''Corante: or, Newes from Italy, Germany, Hungarie, Spaine and France'' was the first
newspaper
A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as p ...
printed in
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. The earliest of the seven known surviving copies is dated 24 September 1621 (although
John Chamberlain is on record as having complained about them in August), and the latest is dated 4 November that year.
As with its predecessors, of which the earliest surviving copy is
Pieter van den Keere
Pieter van den Keere ( la, Petrus Kaerius 1571 – c. 1646) was a Flemish engraver, publisher and globe maker who worked for the most part of his career in England and the Dutch Republic.
Life
He was born in Ghent, son of engraver Hendrik van den ...
's ''The new tydings out of Italie are not yet com'' from 2 December 1620, the ''Corante'' was translated from a
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
coranto {{About, , the family of dances, Courante
Corantos were early informational broadsheets, precursors to newspapers. Beginning around the 14th century, a system developed where letters of news and philosophical discussion would be sent to a central ...
(hence the name) into
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
, and – as the result of a 1586 edict from the
Star Chamber – carried no news about
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. Unlike those predecessors, however, the ''Corante'' was printed locally, instead of being a Dutch
import; in fact, the ''Corante''
's existence was the result of a request from
James I James I may refer to:
People
*James I of Aragon (1208–1276)
*James I of Sicily or James II of Aragon (1267–1327)
*James I, Count of La Marche (1319–1362), Count of Ponthieu
*James I, Count of Urgell (1321–1347)
*James I of Cyprus (1334–13 ...
that Dutch authorities cease coranto exports.
Early issues of the ''Corante'' are thought to have appeared as early as the spring of 1621; in September that year, Thomas Archer, a
printer
Printer may refer to:
Technology
* Printer (publishing), a person or a company
* Printer (computing), a hardware device
* Optical printer for motion picture films
People
* Nariman Printer (fl. c. 1940), Indian journalist and activist
* James ...
in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, was arrested for distributing corantos without a license, and his
printing press
A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in which the ...
was shut down. Archer was released shortly thereafter, as "a license to print (corantos) and sell them, honestly translated out of the Dutch" had been purchased by an individual identified solely by the initials "N.B."; these initials, thought to belong to
book publisher
Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...
Nathaniel Butter
Nathaniel Butter (died 22 February 1664) was a London publisher of the early 17th century. The publisher of the first edition of Shakespeare's ''King Lear'' in 1608, he has also been regarded as one of the first publishers of a newspaper in Engl ...
, or to Butter's contemporary Nicholas Bourne,
History of Newspaper
by Mitchell Stephens, originally published 1994 in Collier's Encyclopedia
''Collier's Encyclopedia'' is a discontinued general encyclopedia first published in 1949 by P. F. Collier and Son in the United States. With ''Encyclopedia Americana'' and ''Encyclopædia Britannica, Collier's Encyclopedia'' became one of the th ...
, archived at Stephens' official site at New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, th ...
; retrieved July 1, 2012 appear on all surviving copies.
See also
* History of British newspapers
The history of British newspapers dates to the 17th century with the emergence of regular publications covering news and gossip. The relaxation of government censorship in the late 17th century led to a rise in publications, which in turn le ...
References
{{reflist
The History of the Earliest English Newspapers, 1620 – 1642, by Edward Haig
''Studies in media and culture'' (2), 15-35, 2006-03 (requires Adobe Acrobat).
English-language newspapers
1621 works