Jonathan Swift and the Eighteenth-Century Book [Paperback]

An account of Swift's dealings with books and texts, showing how the business of print was transformed during his lifetime.This collection addresses the relationship between Swift and the world of commercial print, and in so doing illustrates the range of developments with which writers, booksellers and their public transformed the business of print during the first half of the eighteenth century.This collection addresses the relationship between Swift and the world of commercial print, and in so doing illustrates the range of developments with which writers, booksellers and their public transformed the business of print during the first half of the eighteenth century.Jonathan Swift lived through a period of turbulence and innovation in the evolution of the book. His publications, perhaps more than those of any other single author, illustrate the range of developments that transformed print culture during the early Enlightenment. Swift was a prolific author and a frequent visitor at the printing house, and he wrote as critic and satirist about the nature of text. The shifting moods of irony, complicity and indignation that characterise his dealings with the book trade add a layer of complexity to the bibliographic record of his published works. The essays collected here offer the first comprehensive, integrated survey of that record. They shed new light on the politics of the eighteenth-century book trade, on Swift's innovations as a maker of books, on the habits and opinions revealed by his commentary on printed texts and on the re-shaping of the Swiftian book after his death.Introduction Paddy Bullard and James McLaverty; Part I. Swift's Books and their Environment: 1. Swift as a manuscript poet Stephen Karian; 2. Leaving the printer to his liberty: Swift and the London book trade, 170114 Ian Gadd; 3. What Swift did in libraries Paddy Bullard; Part II. Some Species of Swiftian Book: 4. The uses of the miscellany: Swift, Curll, and piracy Pat Rogers; 5. Swift's TalC¾