Sampson Perry is one of the most important, yet neglected, of the 1790s British radical journalists and pamphleteers. His significance derives from having been one of a small cluster of British ultraradicals who witnessed, participated in, and analyzed the course of the French Revolution during its most tumultuous phase, the years of the Reign of Terror. Perry, who also felt the brunt of William Pitt's counterrevolutionary measures, was not alone in experiencing intense persecution for his political beliefs on both sides of the English Channel, but he was rare, if not unique, among those British radicals who fell victim to Robespierrist or Napoleonic repression in retaining a consistent sympathy for the broad principles of the French Revolution. His two-volume Historical Sketch of the French Revolution, written and published from Newgate jail in 1796, is a compelling and sympathetic analysis of the revolution that deserves attention from modern historians and...