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A History of Shorthand Writing: How It Shaped Shakespeare’s Plays and Powered Victorian Journalism
Whether jotting down a sermon or taking notes in court, the art of speedy writing has a long history — from Tudor ‘characterie’ to modern Teeline shorthand.
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How a Marooned Sailor Became the 18th Century’s ‘Gay Robinson Crusoe’
Leendert Hasenbosch died after being abandoned on the uninhabited Ascension Island for the crime of sodomy in 1725. His diary account of the horrifying ordeal became a bestseller.
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Did England’s Final Court Jester Have the Last Laugh?
Flamboyantly dressed and equipped with an arsenal of jokes, Muckle John was the clown of Charles I’s royal court. Civil war and the King’s execution made him England’s last.
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Two 16th-Century Physicians Disagreed on the Use of American Medicine. They Turned to God for Help.
In rival medical texts, Timothy Bright and Nicolás Monardes invoked religion to determine whether plants from the New World should be used in European remedies.
Recommended read
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What Was Life Like for a Pamphleteer in Elizabethan England?
Early professional writing was a poorly remunerated, creatively restricted, and generally disreputable career. How on earth did it produce some of England’s greatest minds?
Early Modern Scribbling is a history site about the Tudor and Stuart periods in England — and, in particular, the role of popular printed literature and storytelling. Inexpensive pamphlets exploded in popularity at this time, powered by a colourful cast of booksellers, printers, and writers. Some of these writers were labelled ‘scribblers’ by their detractors. Their works are invaluable for understanding popular religious belief, social history, and the emergence of journalistic writing.
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“The face is the dial of the mind”: Samuel Butler and the Science of People Watching
In dozens of brief essays, the 17th-century poet and satirist wittily catalogued and lampooned the personalities of Restoration England.
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How England’s Sale of Dunkirk to France in 1662 Helped Shape the US Constitution
Charles II courted scandal by pawning off the territory only four years after its stunning capture. The Founding Fathers recalled this cautionary tale when debating the powers of presidency.
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The Zealous Book Collector Who Chronicled the English Civil War
Between 1641 and 1661, the publisher George Thomason compiled more than 22,000 pamphlets, newsbooks, and ballads covering the tumultuous politics of the English Revolution and Interregnum.
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The Unsavoury History of England’s Pancake Day Protests
We’ve been feasting on pancakes on Shrove Tuesday for more than 500 years — but London’s apprentices, armed with cudgels and hammers, once gave the day a reputation for violence.
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Were People Really Better at Writing in the Past?
The prose of bygone years was more florid, wordy, and syntactically unconventional than our own. Does that really mean it was superior?
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Jailing Santa Claus and Plum Pudding Riots: 17th-Century Puritans’ War on Christmas
Forget today’s faux outrage over “Happy Holidays” and Starbucks’ festive cups, England’s godliest Protestants launched a proper attack on the holiday nearly 400 years ago.
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The Dramatist Who Dared Document England’s Forgotten Plague of 1625
Forty years before the Great Plague of London, the pestilence killed tens of thousands in England’s capital city — and was documented in grisly detail by Thomas Dekker.
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How Boozy Church Ales Brought Tudor and Stuart Communities Together — Before Tearing Them Apart
Merry feasts, lavish drinking, and colourful pageants put England’s church ales on a collision course with miserable Puritans. Things came to a dramatic head in Somerset in 1607.
Did you know that…?
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