Common Writer in Modern History

Martyn Lyons is Emeritus Professor in History at the University of New South Wales

• Notes on contributors1 The common writer in history – Martyn Lyons2 Writings on the walls: approaches to graffiti in the early modern Hispanic world – Antonio Castillo Gómez3 ‘No more for Now or Praps Never’: the meaning and function of pauper writing in Britain, 1750s to early 1900s – Steven King4 Common writers in German-speaking countries from the eighteenth to the twentieth century as agents of a language history from below – Stephan Elspaß5 Narrating injuries and injustices: life stories in the struggle for working-class rights in Britain, 1820-1945 – T. G. Ashplant6 Music and affective signalling in an immigrant letter from 1844 – David A. Gerber7 Pen, paper and peasants: the rise of vernacular literacy practices in nineteenth-century Iceland – Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon and Davíð Ólafsson8 Questioning ‘the common writer’: ordinary writings from the Emagusheni trading station, Pondoland, 1880-84 – Liz Stanley9 Madlands: Vincenzo Rabito as a writer – David Moss10 Copying, citing and creative rewriting: the transmission of texts and ideas in Finnish handwritten newspapers – Kirsti Salmi-Niklander and Risto Turunen11 Choreographing correspondences: how the state shaped soldiers’ mail in the US and Red Armies during the Second World War – Brandon Schechter12 ‘Dear Prime Minister’: the rhetoric of apology and affiliation in letters to Robert Menzies, Australian Prime Minister, 1949-66 – Martyn LyonsSelect bibliography