36
Creating publics: gossip and reading......Page 47
2 Reading Secrets of State: Delarivier Manley and the New Atalantis......Page 51
A scandalous genre: defining the secret history......Page 53
Unlocking the New Atalantis: the key, the text and the reader......Page 61
Atalantic Intelligence......Page 69
Revealing Intelligence: court politics and Sarah Churchill......Page 75
3 Reforming Reference: Trials and Texts......Page 82
The reading public and the spectacle of Dr Henry Sacheverell......Page 85
(Re)Forming reference: reading The Secret History of the White Staff......Page 92
4 Lucubrating London: The Tatler and the Female Tatler......Page 105
'Fair-Sexing it': locating the Tatler and its audience......Page 107
Telling news, talking politics......Page 114
The Female Tatler and the female reader......Page 120
5 A Newer Atalantis: Political and Generic Revolutions......Page 132
Atalantis revived: Jacobite hopes and the Hanoverian succession......Page 134
'Curlicism': somatic publishing practices and discursive authorship......Page 141
Public screens, private texts: patchwork, politics, and literature......Page 149
Print and politics......Page 160
Conclusion: Anne's Legacy......Page 162
Notes......Page 167
Select Bibliography......Page 198
B......Page 219
F......Page 220
L......Page 221
R......Page 222
T......Page 223
W......Page 224