Introduction xv

The edition’s method is clear and uncomplicated. Each poem occupies a separate page, with its first-line used as a heading and a brief headnote providing some introductory information. Footnotes are marked conventionally on the text, and are accessible by following links to the bottom of the page. Between the text and the notes on a page are a number of buttons providing links to other sections, and other poems in the same section. Readers are also given access here, as on the site’s home-page, to a range of search functions: by person (subject or author) and manuscript. These categories have been chosen to accommodate the most likely lines of enquiry. Most readers will be interested in individuals targeted by libels, and the search-engine will take them to whole poems, or parts of longer poems, that are relevant to those interests. Other searches will facilitate research on literary culture. While only a small number of poems can be ascribed to particular authors, the lists of all known sources of a poem, and also the searches by manuscript, should highlight practices of collecting and circulation. Within a matter of seconds a reader can identify all political poems in a particular manuscript, and then use this as a point of comparison with other manuscripts. This might well provide a foundation for research with the actual manuscripts themselves. In particular, navigation is facilitated by indices of names, manuscripts, and first-lines. The index of names includes individuals mentioned in libels and authors of libels, as well as classical and biblical names to which the poems refer. The index of manuscripts lists all manuscripts cited in the edition, and contains links to poems contained in respective manuscripts.

At various points, the reader has an option to download poems in PDF format. Some may choose to download the entire text, to preserve in the manner of a printed book. Others will choose to compile their own miscellanies, gathering individualized collections for electronic storage and printing. In this way, the edition combines the manifold benefits of twenty-first century technologies with some of the basic reading practices of the seventeenth century. Though separated historically from the poetry’s contexts, the user of “Early Stuart Libels” therefore has a breadth and ease of access that was no more than a dream for the poems’ contemporary readers.

d) readers’ comments and suggestions

The edition is not designed to be updated on a regular basis. It is intended rather to have the textual integrity of a conventional book, to be used and judged as it stands for the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, the editors are well aware that a project of this nature will inevitably be incomplete in various ways. Extra poems and sources will come to light, while new information could undoubtedly help to improve our explanatory notes. For this reason, we plan to gather information over the coming years, with a view to producing a second, and presumably final, edition. Consequently, we warmly invite comments and suggestions from researchers using this edition, all of which will be acknowledged in any future edition. Please email comments