Product Description

In 1728-9, Jonathan Swift and his friend Thomas Sheridan anonymously published the Intelligencer. This Dublin periodical offered trenchant and often witty commentary on the Irish social and political scene in the year before A Modest Proposal. The frequently anthologized review of The Beggar's Opera (no. 3) is not only the best contemporary criticism of it but also Swift's central pronouncement on satire. Several essays lash important enemies, anger being always a great creative stimulus to both Swift and Sheridan. This is the first collected edition of the Intelligencer since 1730. It is based on the rare original Dublin pamphlets, each known copy of which has been collated. Full commentary and appendices draw upon contemporary pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, and manuscripts to site the Intelligencer papers in the personal, social, and political controversies in which they are engaged. There is also a fresh bibliographical analysis of the Intelligencer's textual transmission.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2834584 in Books
• Published on: 1992-03-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 1.39 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 378 pages

Review

"Woolley's edition is superb in every way--it is truly a model of editorial scholarship....Woolley has at last made [the Intelligencer] fully accessible, establishing once and for all its interest and value and providing the contextual and textual information necessary to full appreciation of it....Woolley's edition is an admirable achievement, and it is unlikely that any other will ever supersede it."--Eighteenth-Century Studies

"A scholarly tour de force, displaying state-of-the-art textual criticism and excellent and generous annotation."--Studies in English Literature 1500-1900

"[A] superb edition....James Woolley's edition of the Intelligencer is handsome, erudite, and deeply considerate of its readers. It will be a source of inspiration for scholars and critics alike....The Intelligencer reminds most of an extremely well-designed house, light and airy, crammed with interesting objects, but absolutely uncluttered."--Journal of English and Germanic Philology

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