Expanding the scholarly conversation about anonymity in Renaissance England, this essay collection explores the phenomenon in all its variety of methods and genres as well as its complex relationship with its alter ego, attribution studies. Contributors address such questions as these: What were the consequences of publishing and reading anonymous texts for Renaissance writers and readers? What cultural constraints and subject positions made anonymous publication in print or manuscript a strategic choice? What are the possible responses to Renaissance anonymity in contemporary classrooms and scholarly debate? The volume opens with essays investigating particular texts-poetry, plays, and pamphlets-and the inflection each genre gives to the issue of anonymity. The collection then turns to consider more abstract consequences of anonymity: its function in destabilizing scholarly assumptions about authorship, its ethical ramifications, and its relationship to attribution studies.

Expanding the scholarly conversation about Renaissance anonymity and attribution studies, this collection explores the phenomenon of anonymous publication in all its variety of methods and genres. The volume opens with essays investigating particular English texts and the inflection each genre gives to the issue of nameless authoring. Later chapters consider more abstract consequences of anonymity, including its function in destabilizing scholarly assumptions about authorship; its ethical ramifications; and its relationship to attribution studies.

"The book trade, she argues, created many intriguing and paradoxical uses for anonymity, even as the authorial name became more marketable. Among ecclesiastical debates, for instance, anonymity worked to conceal identity, but it could also be used to identify the moral character of the author being concealed. In court and coterie circles, meanwhile, authors turned name suppression into a tool for the preservation of social boundaries. Finally, in both print and manuscript, anonymity promised to liberate an authentic female voice, and yet it made it impossible to authenticate the gender of an author. In sum, the writers and book producers who helped to create England's literary culture viewed anonymity as a meaningful and useful practice."--BOOK JACKET.

This book is about the literary culture that emerged during and in the aftermath of the Great Plague of London (1665). Textual transmission impacted upon and simultaneously was impacted by the events of the plague. This book examines the role of print and manuscript cultures on representations of the disease through micro-histories and case studies of writing from that time, interpreting the place of these media and the construction of authorship during the outbreak. The macabre history of plague in early modern England largely ended with the Great Plague of London, and the miscellany of plague writings that responded to the epidemic forms the subject of this book.

This pathbreaking collection of original essays surveys an important but neglected topic: anonymous publication in England for the Elizabethan age to the present. An impressive group of scholars analyzes a wide range of literary phenomena including: Shakespeare in 17th century commonplace books; the phrase 'By a Lady'; the implied author of an eighteenth century queer fiction; Bentley and the battle of books; essays by Equiano (?); the novel, 1750 - 1830; Frankenstein's unnamed monster; the co-authored pseudonym Michael Field; nineteenth century ghostwriting; and a postmodern hoax on national identity. The editor's introduction places the essays within the context of the historical trajectory of anonymous authorship. Essential reading for anyone interested in authorship and the history of the book.

An examination of instances, experiences, and spaces of early modern privacy. It opens new avenues to understanding the structures and dynamics that shape early modern societies through examination of a wide array of sources, discourses, practices, and spatial programmes.