From Grub Street to Fleet Street: An Illustrated History of English Newspapers to 1899 »

The cheap warrens surrounding London's Grub Street were home to the newsbooks and other unlicensed publications that exploded onto the scene in the 1640s and 1650s, as fugitive printers lugged their presses from one garret to the next to stay a step ahead of the authorities. Clarke, who is not further identified, traces the ascendance of English newspapers over the next two and half centuries into more prestigious digs on Fleet Street. He also includes a chapter on provincial newspapers during the period. A section on the content of 18th-century newspapers looks at advertisements; robberies and bloody murders at home; and foreign news, wars, and shipwrecks. Only names and titles are indexed. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR