Commentary

This first edition of this Letter was printed in July 1712. Its authorship is disputed, though it was included by Nichols in his Supplement in 1779. The printer has not been identified. Teerink points to an advertisement for the Speech of John Ketch, but the printer of that pamphlet is not identifiable either. The printing is unremarkable, though there is liberal use of italic for quotation.

References: The Prose Writings of Jonathan Swift, ed. Herbert Davis and others, 16 vols. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1939-74), vol. vi, pp. 147-55, 212; Irvin Ehrenpeis, Swift: The Man, His Works, and the Age (London: Methuen, 1962-83), vol. ii, pp. 565-7; Michael Treadwell, ‘Swift’s Relations with the London Book Trade to 1714’, in Author/Publisher Relations during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, ed. Robin Myers and Michael Harris (Oxford: Oxford Polytechnic Press, 1983), pp. 1-36.