A Tale of a Tub and Other Works [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION The present volume includes the contents of the volume which Swift himself first published early in 1704, namely,/Í Tale of a Tub, A Full and True Account of the Battle of the Books, and A Discourse of the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit. A Fragment. We have followed these pieces with four Additions to A Tale, printed sixteen years later in Holland. Appendix A gives substantial extracts from nine works, not easily available. These throw light, not just on Swift's ideas and interests, the topics of his satire, but also on his writing itself, its living tones and styles. The latter are the most bewildering, but also the most rewarding and exciting aspects of his achievement. Appendix B discusses a controversy over the authorship oíA Tale, which began immediately after publication of the 1704 volume and which is of more than historical interest. The notion of 'authorship' is one of the areas (like 'readership') on which Swift's fertile imagination seizes in these satires. Svidft's four-shilling volume of 1704 is the masterpiece of his early life, balancing and matching Gulliver's Travels, the imaginative crown of his later years. It is an assemblage of writing that covers the first decade of his writing career. An imprecise tradition with a respectable pedigree pushes back the composition or sketch of part oíA Tale ofa Tub, perhaps the parable or allegory, to Swift's student days in the 1680s at Trinity College, Dublin. Most of the ostensible subject matter, and the bulk of the writing, clearly dates from the time of his employment by Sir William Temple at Moor Park (cf. Sir William Temple himself on 'chymistry' and 'critics' in 'Some Thoughts . . .', pp. 177 and 178 below). Swift also had the run of Temple's library, and it would be interesting to know more about this, especially since so much of the satire in the volume is focused on books and reading. There are indeed several references in the text of A Tale to the years 1696 and 1697; and in Apology Swift says, 'the greatest part of the book was finished' in the former year. In consideration of the hostile reception the satire received in some quarters (see pp. 182 f.), however, he has been assumed to have exaggerated his youth when he wrote the work. His Discourse on the Contests and Dissensions in Athens and Rome, published in 1701, was similarly founded on his reading and thinking at Moor Park, but given a force and point by the political crisis and bitter pamphlet controversy in London in 1700-1. There are similar political touches in^i Tale—such as its dedication to Lord Somers, who was defended in the Contests and