The Politics of Disclosure, 1674–1725:
Secret History Narratives
Rebecca Bullard
Political and Popular Culture in the Early Modern Period
978 1 85196 969 2: 234x156mm: £60.00/$99.00
978 1 85196 591 5
This is a study of the 'secret history', a polemical form of historiography which flourished in England during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Secret histories promised their readers previously undiscovered intelligence about the covert actions and hidden motives of public figures, primarily monarchs, their ministers and their mistresses. In an era of absolute rule, secret histories shattered the aura of mystery which surrounded the power elite.
The secret history spread through the genres and was used by polemicists, pamphleteers and novelists from across the political spectrum. Bullard argues that secret histories' rhetorical peculiarities must be understood in the light of contemporary party politics. As a form, they indicate a sophisticated, analytical and politically engaged reading public in late Stuart and early Hanoverian England.
Sample pages
Readership
Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Studies, Political History, Book History, Literature
Contents
Introduction
1 Procopius of Caesarea and The Secret History of the Court of the Emperor Justinian (1674)
2 Secret History and Whig Historiography, 1688–1702
3 Secret History, the ‘Revolution’ of 1714 and the Case of John Dunton
4 Delarivier Manley and Tory Uses of Secret History
5 Secrecy and Secret History in the Spectator (1711-14)
6 Daniel Defoe: Harleyite Secret History and the Early Novel
7 Eliza Haywood: Secret History, Curiosity and Disappointment
Reviews
'...well written and consistently thoughtful...'
– Jack Lynch, Review of English Studies
'Bullard effectively embeds the secret histories in the broader political anxieties and ambitions of groups of influential men, and her attention to rhetoric is unusual and a considerable strength.'
– Paula R Backscheider, Journal of British Studies
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