Hamlet’s tragic flaw is not hesitation, “To be or not to be” is not about suicide – and it matters!!
Different critics have talked about Hamlet's tragic flaw in different ways, but what most of them boil down to is dithering. Coleridge talks about "the lingering…
ΒΑΣΙΛΙΚA [Basilika]. The Works of King Charles the Martyr
Another text-searchable PDF file of a seventeenth-century text. Here's the link. This is the second (1687) edition of a folio publication, over 700 pages long, divided into two parts, with the option of viewing further subdivisions for convenience / speed of downloading. Although the book is billed as being Charles's own work, John Gauden, Bishop…
Literature and terrorism
The go-to guy for an understanding of the ways in which terrorism has been represented in literature is Peter C. Herman, author of Terrorism and Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2018) and Unspeakable: Literature and Terrorism from the Gunpowder Plot to 9/11 (Routledge, 2019). Although his scope is broader than the early modern period, he dev…
Protestant / Catholic polemic: Lucius Cary (Viscount of Falkland), Thomas White and William Chillingworth
The 1660 edition of Lucius Cary's Discourse of Infallibility (first published in 1646 ) is my latest book scan. There's more interest these days in Cary's mother, Elizabeth (1585–1639), the first woman writer known to have written a play. Elizabeth Cary's literary career isn't really relevant here, but she plays a part in the complex…
Discourses of suffering revisited: what was it all about?
I posted a reply to a question on Quora that has attracted quite a lot of attention. The question was, "Can you fail a Ph.D. thesis defence?" and, having failed mine twice, I felt I was in a good position to answer! Several people posted comments asking what the thesis was about so, instead of…
Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford
Wentworth's path from Lord Deputy of Ireland to the executioner's axe is well enough known in its broad outlines, but with so many twists and nuances that it is hard to evaluate. The decisive change in his fortunes came when the king, Charles I, recalled him from Ireland and charged him with putting down the…
Archbiship Laud: A History of the Troubles and Tryal
The scanning continues! I had some technical problems that needed dealing with, so I'm two or three months behind with the early modern book scans, but I'm back in production now. Henry Wharton's 1695 edition of Laud's account of his imprisonment and trial, published as A History of the Troubles and Tryal of the most…
Early Modern Digital Humanities
I've added a page to my website giving details of some of the main online databases and resources for the early modern period. Click here: Early modern digital humanities. I'm sure there are many useful resources I haven't added, so please let me know if there's anything you feel should be included.…
All you ever wanted to know about the Reformation…
... in one 15-minute video!…
The Gunpowder-Treason: with a discourse of the manner of its discovery
Go straight to the scanned book Although this work was published many years after the events it describes, and its main content is reprinted, it also contains the first printing of a number of letters relating to the plot. It is not a scarce work, and there is at least one other online copy (in…