Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents v
3. List of Illustrations vi
4. List of Contributors viii
5. Acknowledgements x
6. List of Abbreviations xi
7. Introduction: Laughter and Satire in Early Modern Britain 1500–1800 1
8. 1 Dissolving into Laughter: Anti-Monastic Satire in the Reign of Henry VIII 27
9. 2 Mocking or Mirthful? Laughter in Early Modern Dialogue 48
10. 3 Farting in the House of Commons: Popular Humour and Political Discourse in Early Modern England 67
11. 4 Continuing Civil War by Other Means: Loyalist Mockery of the Interregnum Church 84
12. 5 Laughter as a Polemical Act in Late Seventeenth-Century England 107
13. 6 Spectacular Opposition: Suppression, Deflection and the Performance of Contempt in John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera and Polly 133
14. 7 ‘Laughing a Folly out of Countenance’: Laughter and the Limits of Reform in Eighteenth-Century Satire 152
15. 8 Nervous Laughter and the Invasion of Britain 1797–1805 173
16. 9 ‘Was a laugh treason?’ Corruption, Satire, Parody and the Press in Early Modern Britain 190
17. Bibliography 211
18. Index 237