This dissertation provides an interdisciplinary study of broadside ballads - an inexpensive form of early modern print sold to entertain and inform. It argues that illustrations were not simply included to entertain the less-literate, but were a central part of ballad composition for over 200 years. Working with a multi-archive sample set of over 3,000 ballads, it documents previously unrecognized patterns in text-image relationships. More importantly, it demonstrates that ballads were a multi-layered form of print that integrated text, tune, image, and performance to appeal to consumers with varying levels of textual literacy.

This project complicates our understanding of early modern print and literacy in several ways. Most scholars of early modern England argue that the printing press and the Protestant Reformation transformed early modern England into a literate, text-based society to the exclusion and detriment of visual cultures. Instead, this dissertation suggests that the persistent presence of ballad illustrations and other printed images show that post-Reformation English visual culture was not as impoverished as has been assumed. Further, the textual and visual content of ballads provide crucial information on the transformation of literacy in early modern England. This analysis demonstrates that people relied on verbal and visual signs to interpret printed texts well into the eighteenth century. Ballads are not just remnants of early modern England's vibrant popular culture, but demonstrate strategies that printers employed to make new print culture appealing and accessible to a mixed-literate market.