Harriet Archer's "Unperfect Histories: The Mirror for Magistrates, 1559-1610"

Lecturer Harriet Archer's , is being published by Oxford University Press in the USA this December 2017, and came out in the UK in October.
"The Mirror for Magistrates, the collection of de casibus complaint poems in the voices of medieval rulers and rebels compiled by William Baldwin in the 1550s, was central to the development of imaginative literature in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Additions by John Higgins, Thomas Blenerhasset, and Richard Niccols between 1574 and 1610 extended the Mirror鈥檚 scope, shifted its focus, and prolonged its popularity; in particular, the texts鈥� later manifestations profoundly influenced the work of Spenser and Shakespeare. Unperfect Histories is the first monograph to consider the text鈥檚 early modern transmission history as a whole. In chapters on Baldwin, Higgins, Blenerhasset, and Niccols鈥檚 complaint collections, it demonstrates that the Mirror is an invaluable witness to how verse history was conceptualized, written, and read across the period, and explores the ways in which it was repeatedly reinterpreted and redeployed in response to changing contemporary concerns. The Mirror corpus encompasses topical allegory, nationalist polemic, and historiographical scepticism, as well as the macabre humour and metatextual play which have come to be known as hallmarks of Baldwin鈥檚 mid-Tudor writings. What has not been recognized is the complex interaction of these themes and techniques right across the Mirror鈥檚 history. Higgins, Blenerhasset, and Niccols鈥檚 contributions are analyzed for the first time here, both within their own literary and historiographical contexts, and in dialogue with Baldwin鈥檚 early editions. This new reading offers a lively account of the texts鈥� depth and variety, and provides insight into the extent of the Mirror鈥檚 influence and ubiquity in early modern literary culture."