Blasphemy in Britain and America, 1800–1930
Editor: David Nash
978 1 85196 996 8: 234x156mm: £350.00/$625.00
Blasphemy is the battleground where religious and secular worlds come into conflict. Blasphemy laws are used to discipline unruly populations, to emphasize governmental authority and, latterly in the West, to protect the religious beliefs of others. To those accused of it as a crime it has appeared unnecessary, anachronistic and oppressive. Victims of the crime have seen laws as their only protection against individuals seeking to undermine not simply beliefs but wider standards of morality and behaviour within society. These victims of the crime have also used the concept of blasphemy to reassert their own identities around specific moral imperatives. Blasphemy has a history which reaches into issues of conflict, religious belief, freedom of expression, and is bound up with the growth and development of new media.
This four-volume edition draws together a wide variety of rare primary sources relating to blasphemy from the Enlightenment through to the modern era. Sources are arranged to represent both sides of the debate, giving voice to accused and accusor. New editorial material includes a general introduction, headnotes, endnotes and a consolidated index in the final volume. Most texts are reset, with a few (containing cartoons) produced in facsimile. The edition is broadly interdisciplinary and will be important for scholars of Legal History, Religious Studies, Literature, History of Art, Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Studies.
Sample pages
Contents
Volume 1: The Blasphemous Enlightenment to 1810
General Introduction; A Hall, A Sermon, against Profane Swearing (1790); Socinian Blasphemy Exposed (1791); B S B Hobhouse (ed), A Treatise on Heresy (1792); An Address to the Public, from the Society for the Suppression of Vice (1802); Rev Simmons, The Second Spira (1807); The Blasphemer’s Punishment [c.1790]; A Warning to Gamblers and Swearers (1814)
Volume 2: The Early Nineteenth Century
The Constable’s Assistant (1818); Introduction to British Loyalty (1819); R Carlile, A Letter to the Society for the Suppression of Vice (1819); The Debate in the House of Commons (1823); R Carlile, The Trials ... of Mrs Jane Carlile, Mary Ann Carlile, William Holmes etc (1825); R Carlile: Jail Journal, ed G Aldred (1942); S D Parker, Report of the Arguments of the Attorney of the Commonwealth (1834); A Dunlap, A Speech delivered before the Municipal Court (1834); G A Chapman, A Review of the Trial, Conviction, And Final imprisonment in the Common Jail of the County of Suffolk of Abner Kneeland (1838); Precognition of Thomas Paterson (1842); The Case of Paterson (c.1844); G J Holyoake ‘Address to the Anti-Persecution Union' (c.1848); Lord Brougham's Opinion on Blasphemy; An Association of Prayers against Blasphemy, trans. E G Kirwan Browne (1847); W Armstrong, Letter of Complaint regarding Lectures by John Stuart (1851)
Volume 3: The Late Nineteenth Century
G J Holyoake, The Suppressed Lecture at Cheltenham (1864); G J Holyoake, The Last Trial for Atheism in England (1871); ‘The Extent to which the Common Law is Applied' (1866); C Bradlaugh, Heresy its Utility and Morality (1870); W A Hunter, The Past and Present of Heresy Laws (1878); W Heaford, 'What Shall I do to be Damned?', Freethinker (1882); G W Foote, Verbatim Report of the Three Trials for Blasphemy of Messrs Foote Ramsey and Kemp (1883); G W Foote Defence of Free Speech (1889); J F Stephen ‘The Law on Blasphemy and Blasphemous Libel’ (1884); Daniel Ace, A Paper ... Being an Exposition of the Blasphemy Laws of England (1884); R G Ingersoll, Real Blasphemy, a Lecture (1885); Cartoons from the Freethinker (1882)
Volume 4: The Edwardian Period and early Twentieth Century
J T Gott, Rib Ticklers or Questions for Parsons (1900); E Pack, The Parson’s Doom (1900); E Pack, The Trial of John Gott for Blasphemy (1914); E Pack, The Latest Leeds Police Fiasco (1904); Cartoons and Short Articles (1912); C Chapman, A Fight for a Right; Society for the Abolition of the Blasphemy Laws, Verbatim Report of the Deputation to the Home Secretary (1924)