Edmund Curll - Piracy

Piracy

One feature of Curll's career, and the one that most cemented his reputation through the ages, was the unauthorized publication of works originally produced by another house, often against the author's wishes. Usually, Curll stayed just across the legal line from piracy, but not always. In 1707, Curll announced in the newspapers that he was going to publish Poems on Several Occasions by Matthew Prior. Jacob Tonson had the sole rights to Prior's works, but Curll published anyway. In 1716, Curll again announced his intent to publish Matthew Prior's works, and Prior himself wrote letters of protest to the newspapers. The quarrel with Tonson, and Prior's objections, only served as publicity, however, and Curll published the book anyway. In 1710, he printed up Jonathan Swift's Meditation Upon a Broomstick. He also that year wrote a "key" to other Swift works, and in 1713 he produced a key to A Tale of a Tub. Swift was angry at Curll for revealing his authorship of the works (as Swift was ascending in the Church of England), but he was also amused at the dullness of Curll's explication of his works. He wrote to Alexander Pope that dunces like Curll were tools for a satirist, that they were valuable in their way. Having gotten into the habit of sapping Swift, Curll did not relent, especially after Swift incorporated Curll's notes (without permission) into the apparatus of A Tale of a Tub. In 1726, Curll produced a wildly inaccurate "key" to Swift's Gulliver's Travels. Another alleged case of unauthorized publication came with the poet Edward Young, who sent a poem to Curll for publication, with a letter of solicitation. When the poem was published in 1717, Young took out an ad claiming that the poem and letter were forgeries. In fact, the poem was in praise of a politician who had lost place, and Young's letter was authentic.

His connection with the anonymously-published Court Poems in 1716 led to the long quarrel with Alexander Pope. Curll got three anonymous poems, by Pope, John Gay, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Pope wrote to Curll warning him not to publish the poems, which only confirmed for Curll the authorship. He published them. In response, Pope and Bernard Lintot, Pope's publisher, met with Curll at the Swan tavern. Pope and Lintot seemed resigned and worried only for John Gay's prospects. However, they had filled Curll's glass with an emetic, causing him, when he went home, to go into convulsions of vomiting. Pope published two pamphlet accounts of the incident and informed the public (a la Swift's Bickerstaff Papers) that Curll was dead. Curll seized upon the publicity for his own purposes, as well. He published and advertised John Oldmixon's The Catholick Poet and John Dennis's The True Character of Mr Pope and his Writings. He reprinted these in 1716, when the atmosphere of England was highly charged after the failure of the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715.

The next step in the Pope/Curll battle came in 1716, when Curll got a bawdy version of the first Psalm written years earlier by Pope. He published it in folio and announced that he would be the future publisher of all of Pope's works. Also in that year, Curll was sent to jail for publishing an account of the trial of the Earl of Wintoun. No sooner was he out than he produced a biography of Dr. Robert South, former head of Westminster School. He had printed the eulogy for Dr. South by the current school head, as well. He was invited to the school and expected to be honored for the work he had done on behalf of the memory of the school's masters. Instead, the students forced him to his knees by beatings and forced him to beg for an apology. They then wrapped him in a blanket and began beating him with sticks and tossing him in the air. Samuel Wesley, a student at the school and older brother to John Wesley, wrote a mock-heroic poem on the blanket incident. Curll suspected that Pope and his friends were somehow responsible for his treatment, and he began to employ the "phantom poet." He published a poem called "The Petticoat" by "J. Gay." This poet was Francis Chute, who used the pseudonym "Joseph Gay." To siphon off sales of John Gay's poems and to wound Pope and his friends, Curll used this phantom twice more.