Pamphlet Wars
Short, cheap, vernacular, and costing no more than a few pennies, the printed pamphlet often proved the most effective form for quick interventions in controversy. With the breakdown of censorship, the production of books and especially pamphlets exploded. The number of titles printed in England in 1641 was 2042, more than three times the number produced in 1639. More books and pamphlets were printed in 1642, during the English Civil War, than in the five-year period prior to 1639. In 1640-1, a bookseller and friend of Milton's named George Thomason began collecting books to document history, and for two decades he amassed 22,000 pamphlets, books, broadsides, and books of poetry. He dated each title with the day of its appearance, providing an invaluable (though not always precise) record of the day-to-day history of print. The entire collection now rests in the British Library, and is accessible online. Some of the titles preserved by Thomason exist in no other collection -- all other records of their existence have been lost. Pamphlets were the dominant mode of publication in the mid-seventeenth century, and most of Milton's own publications are pamphlets. Even though Milton published many pamphlets, and referred to many pamphlets in his printed work, he almost never refers to contemporary pamphlets in his Commonplace Book. Pamphlets have not always been valued; the Oxford librarian Thomas Bodley spoke famously against preserving pamphlets in libraries and university collections such as his own, opining that they were "not worth the custody in such a Library." They were short - sometimes very short -- quarto books, which meant that the large sheet that was printed was folded twice (to make four parts) -- a folio, such as Shakespeare's Folio featured here, would be folded just once.
Joseph Hall, An Humble Remonstrance to the High Court of Parliament, By a Dutifull Sonne of the Church (London, 1640)
The pamphlets represented in this section of the exhibit represent a small slice of a larger debate that helped precipitate the English Civil War. Here Bishop Joseph Hall writes a remonstrance to Parliament on behalf of the English Church. He is then attacked in print by a group of puritans; he then defends himself, is attacked again, defends himself, and Milton finally enters the fray in 1642 with his last pamphlet on the Church.
Smectymnuus, An Answer to a Book Entituled An Humble Remonstrance (London, 1641)
"Smectymnuus" is an acronym created from the initials of five writers (who thus somewhat preserved their anonymity): Stephen Marshall, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcomen, and William Spurstow. Thomas Young had been a tutor of Milton in his youth. This is their first pamphlet, appearing in March, 1641, in response to Hall's Humble Remonstrance, above. It is thought that Milton wrote "The Postscript" to the volume.
[Joseph Hall,] A Short Answer to the Tedious Vindication of Smectymnuus (London, 1641)
In this pamphlet, Joseph Hall once again defends himself against "Smectymnuus."
[Joseph Hall,] A Letter Sent to an Honourable Gentleman
This anonymous pamphlet or "letter" is only four pages long, which means it was constructed with just one printed sheet. It gives no indication of author or printer.
[John Milton,] An Apology against a Pamphlet call'd A Modest Confutation of the Animadversions upon a Remonstrant against Smectymnuus (London, Printed by E.G. for John Rothwell, 1642)
Milton's apology (or "defense"), also called An Apology for a Pamphlet, was the last of his anti-prelatical tracts criticizing the structure of the established Church of England. It is currently valued for the rather lengthy and revealing defense of himself that occurs in the tract, in which Milton speaks of himself as a poet.