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
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.
Readership
Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Studies, Political History, Book History, Literature
Contents
Chapter 1: Procopius of Caesarea and The Secret History of the Court of the Emperor Justinian (1674)
Chapter 2: Secret History and Whig Historiography, 1688–1702
Chapter 3: Secret History and the ‘Revolution’ of 1714: the Case of John Dunton
Chapter 4: Secret History in the Eighteenth Century: Variations and Adaptations
Chapter 5: Delarivier Manley, Roman ŕ Clef, and Tory Secret History
Chapter 6: The Spectator: Polite Whigs against Secret History
Chapter 7: Daniel Defoe, Harleyite Secret History and the Early Novel
Chapter 8: Eliza Haywood and Secret History under Robert Walpole