This volume explores the relationship between writing and public concerns in seventeenth-century England before, during, and after the civil wars and revolution of the mid-century. The distinguished contributors represent a variety of disciplines and methodologies. They share, however, an intense concern with the relationship between the act of writing and the political and public issues of this extraordinary period. The essays suggest that significant art, even when apparently "private," was deeply engaged with public issues, while political writing was intimately involved with questions of style and inward conscience.