Motte V Faulkner - The Case

The Case

On 14 August 1725, Swift wrote to Charles Ford that his work, Gulliver's Travels, was finished, however, he soon added a scene referring to the Drapier's Letters. Swift wrote, in a letter to Pope, "a printer shall be found brave enough to venture his ears". The printer Swift found was Benjamin Motte, and Swift did not control the publication in order to, as some critics say, preserve his anonymity.

Although Swift found Motte willing to print the work, he was not willing to print Swift's additional scene. Swift's lack of control over the publication lead to Swift complaining of "mangled and murdered Pages". This was one of many reasons that Swift turned from Motte as his printer and sought a printer willing to produce his complete works without content removal. On 9 October 1733, Swift wrote: "Now, you may please to remember how much I complained of Motts suffering some friend of his (I suppose it was Mr Took a Clergy-man now dead) not onely to blot out some things that he thought might give offence, but to insert a good deal of trash contrary to the Author's manner and Style, and Intention."

Three editions of Gulliver's Travels were produced in London during 1726 and a "corrected" edition of Motte's works were printed by John Hyde in Dublin. Although Herbert Davis thought that the Hyde edition would not please Swift, some critics argue that Swift involved himself in helping Hyde make some corrections to the edition that was based on Motte's London edition. The next year, Risk, Ewing, and Smith printed in Dublin a simple reprint of Motte's original print with minor corrections. Motte then produced his "second edition" (his fourth version) of Gulliver's Travels in 1727 with many corrections. Many of the corrections of Motte's later editions were based on Swift's corrections sent to the printer via letters.

The edition published by Faulkner includes over 500 corrections to the original text, surpassing any other editions. Faulkner's version also contains over 50 passages that either not present in the original or expanded on from the original text. This has suggested to some critics that the Faulkner edition was a later rework of Gulliver's Travels and not just a correction to printing related mistakes. The inclusion of these many additions was later seen by critics as part of Swift's disapproval of Motte's versions, but others see Motte's version as being more true to the anti-government spirit of Swift's work, which confuses Swift's motivation in allowing Faulkner to reprint the work.

Swift's other works were previous collected in a four-volume set edited by Alexander Pope called Miscellanies, but Swift wanted to have a "proper" edition of his works. Some critics speculate that Swift turned to having his work printed without public sponsorship because he was afraid of breaking his commitments to Pope and his publisher Motte. Regardless of what Swift may or may not be planning, he wrote to Motte in December 1732 and said: "I have cause to believe that some of our printers will collected all they think to be mine, and print them by subscription, which I will never encourage nor oppose."

On 9 February 1733, Faulkner advertised his future publication of Swift's collected works in four volumes in the Dublin Journal. However, this edition led to controversy, since the London bookseller Benjamin Motte had publication rights, under English copyright law, to many of the works included in Faulkner's edition. The English, in 1735, attempted to pass a law that would allow a copyright holder to prohibit works that may violate their copyright, but this law failed to pass through Parliament.