This is a revisionist history of press censorship in the rapidly expanding print culture of the sixteenth century. Clegg establishes the nature and source of the controls, and evaluates their means and effectiveness. By considering the literary and bibliographical evidence of books that were censored, and placing them in the literary, religious, economic and political culture of the time, Clegg concludes that press control was neither a routine nor a consistent mechanism. The book will become the standard reference work on Elizabethan press censorship.