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No Defense: Defoe in 1703

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Paula R. Backscheider
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Abstract

Previously unpublished archival material and recent scholarship in legal history provide new information and allow a coherent account of Daniel Defoe's arrest, interrogations, conviction, and release for the seditious libel The Shortest Way with the Dissenters. Details about Nottingham's questioning of Defoe, the costs of the prosecution, and the final decision to send him to the pillory emerge. More significantly, it is now clear that Defoe's case came before the justices at five (not two) Old Bailey sessions, and the full records have come to light. These records and those in the Lowndes papers provide a full account of Defoe's release from Newgate Prison.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 103 , Issue 3 , May 1988, pp. 274 - 284
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1988

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