The Prodigal Return’d to his Fathers House (1651) represents the only personal contribution the radical printer, Henry Hills (c. 1625-1690), made to the world of Particular Baptist self-writing, a genre that gained increasing vitality and visibility throughout the 17th century. Composed while Hills served a prison sentence in the Fleet after being sued for ‘crim com’ by Thomas Hams, a tailor from Blackfriars, and cast in damages for £260 for living openly with Hams’ wife, The Prodigal represents Hills’ public repentance for his conduct, and was intended to facilitate his acceptance back into the Baptist fellowship.
On his release from prison in 1652, Hills was indeed reconciled with the Baptists, and would go on to print a number of their key publications. However, his adultery, and the scandal that his confession generated, would haunt Hills for years, making him an open target for ridicule, where illicit sex functions as another version of the radical ‘conversations’ Hills’ publications facilitated.
This paper will argue that, in light of the heteroglossic and intertextual dimensions of the text, The Prodigal was originally intended to serve a broad polemical purpose, signalling a denunciation of adulterous behaviour not only in Hills, but on behalf of an entire Baptist community. By then looking at The Prodigal’s reception history, I will outline how representations of illicit sexualities can be plugged into a range of anxieties related to ‘the uncontrollable reproductive powers of print technology’ (Paper Bullets, 145), and the authenticity of textualized selves. In other words, the key question here is this: what happens when articulations of the self meet the collective norms and constraints of culture? In its inception and reception, Hills’ self-narrative repeatedly underscores how early-modern lives are sites of ‘ideology and contestation’ (Writing Lives, 26), textual revisions and dynamic re-representations.
—Michael Durrant, University of Manchester
