ABSTRACT
This chapter will consider how print was disseminated during this period, particularly during the 1640s, and will focus its discussion on those pamphlets reporting supernatural occurrences. After outlining ‘supernatural’ print, the chapter will examine why Stearne’s text had no immediate impact by comparing it to the content, construction, and dissemination of a variety of mid-seventeenth-century publications concerning the supernatural. An unprecedented amount of publications were produced in England during the 1640s. In that decade, 1640–50, more than 24,000 texts were printed – a third of which were published between 1642 and 1648. Newsbooks were the most popular publications of the 1640s, becoming a ‘runaway commercial success’ within the first year of their creation (1641–2). As scholars, such as Robert Pitcairn, rediscovered previously lost legal documents of early modern witchcraft trials, researchers, and antiquarians collected literary materials pertaining to witchcraft cases.
