1631 - 1664

Nationality:
English

Historical Period:
The Early Modern Period

Groups

• The Levellers

Richard Overton (1631-1664) was an actor, playwright, and Leveller pamphleteer during the English Revolution. He had his own secret printing press and wrote many articles for the Leveller journal The Moderate. His most important works include Mans Mortalitie (1644), An Arrow against all Tyrants (1646), and A Defiance against all Arbitrary Usurpations (1646).

Titles:

• Author: BOLL 32: Richard Overton, “An Arrow against all Tryants and Tyrany” (October, 1646)
• Author: An Arrow against all Tyrants
• Author: Puritanism and Liberty, being the Army Debates (1647-9)
• Author: Tracts on Liberty by the Levellers and their Critics Vol. 2 (1644-1645)
• Author: Tracts on Liberty by the Levellers and their Critics Vol. 3 (1646).
• Author: Tracts on Liberty by the Levellers and their Critics Vol. 4 (1647)

Quotations:

• Richard Overton shoots <em>An Arrow against all Tyrants</em> from the prison of Newgate into the prerogative bowels of the arbitrary House of Lords and all other usurpers and tyrants whatsoever (1646):
• Richard Overton argues that to submit to the unjust rule by another is to violate one's right of self ownership (1646)

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