Humphrey Moseley and the Politics of Early Modern Publishers

Bibliographic Data

ID7991509
AuthorsJustin Kuhn (corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume14
Pages163-176
Publication date2025-07-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Early Modern Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2279-7149 • E-ISSN: 2286-0290
PublisherFirenze University Press (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.36253/jems-2279-7149-16524
OpenAlexW4411879635
LanguageEN
References cited3

The essay reassesses the ways in which book historians define the politics of early modern publishers by examining a selection of books published during the late 1640s and 1650s by Humphrey Moseley, a prominent London bookseller whom modern scholars have routinely characterized as a Royalist stationer. It argues that starting in 1648 Moseley’s publishing began to shift away from the overt Royalism of his earlier career just as Parliamentary and republican forces were consolidating their victories over King Charles I. From that year onwards, Moseley increasingly published material that repackaged the social, political and cultural values of former Royalists for inclusion within the intellectual and discursive spheres of republican England. His political flexibility during this period of Parliamentary supremacy and republican rule received expression through publishing strategies of contingency, conformity and collaboration. These publishing strategies offer modern scholars a set of critical methods for making sense of seemingly contradictory evidence within the historical archive. Rather than inconsistency, such evidence may signify that a publisher was changing their specialization or simply adapting to the times. With the shifting developments of his career after 1648, Moseley’s example ultimately cautions us against assigning fixed political identities to early modern publishers

Economic history · Economics · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Law · Literature: history, themes, analysis

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