Mattsson, Annie2024-04-092024-04-092011https://hdl.handle.net/2077/80643The article is based on some of the findings from the author’s doctoral thesis, Komediant och riksförrädare. Handskriftcirkulerade smädeskrifter mot Gustaf III (approx. Jester and traitor. Manuscript published libels against Gustav III), and concerns the manuscript publishing of oppositional libels during the reign of Gustav III (1771–1792). Some of the terms and definitions from Harold Love’s Scribal Publication in Seventeenth-century England (1993) are applied to the material in order to deepen our understanding of the clandestine system of diffusion of these texts. The dominant type of publishing was in this case »user publication«, where interested readers made their own copies and showed them to others. Particular interest is given to the role of the copier, who often combined functions of production, distribution and consumption in one person. The copiers are also the link in this system where we through manuscript collections can identify individual participants to a much larger extent than is the case when it comes to the anonymous authors and readers who never made any copies.engoppositional pamphletsuser publicationauthor publicationpostingjudgment of posterityText