Edmund Curll at Work

Publishing Strategies in Eighteenth-Century England
Erscheinungsjahr 2026
ISBN: 978-1-009-74896-4
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 300 Seiten, Gewicht: 250 g

Edmund Curll is traditionally considered a pornographer, remembered for having been condemned to gaol and the pillory. Here, Pat Rogers looks beyond this ignominious reputation to focus on the specifics of Curll's working methods as a publisher, his relations with the book trade, his sometimes anomalous position with regard to the milieu of Grub Street, his marketing strategies, and his repertoire of misleading bibliographic tricks. In doing so he throws new light on the factors underlying his quarrels with authors, who included Swift, Pope, and Defoe, alongside many others. Also revealed are Curll's previously unexplored dealings with the politics of the City of London, and his complex uses of anonymity. New biographic data and fuller bibliographical enquiries provide the basis for a more reliable documentation of the shape of his extraordinary, if questionable, activity within the context of the eighteenth-century print world.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Rogers, Pat

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction: a survey of Curll's publishing career; Part I. A Life in Bookselling: 1. Curll and the book trade; 2. Edmund Curll, citizen and liveryman; 3. Curll and grub street; Part II. The Craft of a Publisher: 4. Curll's imprints: tools of the trade; 5. The attribution of books to publishers: Curll and the memoirs of John Macky; Part III. Genre Studies: 6. Paratext in eighteenth-century biography: Curll on the job; 7. The uses of the miscellany: swift, Curll, and piracy; Part IV. The Tug of War: 8. Nameless names: Pope, Curll, and the strategies of anonymity; 9. Men at arms: Dennis, Pope, and Curll; 10. Ben Jonson's Crispinus, Pope, and the poisoning of Curll (with Paul Baines); Afterword; Appendix 1. The conduct of the earl of Nottingham: Curll, Pope, Oldmixon and the Finch family; Appendix 2. A projected Catalogue of Curll's publications; Select bibliography; Index of publications by Curll; General index.

Über Autor(innen)

Rogers, Pat
Pat Rogers is Distinguished University Professor Emeritus, formerly Eminent Scholar, and DeBartolo Chair in the Liberal Arts at the University of South Florida. He is the author of Edmund Curll, Bookseller, with Paul Baines (2007); and The Poet and the Publisher: The Case of Alexander Pope versus Edmund Curll (2021), along with many studies in book history and bibliography.