Richard
Carlile, born into a working-class family in Ashburton, Devonshire, became one
of the most prolific of the freethinking journalists-publishers-political
activists of his day. After a youth
spent learning and practicing the tinsmith trade, Carlile was kindled into
political awareness in 1816 when he discovered the works of Thomas Paine.
From that moment on, Carlile was indefatigable in his (often
theatrical) efforts to disseminate radical political thought.
In
1817, for example, Carlile was one of the publishers who issued pirated copies
of Southey’s Wat Tyler; likewise, after Hone’s arrest in May, Carlile
reissued the parodies for which Hone was to be tried.
(He was arrested in August and held until Hone’s acquittals in
December.) In 1819, Carlile
established a radical newspaper called The Republican which continued
until 1826, despite Carlile’s imprisonment in Dorchester jail through most of
the life of the journal. Carlile’s radical publishing and radical publicity
continued throughout the early decades of the nineteenth century.
Hone
was not especially fond of Carlile, apparently seeing him as too extreme in his
publicity efforts and lacking in common decency and respect.
Nonetheless, a manuscript in the Huntington library shows that Hone took
some part in preparing a legal defense for Carlile during the latter’s
sedition trials in 1819.
For more on Carlile, see:
- Dictionary of National Biography (DNB)
- Dictionary of Literary Biography (DLB), vol. 158.
and:
- Cole, G. D. H. Richard Carlile, 1790-1843. London: Fabian
Society, 1943.
- Marsh, Joss. Word Crimes: Blasphemy, Culture, and Literature in
Nineteenth-Century England. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1998.
pp. 60-77.
- Wiener, Joel H. Radicalism and Freethought in Nineteenth Century
Britain. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1983.
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