Fireworks Display Along the Thames, 1639 — Jean Puget de la Serre, L’Histoire de l’Entrée de la Reyne Mere dans la Grande-Bretagne (London, 1639), courtesy Folger Shakespeare Library.
Politics, Literary Culture & Theatrical Media in London : 1625-1725
Created by a team of historians and literary scholars at the University of Massachusetts, this website explores the social, political and literary world of London between the reign of Charles I and the early Hanoverian period. Through the use of interactive maps, brief descriptions of major topics in the city’s history and more than 150 images, we hope to give students a better feel for the texture of London life that will complement what they learn from more conventional printed texts. To that end we have constructed pages dealing with the London’s geography and social topography, major episodes in its history and thematic issues, such as the expansion of commerce, the circulation of news and political commentary, and patterns of crime. In several cases these contain links to excerpts from historical documents or other websites. Our goal is to help students and other users of the site better appreciate the many ways in which the period’s literature was shaped and informed by a rich and vibrant urban environment that contemporary readers would have known intimately.
The site’s content will grow over time, in part through new material generated by students as they use it within the context of university courses. Although our immediate purpose was to supplement interdisciplinary teaching on the Amherst and Boston campuses of the University of Massachusetts, we hope that the site will be more widely used and welcome comments and suggestions for its improvement.
University of Massachusetts President's Office | Massachusetts Center for Renaissance Studies UMass Amherst | University of Massachusetts BostonResearch Center for Urban Cultural History | University of Massachusetts Boston, College of Liberal Arts, History Department
A website developed at the University of Massachusetts to facilitate the teaching of courses on the cultural, political and literary history of London, with a grant from the the University of Massachusetts System Office, through the Information Technology Council's Subcommittee on Academic Technology, and in collaboration with the Research Center for Urban Cultural History of the University of Massachusetts Boston, the Massachusetts Center for Renaissance Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the Five College Early Music Program.