This study examines how the emergent public sphere and the rapid expansion of visual and textual print impacted the monarchy and loyalism in England between the execution of Charles I and the accession of George II. Utilizing a contextualized and interdisciplinary analysis of visual and material objects and new approaches to textual materiality, it argues that the political endurance and popular appeal of the crown is in part explained by its sophisticated incorporation within cultures of commerce and print that materialized affective bonds between sovereigns and subjects. Koscak demonstrates that images, including emblematic iconography, portrait prints, hanging signs, graphic satire, and playing cards, were fundamental components of later Stuart and early Hanoverian political culture and the public sphere. Despite the fractious nature of party politics, the commercial stigma of the press, and instabilities of partisan meaning, royal texts and images facilitated dynamic and flexible cultures of allegiance. Books, pictures, and material objects invited interpretation and enchantment, and they were treated as repositories of domestic memory, national history, and political reverence.
Introduction
1. How to Read the King: Charles I’s Eikon Basilike and Protestant Emblematics
2. Stuart Anamorphosis: Visual Illusion and Sovereign Authority
3. "A Masterpiece of Hocus Pocus": Restoration Plots, Political Enchantment, and Visual Representation
4. Loyalism After Licensing: Print Culture, Celebrity, and Emotion
5. Royal Signs, Objects of Desire, and Visual Literacy in Eighteenth-Century London
6. Royal Pictures as Domestic Objects: Collection, Display, and Decoration
Conclusion
The long eighteenth century sits as a pivotal point between the early-modern and modern worlds. By actively encouraging an international focus for the series over all, both in terms of wide-ranging geographical topics and authorial locations, the series aims to feature cutting-edge research from established and recent scholars, and capitalize on the breadth of themes and topics that new approaches to research in the period reveal. This series provides a forum for recent and established historians to present new research and explore fresh approaches to culture and society in the long eighteenth century. As a crucial period of transition, the period saw developments that shaped perceptions of the place of the individual and the collective in the construction of the modern world. Eighteenth-Century Cultures and Societies is a series that is globally ambitious in scope and broad in its desire to publish cutting-edge research that takes an innovative, multi-vocal and increasingly holistic approach to the period. The series will be particularly sensitive to questions of gender and class, but aims to embrace and explore a variety of fresh approaches and methodologies.
This series wishes to become the first point of call for scholars and students interested in this period by capturing, promoting and disseminating exciting new socio-cultural research. The editors seek proposals for book-length studies from individual or multiple authors that focus on aspects of British, European or transnational culture and society for the period c.1680–1850. While proposals for regional/national case studies are welcome, all authors in the series will be expected to situate their research, historically and historiographically, in a wider international framework in order to ensure that it is accessible to students as well as scholars. Theoretically informed research will need to be presented clearly and accessibly. We envision volumes of 90,000–120,000 words in length (inclusive) and illustrated with c.15 – 20 images.
Series Editors:
Elaine Chalus: [email protected]
Deborah Simonton: [email protected]
