The State Trial Of Doctor Henry Sacheverell

"The celebrated trial of Doctor Henry Sacheverell in 1710 has been viewed as a classic example of the politicised 'state trial'. This work offers a critical edition of original texts and documents necessary for understanding the trial's significance. Previous historians have largely accepted the printing by Jacob Tonson of the 'authorised version' of the trial's proceedings as authoritative. This edition sets the Tonson account in its proper historical, and polemical, context by showing that it was not the only account on offer of the trial's proceedings in the early eighteenth century, and that it's authoritative status was hotly contested, particularly by Tories, but also by radical Whigs. The works collected in this edition consist of unique manuscripts, rare printed tracts, and images, most existing in only one copy and never before reproduced. By consolidating them in one volume, it is now possible for scholars to consult and compare these accounts in a readily accessible volume"--

Brian Cowan holds the Canada Research Chair in Early Modern British History at McGill University in Montreal. He has written extensively on the history of the public sphere in early modern Britain, including his prize-winning monograph, The Social Life of Coffee: The Emergence of the British Coffeehouse (2005). He edits the Journal of the British of Studies, with his colleague Elizabeth Elbourne, for the North American Conference on British Studies. This volume is the first publication resulting from his continuing research on the media politics surrounding the 1710 trial of Doctor Henry Sacheverell.