Cambridge English Prose Texts consists of volumes devoted to selections from non-fictional English prose of the late sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries. This volume is concerned with radical prose from the period 1642-60 and comprises political pamphlets covering the years of the Civil War and the Commonwealth. All the pamphlets are revolutionary in varying degrees: two by Milton, The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates and The Readie and the Easie Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth; one each by the three Leveller leaders, Lilburne, Walwyn and Overton; one by the Digger, Winstanley and one by the Republican, Harrington. There is a substantial introduction to the whole volume in which the editors offer a historical survey of the period, consider the intellectual and political context of the pamphlets, sketch in significant biographical details and examine the various styles which the writers employ. This book will prove to be an indispensable tool for all serious students of seventeenth-century literature, history and political theory.
