Edmund Curll at Work

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.

• 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.

'Edmund Curll was one of the most significant, remarkable and notorious figures in the literary world of the early eighteenth century. Pat Rogers has given us a much-needed and ground-breaking study, deeply scholarly yet compellingly readable, of Curll's strategies, operations, and entanglements as publisher and bookseller.' Marcus Walsh, Emeritus Professor of English Literature, University of Liverpool