AustLit

'So begins a journey of looking for the lost by learning from the Register about printed texts that no longer survive. Hill offers several examples of how the Register has informed research before revealing her own findings. A set of four chapters explores five different popular genres. One chapter is dedicated to ballads, many of which (even with the determination of some very enthusiastic collectors) have been lost; and this, despite ballads, of entertainment and news, making up nearly 43% of all entries in the Stationers’ Company Register in the 1560s (35). Another chapter is dedicated to news. This is an excellent contribution as many projects investigating printed news have focused primarily on foreign news. Hill’s work unpacks a “number of news markets in early modern England, both for publishers and consumers,” including “foreign news, domestic news, supernatural tales, serial publications and single-issue news items” (100). A third chapter examines religious print, acknowledging the complexities of such publishing in a period of religious upheaval (130). The last genres explored are those of learning and leisure. These two rich veins of enquiry are handled well and illustrate “the variety of print available for early modern readers in England” (166).' (Introduction)