The English newspaper : an illustrated history to 1900

Springwood Books Ltd, London, first edition, 1977. Cloth, folio, 31 cm,. 128 pp, ills, facs., maps ;. From the blurb: "The history of the english newspaper is one of survival against the odds. It survived official suppression in the early 17th century by reporting only foreign news. It survived the Civil War by playing a partisan role. When hard news was in short supply, it survived by inventing the crime, sex and human interest story. It survived the punitive burden of the Stamp Acts - the notorious 'taxes on knowledge' - by ingenious tax evasion. When these ran out, it found loopholes in the law. Successive governments fought the newspapers with implacable energy. The papers survived by going underground, hiding in cellars from the armies of Government spies. In the pages of the newspapers are recorded the events of those times - the humiliating break-away of Britain's North American Colony, the shattering collapse of France in her Revolution, the campaign against Napoleon and social unrest at home.These reports of revolution and war, civil disorder and political corruption can be read, not in the fulsome language of historians, but in the earthy words of practical men describing what they saw. The detail is often totally unexpected, intriguing and at variance with historical interpretation. Agetoned, otherwise Near Very Good in used dustwrapper.