Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Ch. 1: Blasphemy, 1817-30
1: "You know me now, the Arch Blasphemer": The Three Trials of William Hone
2: Three Epilogues
3: Carlile, the Volunteers, and the Age of Reason Struggle
Ch. 2: Trials of the 1840s
1: "Knowledge is Power," or, the Cheap Press as Blasphemy
2: The Moxon Case and the Growth of the Poet's Income
3: Jacob Holyoake and other "Priests" of the Oracle
Ch. 3: England, 1883
1: The "Celebrated Case" of G. W. Foote and the Freethinker
2: Two Codas
Ch. 4: Literature and Dogma
1: "Bibliolatry" and "Bible-Smashing"
2: The Heretic Trope of the Book
3: Literary Law and the Authority of Literature
4: When "Literary Difference" Became a "Criminal Offence"
Ch. 5: Words, Words, Words
1: Mr. Foote's Trial for Obscenity
2: Victorian Euphemism and the Fear of Language
3: The Systematization of Silence
4: Jacob Holyoake, "Master of Sentences"
5: The Victorian Crisis of Language
Ch. 6: Hardy's Crime
1: Committing Literary Blasphemy
2: "Get It Done and Let Them Howl"
3: Hardy the Degenerate, Pooley the Obscure
4: Modern Words, Modern Crimes
Notes
Abbreviations and Archival Collections
Bibliography
Index