#60;b#62;Brian Cowan#60;/b#62; holds the Canada Research Chair in Early Modern British History at McGill University in Montreal. He has written extensively on the history of the public sphere in early modern Britain, including his prize-winning monograph, #60;i#62;The Social Life of Coffee: The Emergence of the British Coffeehouse#60;/i#62; (2005). He edits the #60;i#62;Journal of the British of Studies#60;/i#62;, with his colleague Elizabeth Elbourne, for the North American Conference on British Studies. This volume is the first publication resulting from his continuing research on the media politics surrounding the 1710 trial of Doctor Henry Sacheverell.