The dreadful name of Henry Hills re-examines the life of one of the most provocative printers operating in seventeenth-century England. Rather than offering a more conventional cradle-to-grave biographical narrative, however, this compelling book explores how Henry Hills's reputation, his notoriety, and his legacy has evolved over time. Richly illustrated and thoroughly researched, The dreadful name contributes fresh insights into Hills's life and afterlife, and it offers new perspectives on how early modern book-trade agents, and printers in particular, might be remembered and reinterpreted in contemporary book historical scholarship.
By:
Michael Durrant
Imprint: Manchester University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 216mm,
Width: 138mm,
Spine: 22mm
Weight: 591g
ISBN: 9781526129390
ISBN 10: 1526129396
Pages: 384
Publication Date: 08 July 2026
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming
1. Introducing the Career of Henry Hills, Printer - What is a printer? - Print output - Insignia - Roles - Partnerships - Cultural configurations of the early modern printer 2. ‘Once upon a time’: Biographical Encounters with Henry Hills - Henry Hills’ Lives: From DNB to ODNB - Cultural biographies of printers - Hugh Dalton’s Cave: Reading Henry Hills Part 2: Transformations 3. ‘[N]othing but the plain truth’: The Prodigal Repackaged (1650-51, 1688, 1825) - Henry Hills: Particular Baptist printer / author - The Prodigal as shame management - Henry Hills and the tailor’s wife: ‘Pressing’ at a biographical anecdote - The Prodigal Returned to his Father’s House, by Henry Hills (1825): Reprinting a reprint 4. ‘Licking himself whole again’: Writing and Rewriting Henry Hills’ Catholic Conversion (1685, 1686, 1733, 1826) - Henry Hills: Catholic Printer - A View (1685): From runaway apprentice to anti-Catholic book burner - Entering Book (1686): Roger Morrice and the Hills household - Revolution Politicks (1733): Print mediation and and public talk - Hills, last seen at Watten, near Sainte-Omer, 13 February 1689 Part 3: Afterlives 5. Henry Hills, Eikon Basilike, and his Posthumous Role in the Pamela Prayer Conspiracy - Taking the Pamela Prayer interpolation seriously: Eikon Basilike, authorship, and the work of conspiracy - ‘[T]he Roundhead printer!’: Almack, Madan, and Hills’ role in the publication of the Eikon - The ‘leading witness’: Writing and rewriting Hills in Milton scholarship - Finding Henry Hills in Dr Bernard’s library 6. Pirates, Parents, and Print: Rewriting Henry Hills’ Last Will and Testament - ‘Suite Trouble’: Contesting Hills’ legacy - ‘[A]n expedient lineage’: Henry Hills junior goes to Bombay - Working with what remains -- .
Michael Durrant is a Lecturer in Book History at the Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London
Reviews for The dreadful name of Henry Hills: The lives and afterlives of a seventeenth-century printer
‘This study contributes to a burgeoning literature on book history and printing 1500-1800 and fills an important gap. The figure of Hills emerges as an important nexus of contradictory and contesting cultural pressures, from Catholicism to sectarian forms of Protestantism. Importantly, it also reads this complex historical and cultural terrain with an eye to its implications for queer history.’ —Duncan Salkeld, Emeritus Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature at University of Chichester -- .
