An Introduction to: A Letter of Advice to a Young Poet
(Jim McLaverty)
- Abbreviated title
- A letter of advice to a young poet
- JSA Identification Number
- 4_28_1
- Teerink/Scouten Number
- 621
- ESTC Number
- T1821
- Copy and its Location
- ECCO BL, 818.a.16
- Publisher and Printer
- A letter of advice to a young poet, together with a proposal for the encouragement of poetry in this kingdom, Vol. , pp .
- Dublin, Hyde, John, 1721.
Commentary
This is the first edition of this work. I doubt it is by Swift, though the emphatic use of italic is not unlike his.
John Hyde worked as a bookseller, printer, and bookbinder, from 1709 to 1728. He had a significant association with Swift, beginning with a reprint of Conduct of the Allies in 1711. He played an important role in the Dublin book trade, providing TCD with stationery and being chosen three times as the Stationers’ candidate for the Dublin Common Council. In 1719 Swift recommended him as an agent for collecting subscriptions for Prior’s poems, and in 1726 he printed an edition of Gulliver’s Travels that contained corrections that were probably Swift’s. On his death he was described as ‘the most Eminent and noted Bookseller in this City’. See Mary Pollard’s Dictionary of Members of the Dublin Book Trade, from which my information is taken.
References: The Prose Writings of Jonathan Swift, ed. Herbert Davis and others, 16 vols. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1939-74), vol. ix, pp. 325-45, 378; Irvin Ehrenpreis, Swift: The Man, His Works, and the Age, 3 vols. (London: Methuen, 1962-83), vol. iii, pp. 135-6, 779-90; Mary Pollard, A Dictionary of Members of the Dublin Book Trade 1550-1800 (London: The Bibliographical Society, 2000).