Octavo.
Collation: 3 l., pp. 364. [4 l.] pp. 373. [9 l.], pp. 270, 84 [2 l.]
JONATHAN SWIFT
(1667-1745)
42. Travels | Into Several | Remote Nations | Of The | World. | In Four Parts. | By Lemuel Gulliver, | Firſt a Surgeon, and then a Cap- | tain of ſeveral Ships. | Vol. I. | London: | Printed for Benj. Motte, at the | Middle Temple-Gate in Fleet-ſtreet. | MDCCXXVI.
"I have employed my time, (beside ditching) in finishing, correcting, amending, and transcribing my travels in four parts complete, newly augmented and intended for the press, when the world shall deserve them, or rather when a printer shall be found brave enough to venture his ears." This is what Swift says in a letter written to Pope, and thus it will be seen that there could have been no real doubt among Swift's friends as to the authorship of the book, though for very obvious reasons it was found desirable to have it published anonymously. Even after it was issued, and had proved a success, the pretense of ignorance of the author's identity was kept up. Pope himself writes, November 16, 1726 (the work appeared October 28):
"I congratulate you first on what you call your cousin's wonderful book, which is publica trita manu at present, and I prophesy will hereafter be the admiration of all men...." "Motte," (the publisher who had been brave enough to risk his ears), "received the copy, he tells me, he knew not from whence, nor from whom, dropped at his house in the dark, from a hackney coach. By computating the time I found it was after you left England, so for my part, I suspend my judgement."
Swift was staying with Pope when the manuscript was so mysteriously left at Motte's door by Charles Ford, his intermediary, through whom, and Erasmus Lewis, all the business was conducted. Writing under the assumed name of Sympson, Swift demanded that Motte should give him £200, which the publisher agreed to do after six months if the success of the book would allow. The whole issue was exhausted within a week after its appearance, and a second edition speedily followed, making the payment, which we learn was promptly effected, an easy matter. We are told that Swift used to leave the profits of his writing to the booksellers; but Gulliver proved the exception to the rule. He says, in 1735, "I never got a farthing by anything I writ, except one about eight years ago, and that was by Mr. Pope's prudent arrangement for me." Motte, like Taylor with Robinson Crusoe, grew rich out of it; or, as Swift puts it to Knightley Chetwood in a letter dated February 14, 1726-7, in which he still keeps up the mystery of the authorship, "... in Engld I hear it hath made a bookseller almost rich enough to be an alderman."
Of its success, Arbuthnot says, November 8, 1726: "Gulliver's Travels, I believe, will have as great a run as John Bunyan. It is in everybody's hands...." Gay wrote a few days later: "The whole impression sold in a week. From the highest to the lowest it is universally read, from the cabinet council to the nursery." "Here is a book come out," says Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, "that all our people of taste run mad about...."