Stephen B. Dobranski is Distinguished University Professor of early modern literature at Georgia State University. His books include Milton, Authorship, and the Book Trade (Cambridge, 1999), and Readers and Authorship in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 2005), which received the English Studies Award from the South Atlantic Modern Language Association. He also authored A Variorum Commentary on the Poems of John Milton: 'Samson Agonistes' (2009), which received the John T. Shawcross Award from the Milton Society of America. His most recent book is Milton's Visual Imagination: Imagery in 'Paradise Lost' (Cambridge, 2015).

'Political Turmoil is remarkable for its engagement with multiple discourses. Its thoughtfully arranged chapters … are uniformly well-written, occasionally revelatory, and very much in conversation across the volume. This book will prove accessible to advanced undergraduates, yet useful to both generalists and experts in early modern literature. It should be on the shelves of every academic library and considered for any graduate or advanced undergraduate course in early modern literature.' Wendy Furman-Adams, Modern Philology

• Introduction: turmoil, political and otherwise; Part I. Generic Transitions: 1. Writing the self Sharon Cadman Seelig; 2. Changing places and transitional spaces: plays, masques, and performances Julie Sanders; 3. Erotic and devotional verse Stephen Guy-Bray; 4. Kingdoms of the mind: epic forms, fragments, and translations Anthony Welch; 5. 'Useful' books and mobile poems Randall Ingram; Part II. Literature and Ideological Transformation: 6. The symbolism of anti-Calvinism John Rumrich; 7. Royalist writing and the trope of prison Jerome de Groot; 8. Shakespearean constitutions: literary culture and republicanism Nicholas McDowell; 9. 'The best of texts': the death of Charles I Stephen B. Dobranski; 10. A British Caesar? Representations of Oliver Cromwell Laura Knoppers; Part III. Literature and Cultural Transformation: 11. An 'Amsterdamnified' public sphere: English newsbooks, pamphleteering and polemic in European context Jason Peacey; 12. Affected and disaffected alike: women, print, and the problem of women's literary history Lara Dodds; 13. Imagining the scientific revolution in England Katherine Calloway; 14. Revitalizing nation and mind: the failed promise of seventeenth-century educational reform Todd Butler; 15. The end of friendship Gregory Chaplin; Part IV. Literature and Local Transformation: 16. Country matters Verena Olejniczak Lobsien; 17. Life during wartime: the writing of civil war London Christopher D'Addario; 18. Nations in question: writing Scotland and Ireland James Loxley; 19. England, neo-Latin, and the continental journey Estelle Haan; 20. Global commerce and an emergent 'empire of trade' Stephen Deng.

Stephen B. Dobranski is Distinguished University Professor of early modern literature at Georgia State University. His books include Milton, Authorship, and the Book Trade (Cambridge, 1999), and Readers and Authorship in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 2005), which received the English Studies Award from the South Atlantic Modern Language Association. He also authored A Variorum Commentary on the Poems of John Milton: 'Samson Agonistes' (2009), which received the John T. Shawcross Award from the Milton Society of America. His most recent book is Milton's Visual Imagination: Imagery in 'Paradise Lost' (Cambridge, 2015).

'Political Turmoil is remarkable for its engagement with multiple discourses. Its thoughtfully arranged chapters … are uniformly well-written, occasionally revelatory, and very much in conversation across the volume. This book will prove accessible to advanced undergraduates, yet useful to both generalists and experts in early modern literature. It should be on the shelves of every academic library and considered for any graduate or advanced undergraduate course in early modern literature.' Wendy Furman-Adams, Modern Philology

• Introduction: turmoil, political and otherwise; Part I. Generic Transitions: 1. Writing the self Sharon Cadman Seelig; 2. Changing places and transitional spaces: plays, masques, and performances Julie Sanders; 3. Erotic and devotional verse Stephen Guy-Bray; 4. Kingdoms of the mind: epic forms, fragments, and translations Anthony Welch; 5. 'Useful' books and mobile poems Randall Ingram; Part II. Literature and Ideological Transformation: 6. The symbolism of anti-Calvinism John Rumrich; 7. Royalist writing and the trope of prison Jerome de Groot; 8. Shakespearean constitutions: literary culture and republicanism Nicholas McDowell; 9. 'The best of texts': the death of Charles I Stephen B. Dobranski; 10. A British Caesar? Representations of Oliver Cromwell Laura Knoppers; Part III. Literature and Cultural Transformation: 11. An 'Amsterdamnified' public sphere: English newsbooks, pamphleteering and polemic in European context Jason Peacey; 12. Affected and disaffected alike: women, print, and the problem of women's literary history Lara Dodds; 13. Imagining the scientific revolution in England Katherine Calloway; 14. Revitalizing nation and mind: the failed promise of seventeenth-century educational reform Todd Butler; 15. The end of friendship Gregory Chaplin; Part IV. Literature and Local Transformation: 16. Country matters Verena Olejniczak Lobsien; 17. Life during wartime: the writing of civil war London Christopher D'Addario; 18. Nations in question: writing Scotland and Ireland James Loxley; 19. England, neo-Latin, and the continental journey Estelle Haan; 20. Global commerce and an emergent 'empire of trade' Stephen Deng.