An Introduction to: A Letter from the Pretender to a Whig Lord
(Jim McLaverty)
- Abbreviated title
- Letter from the pretender, to a whig-lord
- JSA Identification Number
- 7_6_2
- Teerink/Scouten Number
- 90
- ESTC Number
- T48932
- Copy and its Location
- ECCO BL, 1608/5922 or 633.c.25
- Publisher and Printer
- A supplement to Dr. Swift’s works: containing miscellanies in prose and verse, by the Dean; Dr. Delany, Dr. Sheridan, Mrs. Johnson, and others, Vol. i., pp 220-222.
- London, Nichols, John Payne, H. Conant, N., 1779.
Commentary
This letter was first published as a half-sheet (printed on one side only) in July 1712. It is dated internally 8 July 1712. John Nichols first reprinted it in his supplement to Swift’s Works in 1776, but this later text is the more accurate one.
John Nichols (1745-1826) was a distinguished printer, antiquarian, and editor. He was apprenticed to William Bowyer, Jr., on 6 February 1759, and Bowyer encouraged his literary interests and took him into partnership in 1766. Nichols’ work on Swift began with his Supplements to the Works in 1775, 1776, and 1779, and developed into full-scale editing. Nichols was also distinguished for antiquarian projects, including a type facsimile of the Domesday Book and a history of Leicestershire.
References Jonathan Swift, English Political Writings, 1711-1714, ed. Bertrand A. Goldgar and Ian Gadd (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 425-7 (425); The Prose Writings of Jonathan Swift, ed. Herbert Davis and others, 16 vols. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1939-74), vol. vi, pp. 145-6, 211.