The Beacon Controversy, 1652–1657

The most famous apology for freedom of the press, Milton’s Areopagitica , published in 1644, left no echo among its contemporaries and passed without notice in its own day. But a serious and detailed discussion of this question arose a few years later following on the publication in 1652 of an anonymous pamphlet entitled A Beacon set on fire . Of particular interest to the readers of this review is the evidence this controversy gives us about Catholic publishing during the 1650s. In the narrative of the controversy which follows we shall stress how the existence of clandestine Catholic publishing in England influenced the history of freedom of the press.