ABSTRACT
Early modern English men – and women – exhibited an innate thirst for information of all sorts, and perhaps especially for information about current events, better known as news. This thirst consumed information and news from across the spectrum of availability – from the most trivial to the most earthshattering, whether rumour, personal experience, gossip, official report, slander, eye-witness account, royal proclamation, stage portrayal, or fantasy. The thirst for news was slaked from a variety of fountainheads, among them conversation, official communication, eavesdropping, public debate, acting, private correspondence, social gatherings, observation, and the printed and written word. All human faculties were involved in the absorption and digestion of news.
