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76-504: By concentrating his stock primarily on literary authors, Lintot was a rival of Jacob Tonson 's. In 1700, he married Catherine Langley, a widow, and moved his shop to Fleet Street at the Post House. In 1705, he moved his shop again, to its most permanent location, at the Cross Keys on Fleet Street, next to Nando's Coffee House and right by Temple Bar . From 1705 to 1712, he published all

152-464: A "key" to other Swift works, and in 1713 he produced a key to A Tale of a Tub . Swift was angry at Curll for revealing his authorship of the works (as Swift was ascending in the Church of England ), but he was also amused at the dullness of Curll's explication of his works. He wrote to Alexander Pope that dunces like Curll were tools for a satirist, that they were valuable in their way. Having gotten into

228-477: A Hypercritic upon the Dunciad Variorum. It contained an autobiography, a defense against charges of obscenity (explaining that the flogging text had been meant as a cure for impotence), and a defense of his actions with Pope. Later in 1729, Curll set out to publish a volume of William Congreve . John Arbuthnot complained in the press of Curll's action, so Curll renamed his shop "Congreve's Head" and put up

304-454: A Man with a Maid and The Devout Christian's Companion . Curll also sold medical cures themselves, and he was unscrupulous in promoting them. In 1708, he published The Charitable Surgeon , a feigned book of medical advice on syphilis cures from a pretended physician of public spirit. It explained that one John Spinke's cure of mercury was devoid of worth and that the only efficacious cure came from Edmund Curll's own shop. Dr. Spinke wrote

380-459: A Topographical, Geographical and Natural History of that Country (1740) by Thomas Stretzer (of whom nothing is known), Merryland Displayed (1741) and set of maps entitled A Compleat Set of Charts of the Coasts of Merryland (1745). In Curll's last years, he continued to publish "Curlicisms" mixed with serious and valuable works. His will indicates that his son had died without issue and that there

456-533: A bit more directly. However, in The Dunciad , Pope took full revenge. Satirised for being foolish enough to compete in a race for the "Phantom More" (James Moore Smythe), Lintot is given a memorable description as a "dabchick" waddling along the street (Lintot was a very large and clumsy man, according to contemporaries, with a tendency to "sputter" and to resort to exasperated profanity): Jacob Tonson Jacob Tonson , sometimes referred to as Jacob Tonson

532-412: A bust of Congreve to spite Arbuthnot and Congreve's friends. In 1731 he moved shops to Burleigh Street and advertised an upcoming life of Pope, saying, "Nothing shall be wanting but his (universally desired) Death." In response to his call for materials, a person known as "P.T." offered Curll some Pope letters. The letters, however, were fakes, and the entire offer had been a set-up by Pope, who published

608-425: A corrected version of his letters in 1735. Curll moved his shop again in that year and called it "Pope's Head" and sold under the sign of Pope. Two years later, he published five volumes of Pope's letters. In 1741, Pope finally prevailed against Curll in the courts. A court ruled that letters affix copyright to the author, although a recipient of a letter has no copyright status. In his last years Curll published

684-562: A daughter by a daughter of Tonson's; if this is true, it must apparently have been a daughter of Richard Tonson, Jacob's brother. In the autumn of 1710 Tonson moved to the Shakespeare's Head, opposite Catherine Street in the Strand ; his former shop at Gray's Inn Gate was announced for sale in the Tatler for 14 October (No. 237); and it seems to have been taken by Thomas Osborne, stationer, the father of

760-492: A grant to himself and his nephew of the office of stationer, bookseller, and printer to some of the principal public offices; and on 12 October 1722 he assigned the whole benefit of the grant to his nephew. The grant was afterwards renewed by Robert Walpole , in 1733, for a second term of forty years. The elder Tonson seems to have given up business about 1720. He had bought the Hazells estate at Ledbury, Herefordshire , and in 1721 he

836-506: A mercenary and unscrupulous manner. By cashing in on scandals, publishing pornography, offering up patent medicine , using all publicity as good publicity, he managed a small empire of printing houses. He would publish high and low quality writing alike, so long as it sold. He was born in the West Country , and his late and incomplete recollections (in The Curliad ) say that his father was

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912-527: A pamphlet in reply, and characteristically Curll wrote a reply to that and, to create a scandal, made the outlandish claim that Spinke was ignorant and offered five pounds if Spinke could come to Curll's shop and translate five lines of Latin . Spinke did so and used the money to buy some of Curll's "cure", which he had analyzed. In the end, Curll's "cure" was also mercury. Curll kept publishing his Charitable Surgeon , however, and expanded it with A new method of curing, without internal medicines, that degree of

988-561: A phenomenon worth seeing, "old Jacob Tonson, who is the perfect image and likeness of Bayle's Dictionary ; so full of matter, secret history, and wit and spirit, at almost fourscore." On 19 March Lord Oxford, Lord Bathurst , Pope, and Gay dined with old Tonson at Barnes and drank Swift's health. In 1734 Samuel Gibbons was appointed stationer to the Prince of Wales in place of Jacob Tonson. Jacob Tonson junior predeceased his uncle, dying on 25 November 1735, worth £100,000. His will, of great length,

1064-469: A publisher, he produced inexpensive books on inexpensive paper. Most of his books sold for one or two shillings, putting them within reach of tradesmen, apprentices, and servants. He carried and published erotic literature and mixed it with serious Christian calls to prayer, "medical" texts, and the like. He also published Whig political tracts. One of his earliest productions was John Dunton 's The Athenian Spy , but he also had titles like The Way of

1140-626: A series of " Merryland " books which constitute a major contribution to the somewhat peculiar genre of English seventeenth and eighteenth century erotic fiction in which the female body (and sometimes the male) was described in terms of topographical metaphor. The earliest work in this genre seems to be Erotopolis: The Present State of Bettyland (1684) probably by Charles Cotton . This was included, in abbreviated form, in Curll's The Potent Ally: or Succours from Merryland (1741). Other works published by Curll include A New Description of Merryland. Containing

1216-407: A small number. Samuel Johnson spoke of him as "the late amiable Mr. Tonson." In 1750 he was High Sheriff of Surrey , and in 1759 he paid the fine for being excused serving the same office for the city of London and county of Middlesex. There is a story of his having twice helped Henry Fielding when that writer was unable to pay his taxes. Tonson died on 31 March 1767, without issue, in a house on

1292-480: A student at the school and older brother to John Wesley , wrote a mock-heroic poem on the blanket incident. Curll suspected that Pope and his friends were somehow responsible for his treatment, and he began to employ the "phantom poet." He published a poem called "The Petticoat" by "J. Gay." This poet was Francis Chute, who used the pseudonym "Joseph Gay." To siphon off sales of John Gay's poems and to wound Pope and his friends, Curll used this phantom twice more. He

1368-474: A tradesman. He was an apprentice to a London bookseller in 1698 when he began his career. At the end of his seven-year apprenticeship, he began selling books at auction. His master, Richard Smith, went bankrupt in 1708, and Curll took over his shop at that point. His early practice was to work in conjunction with other booksellers to write, publish, and sell pamphlets and books and to exploit any furore to produce "accounts" and arguments. For example, in 1712

1444-453: A translation that he had purchased, he would send it out to "gentlemen" to assess its accuracy before he published it. From 1714 to 1727, he was one of the primary printers to the House of Commons . In 1725, Pope and Lintot had a significant and complex quarrel. Lintott had paid Pope £2,201 for his translation of Homer 's Iliad . Because of piracy and miscalculations, Lintott had not recouped

1520-404: Is nobody more competently qualified to give their opinion of another, so there is none who does it with a more severe exactness or with less partiality; for, to do Mr. Tonson justice, he speaks his mind upon all occasions, and will flatter nobody." No doubt this roughness of manner wore off as Tonson grew in prosperity. Jacob Tonson (died 1767) ( Jacob Tonson the younger ) was the great-nephew of

1596-899: The Guardians , and by desisting two days, and altering the title of the paper to that of the Englishman , was quit of the obligation, those papers being printed by Buckley." There are various reasons why this story is improbable; the truth seems to be that Steele was anxious to write on politics with a freer hand than was practicable in the Guardian . In the summer of 1714 we hear of Steele writing political pamphlets at Tonson's, where there were three bottles of wine of Steele's, and in October Tonson printed Steele's Ladies' Library . Tonson appears in Rowe's Dialogue between Tonson and Congreve, in imitation of Horace : In

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1672-552: The Duke of Somerset . In 1705 Tonson published Addison's Remarks on several Parts of Italy . Verses by young Alexander Pope were circulating among the critics in 1705, and in April 1706 Tonson wrote to Pope proposing to publish a pastoral poem of his. Pope's pastorals ultimately appeared in Tonson's sixth Miscellany (May 1709). William Wycherley wrote that Tonson had long been gentleman-usher to

1748-596: The Nun in her Smock and The use of flogging , and sentenced to an hour in the pillory for publishing Ker's memoirs. Curll wrote and published a broadsheet for his pillory day saying that publishing Ker's memoirs had been done out of loyalty to the old queen only, and the crowd therefore did not beat him. Instead, they cheered Curll and carried him away on their shoulders. Pope and Curll tangled again in 1726, when he published some of Pope's letters without authorization. Pope avenged himself by having Curll figure very prominently in

1824-694: The 1728 Dunciad . In fact, no figure, including the "King of Dunces" Lewis Theobald (nor, later, Colley Cibber ) is ridiculed as consistently and viciously in Dunciad as Edmund Curll. Curll's response was to print a pirate edition, then to produce a "Key" to the poem to explain all the people Pope attacked, and then to publish reply poems that were attacks on Pope personally. The Popiad , written possibly by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, The Female Dunciad , and The Twickenham Hotch-Potch all came out in 1728 as answers. In 1729, Pope's Dunciad Variorum took further, prose swipes at Curll, and Curll produced The Curliad:

1900-489: The Death of Dr. Swift , a hack biography of Swift. Arbuthnot's terror was apt, for there was virtually no recourse against Curll's press. In 1721, he published a biography of the Duke of Buckingham . He was summoned to the House of Lords for trial, and Lords made a new law making it illegal to publish anything about or by a lord without permission. Curll became notorious for his indecent publications, so much so that "Curlicism"

1976-564: The Elder (12 November 1655– 17 March 1736), was an eighteenth-century English bookseller and publisher . Tonson published editions of John Dryden and John Milton , and is best known for having obtained a copyright on the plays of William Shakespeare by buying up the rights of the heirs of the publisher of the Fourth Folio after the Statute of Anne went into effect. He was also the founder of

2052-501: The Jacob Tonson the elder and son of Jacob Tonson junior. He carried on the publishing business in the Strand. In 1747 he paid Warburton £500 for editing Shakespeare, and he was eulogised by Steevens [sic] in the advertisement prefixed to his edition of Shakespeare 1778: "he never learned to consider the author as an under-agent to the bookseller . . . His manners were soft and his conversation delicate," but he reserved his acquaintance for

2128-557: The Judge's Head to a shop in Gray's Inn Gate, probably the one previously occupied by his brother Richard. It is not unlikely that Richard was dead, and that Jacob, who had no children, and seemingly never married, now took into partnership his nephew Jacob, whose son was afterwards to be his heir. It is not always easy to distinguish the uncle from the nephew in later years; the latter is sometimes referred to as Tonson Junior. By 1700 Tonson's position

2204-608: The Lords mentioned these two titles specifically as obscenities. As with previous scandals, Curll attempted to turn it to profit by publishing The Humble Representation of Edmund Curll and rushing forward a new edition of Venus in the Cloister. He was arrested in March and held until July. The courts determined that there was no actual obscenity law, so they prosecuted him for libel . Curll published an apology and promised to quit publishing, but

2280-658: The Muses treat. Tonson was satirised in several skits, and it was falsely alleged that he had been expelled by the club, or had withdrawn from the society in scorn of being their jest any longer. In 1703 Tonson went to the Dutch Republic to obtain paper and engravings for the fine edition of Caesar's Commentaries , which was ultimately published under Samuel Clarke 's care in 1712. At Amsterdam and Rotterdam he met Addison, and assisted in some abortive negotiations for Addison's employment as travelling companion to Lord Hertford , son of

2356-460: The Muses: "you will make Jacob's ladder raise you to immortality." Nicholas Rowe 's edition of Shakespeare , in six volumes, was published early in 1709 by Tonson, who had previously advertised for materials. Richard Steele dined at Tonson's in 1708–1709, sometimes to get a bill discounted, sometimes to hear manuscripts read and advise upon them. There is a tradition that in earlier days Steele had had

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2432-555: The Pope/Curll battle came in 1716, when Curll got a bawdy version of the first Psalm written years earlier by Pope. He published it in folio and announced that he would be the future publisher of all of Pope's works. Also in that year, Curll was sent to jail for publishing an account of the trial of the Earl of Winton . No sooner was he out than he produced a biography of Dr. Robert South , former head of Westminster School . He had printed

2508-523: The Use of Flogging in Venereal Affairs , which was a translation of De Usu Flagrorum . To the book, Curll added a sexual frontispiece and advertised other "medical" books. In 1724, he published Venus in the Cloister , a translation of a mildly erotic French title of the previous century that argued that it is the church, and not Christ, that forbids sexual exploration. That year, an anonymous complaint to

2584-456: The afterwards well-known publisher, Thomas Osborne (died 1767). On 26 July 1711, after a long interval, Swift met Addison and Steele "at young Jacob Tonson's". "The two Jacobs", says Jonathan Swift to Esther Johnson , "think it I who have made the secretary take from them the printing of the Gazette, which they are going to lose.... Jacob came to me t'other day to make his court; but I told him it

2660-714: The ambient air. Subsequently the letters became more friendly, and on the publication of Alexander's Feast , in late 1697, Dryden wrote to Tonson, "I hope it has done you service, and will do more." Dryden's collection of translations from Boccaccio , Chaucer , and others, known as The Fables , was published by Tonson in November 1699; a second edition did not appear until 1713. There is an undated letter from Mrs. Aphra Behn to Tonson at Bayfordbury , thanking him warmly for what he had said on her behalf to Dryden. She begged hard for five pounds more than Tonson offered for some of her verses. In connection with Jeremy Collier 's attack on

2736-517: The apology was an ad for two new titles. While Curll was in prison, he met John Ker , who wished his memoirs published. The work contained state secrets from the reign of Queen Anne , so Curll was nervous. He wrote to Robert Walpole for permission. Getting no answer, he treated silence as assent and published the book. The last volume of the memoirs was done by Edmund's son, Henry Curll, and both Henry and Edmund were arrested. They spent fourteen months in prison (to February 1728) and were fined for

2812-414: The assurances he received. In writing to the elder Tonson on this subject, Pope asked for any available information respecting the "Man of Ross," and, in thanking him for the particulars received, explained his intention in singling out this man as the centre of a poem. Earlier in the year the elder Tonson was in town, and Pope, writing to Lord Oxford , said that if he would come to see him he would show him

2888-500: The author's rights in the printing of the tragedy of Cleomenes . Joseph Addison 's Poem to his Majesty was published by Tonson in 1695, and there was some correspondence respecting a proposed joint translation of Herodotus by Boyle , Richard Blackmore , Addison, and others. Dryden's translation of Virgil , executed between 1693 and 1696, was published by Tonson in July 1697 by subscription . Serious financial differences arose between

2964-518: The court of chancery for an injunction to stop Robert Tooke and others printing a pirated edition of the play; the sum paid for the copyright was £40. In the same year Tonson published the Duke of Buckingham 's Works , and in 1725 Pope's edition of Shakespeare. Proposals were issued by Tonson in January 1729 for completing the subscription to the new edition of Rymer's Fœdera , in seventeen folio volumes (of which fifteen were then printed), at fifty guineas

3040-717: The disagreement Smythe had had with Pope. In 1712, Lintott attempted to set up his own Miscellany series to counter Tonson's Poetical Miscellanies, which had been edited by Dryden, and so he got Alexander Pope to assemble Miscellaneous Poems and Translations. This volume contained the first version of Pope's The Rape of the Lock . Pope became a friend and author for Lintott, and many of Pope's friends began to sell their works to Lintott as well. John Gay and Nicholas Rowe , in particular, became clients of Lintott's, and Lintott published Pope's Works of 1717, Gay's Poems on Several Occasions in 1720, and Rowe's Works in 1728. Despite

3116-512: The earlier part of his life Tonson was much associated with Dryden. A step which did much to establish his position was the publication in 1684 of a volume of Miscellany Poems , under Dryden's editorship. Other volumes followed in 1685, 1693, 1694, 1703, and 1708, and the collection, which was several times reprinted, is known as both as Dryden's Miscellany and Tonson's Miscellany . During the ensuing year Tonson continued to bring out pieces by Dryden, and on 6 October 1691 paid thirty guineas for all

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3192-434: The early rivalry, in 1718, Lintott made an arrangement with Jacob Tonson that the two publishers would share in any future plays either house printed, and throughout his career Lintott established multiple publishing agreements with his rivals. Lintott was the first to publish a catalogue of his holdings in 1714, with The Monthly Catalogue. He also, according to Pope, performed an early version of peer review . When he had

3268-403: The eulogy for Dr. South by the current school head, as well. He was invited to the school and expected to be honored for the work he had done on behalf of the memory of the school's masters. Instead, the students forced him to his knees by beatings and forced him to beg for an apology. They then wrapped him in a blanket and began beating him with sticks and tossing him in the air. Samuel Wesley,

3344-454: The famous Kit-Cat Club . His nephew, Jacob Tonson the Younger (1682–1735), was his business partner. The business was continued by the younger Tonson's son, Jacob Tonson (1714–1767). Scholars have not always been sure of Tonson's birthdate, and it has in the past been listed as occurring in 1655 or 1656. But the register of christenings in the parish of St Andrew Holborn demonstrates that Tonson

3420-411: The habit of sapping Swift, Curll did not relent, especially after Swift incorporated Curll's notes (without permission) into the apparatus of A Tale of a Tub. In 1726, Curll produced a wildly inaccurate "key" to Swift's Gulliver's Travels . Another alleged case of unauthorized publication came with the poet Edward Young , who sent a poem to Curll for publication, with a letter of solicitation. When

3496-495: The incident and informed the public (a la Swift's Bickerstaff Papers ) that Curll was dead. Curll seized upon the publicity for his own purposes, as well. He published and advertised John Oldmixon 's The Catholick Poet and John Dennis 's The True Character of Mr Pope and his Writings. He reprinted these in 1716, when the atmosphere of England was highly charged after the failure of the Jacobite rising of 1715 . The next step in

3572-437: The north side of the Strand, near Catherine Street, whither he had removed the business some years earlier. His will was made in 1763. In 1775 letters of administration of the goods of Jacob Tonson, left unadministered by Richard Tonson, were granted to William Baker, esq. (M.P. for Hertfordshire), and in 1823, Baker having failed to administer, letters of administration were granted to Joseph Rogers. Richard Tonson (died 1772),

3648-622: The papers at Bayfordbury, there is a considerable collection of Tonson papers in the British Museum, some relating to business and some to private matters; but many of them are damaged or fragmentary. Attribution: Edmund Curll Edmund Curll ( c. 1675 – 11 December 1747) was an English bookseller and publisher. His name has become synonymous, through the attacks on him by Alexander Pope , with unscrupulous publication and publicity. Curll rose from poverty to wealth through his publishing, and he did this by approaching book printing in

3724-543: The plays put on at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane , and he was one of the leading publishers of literary authors, including the dramas of George Farquhar , John Dryden , William Congreve , Richard Steele , Susanna Centlivre , and Colley Cibber . Lintot went into semi-retirement in 1730. From that point on, his son, Henry Lintot , ran the publishing business with him, and Lintot moved out to Sussex. During his career, Bernard purchased lands adjoining his father's lands every time he had occasion, and so he had moderate estates by

3800-457: The poem was published in 1717, Young took out an ad claiming that the poem and letter were forgeries. In fact, the poem was in praise of a politician who had lost place, and Young's letter was authentic. His connection with the anonymously published Court Poems in 1716 led to the long quarrel with Alexander Pope. Curll got three anonymous poems, by Pope, John Gay , and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu . Pope wrote to Curll warning him not to publish

3876-461: The poems, which only confirmed for Curll the authorship. He published them. In response, Pope and Bernard Lintot , Pope's publisher, met with Curll at the Swan tavern. Pope and Lintot seemed resigned and worried only for John Gay's prospects. However, they had filled Curll's glass with an emetic , causing him, when he went home, to go into convulsions of vomiting. Pope published two pamphlet accounts of

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3952-697: The poet and his publisher, and Dryden's letters to Tonson (1695–1697) are full of complaints of meanness and sharp practice and of refusals to accept clipped or bad money. Tonson would pay nothing for notes; Dryden retorted, "The notes and prefaces shall be short, because you shall get the more by saving paper." He added that all the trade were sharpers, Tonson not more than others. Dryden described Tonson thus, in lines written under his portrait, and afterwards printed in Faction Displayed (1705): With leering looks, bull-faced, and freckled fair; With two left legs, and Judas-coloured hair, And frowzy pores, that taint

4028-419: The profit he anticipated. Thus, when Pope came to publish his translation of Odyssey , Lintot was in no mood to offer the same terms. Pope therefore went to Jacob Tonson. He offered to do an edition of Shakespeare for only £100 if Tonson would offer very good terms on Odyssey. Tonson, however, had arrangements with Lintot and declined to offer a better deal, and so Pope received only £337 from Lintot for

4104-545: The purchase of plays during eighteen months following that date. In one of several amusing letters from Vanbrugh, now at Bayfordbury, Tonson, who was then in Paris, was congratulated upon his luck in South Sea stock , and there is other evidence that he made a large sum in connection with Law's Mississippi scheme . "He has got £40,000" wrote Robert Arbuthnot ; "riches will make people forget their trade." In January 1720 Tonson obtained

4180-456: The same year Tonson, with Barnaby Bernard Lintot and William Taylor , was appointed one of the printers of the parliamentary votes. Next year he paid fifty guineas for the copyright of Addison's comedy, The Drummer , and published Thomas Tickell 's translation of the first book of the Iliad , which gave offence to Pope. On 6 February 1718 Lintot entered into a partnership agreement with Tonson for

4256-399: The set. The work was finished in 1735. Tonson published a quarto edition of Waller's works, edited by Fenton , in 1729, and an edition of Lord Lansdowne 's works in 1732. Pope was annoyed to find in 1731 that Tonson was to be one of the publishers of Lewis Theobald 's proposed edition of Shakespeare, in which he feared an attack on his own editorial work, but he professed to be satisfied with

4332-426: The sole rights to Prior's works, but Curll published anyway. In 1716, Curll again announced his intent to publish Matthew Prior's works, and Prior himself wrote letters of protest to the newspapers. The quarrel with Tonson, and Prior's objections, only served as publicity, however, and Curll published the book anyway. In 1710, he printed up Jonathan Swift 's Meditation Upon a Broomstick . He also that year wrote

4408-578: The stage, the Middlesex justices presented the playhouses in May 1698, and also William Congreve for writing the Double Dealer , Thomas d'Urfey for Don Quixote , and Tonson and Brisco, booksellers, for printing them. Tonson published Congreve's reply to Collier, and at a later date The Faithful Friend and The Confederacy by his friend, Sir John Vanbrugh . Before the end of the century Tonson had moved from

4484-655: The third Jacob Tonson's brother, who took little part in the concerns of the business, lived at Water Oakley, near Windsor, where he built a room for the Kit-Cat portraits. His benevolence and hospitality made him popular, and in 1747 he was elected MP for Wallingford , and in 1768 MP for New Windsor. In some correspondence with the Duke of Newcastle in 1767, the duke spoke of his old friendship with Richard Tonson, "the heir of one I honoured and loved, and have passed many most agreeable hours with." Richard Tonson died on 9 October 1772. Besides

4560-756: The time he gave his son a role in the business. In 1735, he was High Sheriff of Sussex ; he died of "an asthma" in February 1736. As a publisher, Lintott focused on works of literature, but he also published legal guides, the literary criticism of John Dennis , and the philosophical works of noted deists . He also increased the pay that he gave to authors who had proven successful and occasionally speculated on contemporary furores. He paid, for example, £105 to Colley Cibber for The Nonjuror and over £100 to John Gay for Poems on Several Occasions (after offering only £35 for Trivia ). However, he also paid £130 to James Moore Smythe for The Rival Modes, primarily because of

4636-503: The translation. Tonson, for his part, went ahead and advertised the new Shakespeare edition by Pope, and this infuriated Lintot, who complained in print. Pope quit Lintot at that point. Between 1725 and 1727, Pope referred to Lintot twice in his works. In the Narrative of Dr. Norris, Lintot is satirised lightly, and in the Full and True Account of the "poisoning" of Edmund Curll he is struck

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4712-520: The venereal disease, called a gonorrhea, or clap. In 1712, Curll's shop was so successful that he opened a branch in Tunbridge Wells , and he moved to a bigger store on Fleet Street . He began to write his own pamphlets around this time. In 1712 he collaborated with John Morphew , a Tory , to cash in on the excitement over the Henry Sacheverell controversy. After their collaboration, Curll

4788-401: The witch trial of Jane Wenham had the public's interest, and one partner wrote a pamphlet exonerating her, while another condemned her, and both pamphlets were sold at all three shops. He also manufactured a set group of newspaper quarrels between the various "authors" for and against Mrs. Wenham to get free advertising. As a bookseller, Curll's stock was always exceptionally eclectic, and as

4864-571: The younger, for £575, and all rights in the other half for a similar sum to Buckley. Buckley in October 1714 reassigned his half-share in the Spectator to Tonson junior for £500. Tonson published Addison's tragedy, Cato , in April 1713; and, according to a concocted letter of Pope's, the true reason why Steele brought the Guardian to an end in October was a quarrel with Tonson, its publisher; "he stood engaged to his bookseller in articles of penalty for all

4940-485: Was able to hire away one of Morphew's hack writers. One feature of Curll's career, and the one that most cemented his reputation through the ages, was the unauthorized publication of works originally produced by another house, often against the author's wishes. Usually, Curll stayed just across the legal line from piracy, but not always. In 1707, Curll announced in the newspapers that he was going to publish Poems on Several Occasions by Matthew Prior . Jacob Tonson had

5016-450: Was apprenticed to Thomas Basset, a stationer, for eight years. Having been admitted a freeman of the Company of Stationers on 20 December 1677, he began business on his own account, following his brother Richard, who had commenced in 1676, and had published, among other things, Thomas Otway 's Don Carlos, Prince of Spain . Richard Tonson had a shop within Gray's Inn Gate; Jacob Tonson's shop

5092-503: Was born on 12 November 1655 and baptised on 18 November 1655. The register lists Tonson as the "sonne of Jacob Tonson Shoemaker and of Elizabeth his wife neare Grayes Inn Lane." He is believed to have been related to Major Richard Tonson, who obtained a grant of land in county Cork from Charles II , and whose descendants became Barons Riversdale. His father's will left him and his elder brother Richard, as well as three sisters, each £100, to be paid when they came of age. On 5 June 1670 Jacob

5168-464: Was for many years at the Judge's Head in Chancery Lane , near Fleet Street . It has been said that when Tonson bought the rights to Troilus and Cressida (1679), the first play of John Dryden 's that he published, he was obliged to borrow the purchase money (£20) from Abel Swalle, another bookseller. The names of both booksellers appear on the title-page, as was often the case at that time. Tonson

5244-491: Was notorious for commissioning hack-written biographies of famous people as soon as they died and for publishing them without regard for inaccuracies and inventions. Perhaps the reference to Curll most often repeated by posterity is John Arbuthnot 's quip that Curll's biographies had become "one of the new terrors of death" (quoted in Robert Carruthers, The Poetical Works of Pope , 1853, vol. 1, ch. 3). Curll's entire goal

5320-409: Was regarded as a synonym for literary indecency. In 1718, Curll published Eunuchism Display'd , and Daniel Defoe attacked it as pornography, calling it a "Curlicism." Curll capitalized on the charge by writing Curlicism Display'd as a defense. The pamphlet was, however, a listing of books in Curll's shop, so Curll turned the entire thing into an advertisement. In 1723, he published A Treatise of

5396-527: Was sending presents of cider to the Dukes of Grafton and Newcastle , the latter of whom called Tonson "my dear old friend," and asked him to give him his company in Sussex. Henceforth we may suppose, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that "Tonson" in contemporary allusions means the nephew. Steele's Conscious Lovers appeared in 1722, and Tonson assigned to Lintot half the copyright for £70. He had to apply to

5472-508: Was sufficiently well off to purchase plays by Otway and Nahum Tate . In 1681 the brothers Richard and Jacob joined in publishing Dryden's Spanish Friar , and in 1683 Jacob obtained a valuable property by purchasing from Barbazon Ailmer, the assignee of Samuel Simmons, one half of his right in Paradise Lost . The other half was purchased at an advance in 1690. Tonson afterwards said he had made more by Paradise Lost than by any other poem. In

5548-673: Was to be the first to the shops with a biography and not in any way to be the best or most accurate account. Thus, his method was to announce that a biography was about to be published and ask the public to contribute any memories, letters, or speeches of the deceased. He would then include these (and sometimes nothing else) in the "biography." He had no care at all for accuracy and would accept accounts from enemies as quickly as friends. When contributions failed, he would hire an author to invent material. In 1717 alone, he produced biographies of Bishop Burnet and Elias Ashmole . He would later produce, exactly as Swift predicted in his 1731 Lines on

5624-422: Was too late, and that it was not my doing." Accounts furnished to Steele by Tonson of the sale of the collective editions of the Tatler and Spectator have been preserved; from October 1712 Tonson's name was joined with Samuel Buckley's as publisher of the Spectator . In November 1712 Addison and Steele sold all their right and title in one half of the copies of the first seven volumes of the Spectator to Tonson

5700-600: Was well established, and about that time the Kit-Cat Club was founded, with Tonson as secretary. The meetings were first held at a mutton-pie shop in Shire Lane, kept by Christopher Cat, and may have begun with suppers given by Tonson to his literary friends. About 1703 Tonson purchased a house at Barn Elms, and built a room there for the club. In a poem on the club, attributed to Sir Richard Blackmore, we find: One night in seven at this convenient seat Indulgent Bocaj [Jacob] did

5776-763: Was written on 16 August and proved on 6 December 1735. The elder Tonson's death at Ledbury followed that of his nephew on 17 March 1735/6. The elder Tonson's will was made on 2 December 1735 and proven in probate on 2 April 1736, when he was described as worth £40,000. A painting of the elder Tonson by Godfrey Kneller is among the Kit-Cat portraits; it is best known through Faber's engraving. Pope says that Tonson obtained portraits from Kneller without payment by flattering him and sending him presents of venison and wine. Dryden's satirical account of his appearance has been quoted; Pope, in The Dunciad calls him "left-legged Jacob" and "genial Jacob". John Dunton describes Tonson as "a very good judge of persons and authors; and as there

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