Edmund Curll - Biographies, Obscenity and "Curlicisms"

Biographies, Obscenity and "Curlicisms"

He was notorious for commissioning hack-written biographies of famous people as soon as they died and for publishing them without regard for inaccuracies and inventions. Perhaps the reference to Curll most often repeated by posterity is John Arbuthnot's quip that Curll's biographies had become "one of the new terrors of death" (quoted in Robert Carruthers, The Poetical Works of Pope, 1853, vol. 1, ch. 3). Curll's entire goal was to be the first to the shops with a biography and not in any way to be the best or most accurate account. Thus, his method was to announce that a biography was about to be published and ask the public to contribute any memories, letters, or speeches of the deceased. He would then include these (and sometimes nothing else) in the "biography." He had no care at all for accuracy and would accept accounts from enemies as quickly as friends. When contributions failed, he would hire an author to invent material. In 1717 alone, he produced biographies of Bishop Burnet and Elias Ashmole. He would later produce, exactly as Swift predicted in his 1731 Lines on the Death of Dr. Swift, a hack biography of Swift. Arbuthnot's terror was apt, for there was virtually no recourse against Curll's press. In 1721, he published a biography of the Duke of Buckingham. He was summoned to the House of Lords for trial, and Lords made a new law making it illegal to publish anything about or by a lord without permission.

Curll became notorious for his indecent publications, so much so that "Curlicism" was regarded as a synonym for literary indecency. In 1718, Curll published Eunuchism Display'd, and Daniel Defoe attacked it as pornography, calling it a "Curlicism." Curll capitalized on the charge by writing Curlicism Display'd as a defense. The pamphlet was, however, a listing of books in Curll's shop, so Curll turned the entire thing into an advertisement. In 1723, he published A Treatise of the Use of Flogging in Venereal Affairs, which was a translation of De Usu Flagrorum. To the book, Curll added a sexual frontispiece and advertised other "medical" books. In 1724, he published Venus in the Cloister, a translation of a mildly erotic French title of the previous century that argued that it is the church, and not Christ, that forbids sexual exploration. That year, an anonymous complaint to the Lords mentioned these two titles specifically as obscenities. As with previous scandals, Curll attempted to turn it to profit by publishing The Humble Representation of Edmund Curll and rushing forward a new edition of Venus in the Cloister. He was arrested in March and held until July. The courts determined that there was no actual obscenity law, so they prosecuted him for libel. Curll published an apology and promised to quit publishing, but the apology was an ad for two new titles. While Curll was in prison, he met John Ker, who wished his memoirs published. The work contained state secrets from the reign of Queen Anne, so Curll was nervous. He wrote to Robert Walpole for permission. Getting no answer, he treated silence as assent and published the book. The last volume of the memoirs was done by Edmund's son, Henry Curll, and both Henry and Edmund were arrested. They spent fourteen months in prison (to February 1728) and were fined for the Nun in her Smock and The use of flogging, and sentenced to an hour in the pillory for publishing Ker's memoirs. Curll wrote and published a broadsheet for his pillory day saying that publishing Ker's memoirs had been done out of loyalty to the old queen only, and the crowd therefore did not beat him. Instead, they cheered Curll and carried him away on their shoulders.