Anxiety about the threat of atheism was rampant in the early modern period yet, paradoxically, examples of openly-expressed irreligious opinion are surprisingly rare. This book offers a detailed analysis of three cases, and contrasts the real 'assurance' shown by such figures with the doubts expressed, often privately, by believers.

Michael Hunter is Emeritus Professor of History at Birkbeck, University of London, and a Fellow of the British Academy. He is well known for his publications on Robert Boyle and on the early Royal Society and its milieu. His most recent book is The Decline of Magic: Britain in the Enlightenment (2020).

Acknowledgements; 1. Introduction; 2. The Problem of 'Atheism' in Early Modern England; 3. Atheism among the Godly: The Covert History of Religious Doubt; 4. 'This degenerate Age... so miserably over-run with Scepticism and Infidelity': The Culture of Atheism after 1660; 5. 'Aikenhead the Atheist': The Context and Consequences of Articulate Irreligion in the late Seventeenth Century; 6. An Atheist Text by Archibald Pitcairne: Introduction to Pitcairneana; 7. The Text of Pitcairneana: Houghton Library, Harvard, MS Eng 1114; 8. The Trial of Tinkler Ducket: Atheism and Libertinism in Eighteenth-century England; Appendix; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.