In february 1663, the london printer John Twyn was sentenced to a most terrible fate: he was to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. Twyn's offense? He had dared to print an anonymous pamphlet that justified the right of rebellion against the king. In his jail cell, Twyn told those who begged him to confess the source of the treason that "it was not his principle to betray the author." The next day, Twyn's head was duly placed on a Ludgate spike. As Washington watches agog at the publication of the anonymous roman a clef O: A Presidential Novel, Twyn's horrible fate is an apt reminder of the historic perils of authorship, the price of anonymity, and the frenzy it used to arouse in the early days of the printed word.
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