The Leveller Project

Revised: 27 April 2026

Introduction | Works by the Levellers

Introduction

Places to Begin

  1. Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard, “Levellers” Encyclopedia of Libertarianism (Cato institute, 2008) [Online elsewhere].

Biographies of Key Levellers

Entries in the Dictionary of National Biography (1885-1890) (at this website):

  1. Henry Ireton (1611–1651).
  2. John Lilburne (1614?–1657)].
  3. Richard Overton (fl. 1646)].
  4. Thomas Rainborow (d. 1648).
  5. Edward Sexby (d. 1658).
  6. John Streeter (or Streater) (fl. 1650–1670).
  7. William Walwyn (fl. 1649).
  8. John Wildman (161?–1693).

Others:

  1. James Harrington (1611–1677).
  2. Andrew Marvell (1621–1678).
  3. John Milton (1608-1674).
  4. Marchamont Needham (or Nedham) (1620–1678).
  5. William Prynne (1600–1669).
  6. Algernon Sidney (or Sydney) (1622–1683).

Critics of the Levellers:

  1. Sir Robert Filmer (1588–1653).

My bio of Richard Overton (c. 1599–1664)

Richard Overton (c. 1599–1664) was one of the intellectual and political leaders of the Levellers during the English Revolution. Little is known about his early life although he probably graduated from Queens College, Cambridge and worked as an actor before becoming involved in political pamphleteering at which he excelled. He wrote dozens of pamphlets in the early 1640s in which he attacked Catholicism and the Anglican establishment. He may have been imprisoned for debt in 1642 which kept him silent for a while but he returned to the fray with a popular tract “Mans Mortalitie” (1643) in which he argued that man’s soul died with him and was not resurrected until Judgement Day. Overton became close friends with William Walwyn and John Lilburne who co-authored many tracts with him.

Gradually his concerns moved from the religious to more political and philosophical matters as he developed more general theories about the equality of all men under the law, the need for Parliament to represent the interests of all citizens, the need to replace the Monarch with a republican form of government, and opposition to the system of class and political privilege which governed the British state. In addition to many individual pamphlets he also wrote editorials for the Leveller weekly journal The Moderate.

As a leader of the Leveller movement he was often singled out and imprisoned in Newgate and The Tower between 1846-47 from which he continued to write and protest, most notable of these is his “An Arrow against all Tyrants and Tyrany” (Oct. 1646) written or “fired” (as he put it) from the Newgate prison; and then again in 1649. After Cromwell crushed the Leveller movement in 1649 Overton sought exile in Holland and little is known about his activities after that date.

Tracts and Pamphlets

The full list of texts in the project: “Leveller Tracts And Pamphlets: By Advocates, Supporters, and Opponents” in the form of a [sortable table]. There are over 330 items in this bibliography not all of which are available online in HTML or PDF (to date 185). I will add more as I have the time and inclination to do so.

Leveller Debates

There was considerable support for the Levellers within the New Model Army and at the end of 1647 and 1648 debates were held among the officers and representatives of the enlisted men (“agitators”) the minutes of which have been recorded. See:

  1. [Several Hands], [The Putney Debates], The General Council of Officers at Putney (October/November 1647). [HTML]
  2. [Several Hands], The Whitehall Debates (14 Dec., 1648 – 13 Jan., 1649). [HTML]

Anthologies

I have created a number of anthologies of Leveller writings in which I bring together material by a particular author or theme. To date there are 6 with 152 items and 3,086 pages; and 1 “illustrated essay”:

  1. An Anthology of Works by John Lilburne (1638-1656) (2025) with 51 items and 1,488 pages. [Online in one file] and a [Table of Contents] with links to the individual items.
  2. An Anthology of Works by Richard Overton (1641-1649) (2024) with 22 items and 466 pages. [Online in one file] and a [Table of Contents] with links to the individual items.
  3. An Anthology of Works by William Walwyn (1600-1681) (2025) with 29 items and 547 pages. [Online in one file] and a [Table of Contents] with links to the individual items.
  4. “The Sparks of Freedom in the Minds of Men”: Three Tracts by John Warr (1648-1649) (2025) with 3 items and 73 pages. [Online in one file].
  5. Demanding Liberty: An Anthology of Leveller Agreements of the People, Petitions, Remonstrances, and Declarations (1646-1659) (2025) with 30 items and 330 pages. [Online in one file].
  6. An Anthology of Protests of “The Little People” (1641-1652) (2025) with 17 items and 182 pages. [Online in one file].

Other Items

  1. An “illustrated essay”: The Art of the Levellers (2020) which is a collection and discussion of some of the title pages of the Leveller Tracts (over 40 examples). In the course of putting together a collection of over 300 Leveller Tracts I came across some very interesting title pages which used typography and occasionally woodcut illustrations to add graphical force to the political and economic arguments being made by the authors. [Online].
  2. A blog post on “Thomas Hobbes’ Iconography of the Leviathan State” (18 December, 2020) [Online].

Editor’s Note

The page numbers refer to the page numbering in the original pamphlet. Sometimes page numbers were missing or there were duplicates. On many occasions the text in the margin notes is unreadable as a result of poor scanning of the original.

Works by the Levellers in the Library

See a subset of the Leveller Collection School of Thought – The Levellers.

The full list of texts in the project: “Leveller Tracts And Pamphlets: By Advocates, Supporters, and Opponents” in the form of a [sortable table]. There are over 330 items in this bibliography not all of which are available online in HTML or PDF (to date 185). I will add more as I have the time and inclination to do so.