The New Atalantis Arrests: A Reassessment

This note re-examines the manuscript evidence surrounding the arrest of Delarivier Manley, her printer and publishers in 1709, following the publication of The New Atalantis. The records of warrants issued by the Earl of Sunderland's office, now held at the National Archives and only relatively recently unearthed, have been misread by Manley's recent biographers, and those interpretations are here corrected. The narrative suggested by the manuscript material is shown to substantiate that related in Manley's pseudo-autobiographical The Adventures of Rivella, as well as lending some insight into the processes of drafting and issuing warrants for arrest in Sunderland's office.