New World Literacy

This book on the role of written and iconographic communication in the Atlantic World combines a broad outlook, geographically and chronologically, with the precise treatment of specific evidence extracted from the sources. The author argues that diatribes against chivalric fiction and the Index of Prohibited Books did not prevent proscribed literature from circulating freely on both sides of the Atlantic. On the contrary, he notes, such prohibitions may have increased the lure of certain books.