Edmund Curll
Encyclopedia
Edmund Curll was an English
bookseller and publisher. His name has become synonymous, through the attacks on him by Alexander Pope
, with unscrupulous publication and publicity. Curll rose from poverty to wealth through his publishing, and he did this by approaching book printing in a mercenary and unscrupulous manner. By cashing in on scandals, publishing pornography, offering up patent medicine
, using all publicity as good publicity, he managed a small empire of printing houses. He would publish high and low quality writing alike, so long as it sold. He was born in the West Country
, and his late and incomplete recollections (in The Curliad) say that his father was a tradesman. He was an apprentice to a London
bookseller in 1698 when he began his career.
At the end of his seven year apprenticeship, he began selling books at auction. His master, Richard Smith, went bankrupt in 1708, and Curll took over his shop at that point. His early practice was to work in conjunction with other booksellers to write, publish, and sell pamphlet
s and books and to exploit any furore to produce "accounts" and arguments. For example, in 1712 the witch trial of Jane Wenham
had the public's interest, and one partner wrote a pamphlet exonerating her, while another condemned her, and both pamphlets were sold at all three shops. He also manufactured a set group of newspaper quarrels between the various "authors" for and against Mrs. Wenham to get free advertising.
As a bookseller, Curll's stock was always exceptionally eclectic, and as a publisher, he produced inexpensive books on inexpensive paper. Most of his books sold for one or two shillings, putting them within reach of tradesmen, apprentices, and servants. He carried and published erotic literature
and mixed it with serious Christian
calls to prayer, "medical" texts, and the like. He also published Whig
political tracts. One of his earliest productions was John Dunton
's The Athenian Spy, but he also had titles like The Way of a Man with a Maid and The Devout Christian's Companion. Curll also sold medical cures themselves, and he was unscrupulous in promoting them. In 1708, he published The Charitable Surgeon, a feigned book of medical advice on syphilis
cures from a pretended physician of public spirit. It explained that one John Spinke's cure of mercury
was devoid of worth and that the only efficacious cure came from Edmund Curll's own shop. Dr. Spinke wrote a pamphlet in reply, and characteristically Curll wrote a reply to that and, to create a scandal, made the outlandish claim that Spinke was ignorant and offered five pounds if Spinke could come to Curll's shop and translate five lines of Latin
. Spinke did so and used the money to buy some of Curll's "cure," which he had analyzed. In the end, Curll's "cure" was also mercury. Curll kept publishing his Charitable Surgeon, however, and expanded it with A new method of curing, without internal medicines, that degree of the venereal disease, called a gonorrhea, or clap.
In 1712, Curll's shop was so successful that he opened a branch in Tunbridge Wells
, and he moved to a bigger store on Fleet Street
. He began to write his own pamphlets around this time. In 1712 he collaborated with John Morphew, a Tory
, to cash in on the excitement over the Henry Sacheverell
controversy. After their collaboration, Curll was able to hire away one of Morphew's hack writers.
. 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.
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 of 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.
(nor, later, Colley Cibber
) is ridiculed as consistently and viciously in Dunciad as Edmund Curll. Curll's response was to print a pirate edition, then to produce a "Key" to the poem to explain all the people Pope attacked, and then to publish reply poems that were attacks on Pope personally. The Popiad, written possibly by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, The Female Dunciad, and The Twickenham Hotch-Potch all came out in 1728 as answers. In 1729, Pope's Dunciad Variorum took further, prose swipes at Curll, and Curll produced The Curliad: a Hypercritic upon the Dunciad Variorum. It contained an autobiography, a defense against charges of obscenity (explaining that the flogging text had been meant as a cure for impotence), and a defense of his actions with Pope.
Later in 1729, Curll set out to publish a volume of William Congreve. John Arbuthnot
complained in the press of Curll's action, so Curll renamed his shop "Congreve's Head" and put up a bust of Congreve to spite Arbuthnot and Congreve's friends. In 1731 he moved shops to Burleigh Street and advertised an upcoming life of Pope, saying, "Nothing shall be wanting but his (universally desired) Death." In response to his call for materials, a person known as "P.T." offered Curll some Pope letters. The letters, however, were fakes, and the entire offer had been a set-up by Pope, who published a corrected version of his letters in 1735. Curll moved his shop again in that year and called it "Pope's Head" and sold under the sign of Pope. Two years later, he published five volumes of Pope's letters. In 1741, Pope finally prevailed against Curll in the courts. A court ruled that letters affix copyright
to the author, although a recipient of a letter has no copyright status.
" books which constitute a major contribution to the somewhat peculiar genre of English seventeenth and eighteenth century erotic fiction in which the female body (and sometimes the male) was described in terms of topographical metaphor. The earliest work in this genre seems to be Erotopolis: The Present State of Bettyland (1684) probably by Charles Cotton
. This was included, in abbreviated form, in Curll's The Potent Ally: or Succours from Merryland (1741). Other works published by Curll include A New Description of Merryland. Containing a Topographical, Geographical and Natural History of that Country (1740) by Thomas Stretzer (of whom nothing is known), Merryland Displayed (1741) and set of maps entitled A Compleat Set of Charts of the Coasts of Merryland (1745).
In Curll's last years, he continued to publish "Curlicisms" mixed with serious and valuable works. His will indicates that his son had died without issue and that there was no family except his wife. Curll died in London on 11 December 1747.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
bookseller and publisher. His name has become synonymous, through the attacks on him by Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...
, with unscrupulous publication and publicity. Curll rose from poverty to wealth through his publishing, and he did this by approaching book printing in a mercenary and unscrupulous manner. By cashing in on scandals, publishing pornography, offering up patent medicine
Patent medicine
Patent medicine refers to medical compounds of questionable effectiveness sold under a variety of names and labels. The term "patent medicine" is somewhat of a misnomer because, in most cases, although many of the products were trademarked, they were never patented...
, using all publicity as good publicity, he managed a small empire of printing houses. He would publish high and low quality writing alike, so long as it sold. He was born in the West Country
West Country
The West Country is an informal term for the area of south western England roughly corresponding to the modern South West England government region. It is often defined to encompass the historic counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset and the City of Bristol, while the counties of...
, and his late and incomplete recollections (in The Curliad) say that his father was a tradesman. He was an apprentice to a London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
bookseller in 1698 when he began his career.
Early hucksterism
Pamphlet
A pamphlet is an unbound booklet . It may consist of a single sheet of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths , or it may consist of a few pages that are folded in half and saddle stapled at the crease to make a simple book...
s and books and to exploit any furore to produce "accounts" and arguments. For example, in 1712 the witch trial of Jane Wenham
Jane Wenham
Jane Wenham was the subject of what is commonly but erroneously regarded as the last witch trial in England. The trial took place in 1712 and was reported widely in printed tracts of the period, notably F...
had the public's interest, and one partner wrote a pamphlet exonerating her, while another condemned her, and both pamphlets were sold at all three shops. He also manufactured a set group of newspaper quarrels between the various "authors" for and against Mrs. Wenham to get free advertising.
As a bookseller, Curll's stock was always exceptionally eclectic, and as a publisher, he produced inexpensive books on inexpensive paper. Most of his books sold for one or two shillings, putting them within reach of tradesmen, apprentices, and servants. He carried and published erotic literature
Erotic literature
Erotic literature comprises fictional and factual stories and accounts of human sexual relationships which have the power to or are intended to arouse the reader sexually. Such erotica takes the form of novels, short stories, poetry, true-life memoirs, and sex manuals...
and mixed it with serious Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
calls to prayer, "medical" texts, and the like. He also published Whig
British Whig Party
The Whigs were a party in the Parliament of England, Parliament of Great Britain, and Parliament of the United Kingdom, who contested power with the rival Tories from the 1680s to the 1850s. The Whigs' origin lay in constitutional monarchism and opposition to absolute rule...
political tracts. One of his earliest productions was John Dunton
John Dunton
John Dunton was an English bookseller and author. In 1691, he founded an Athenian Society to publish The Athenian Mercury, the first major popular periodical and first miscellaneous periodical in England.-Early life:...
's The Athenian Spy, but he also had titles like The Way of a Man with a Maid and The Devout Christian's Companion. Curll also sold medical cures themselves, and he was unscrupulous in promoting them. In 1708, he published The Charitable Surgeon, a feigned book of medical advice on syphilis
Syphilis
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. The primary route of transmission is through sexual contact; however, it may also be transmitted from mother to fetus during pregnancy or at birth, resulting in congenital syphilis...
cures from a pretended physician of public spirit. It explained that one John Spinke's cure of mercury
Mercury (element)
Mercury is a chemical element with the symbol Hg and atomic number 80. It is also known as quicksilver or hydrargyrum...
was devoid of worth and that the only efficacious cure came from Edmund Curll's own shop. Dr. Spinke wrote a pamphlet in reply, and characteristically Curll wrote a reply to that and, to create a scandal, made the outlandish claim that Spinke was ignorant and offered five pounds if Spinke could come to Curll's shop and translate five lines of Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
. Spinke did so and used the money to buy some of Curll's "cure," which he had analyzed. In the end, Curll's "cure" was also mercury. Curll kept publishing his Charitable Surgeon, however, and expanded it with A new method of curing, without internal medicines, that degree of the venereal disease, called a gonorrhea, or clap.
In 1712, Curll's shop was so successful that he opened a branch in Tunbridge Wells
Royal Tunbridge Wells
Royal Tunbridge Wells is a town in west Kent, England, about south-east of central London by road, by rail. The town is close to the border of the county of East Sussex...
, and he moved to a bigger store on Fleet Street
Fleet Street
Fleet Street is a street in central London, United Kingdom, named after the River Fleet, a stream that now flows underground. It was the home of the British press until the 1980s...
. He began to write his own pamphlets around this time. In 1712 he collaborated with John Morphew, a Tory
Tory
Toryism is a traditionalist and conservative political philosophy which grew out of the Cavalier faction in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. It is a prominent ideology in the politics of the United Kingdom, but also features in parts of The Commonwealth, particularly in Canada...
, to cash in on the excitement over the Henry Sacheverell
Henry Sacheverell
Henry Sacheverell was an English High Church clergyman and politician.-Early life:The son of Joshua Sacheverell, rector of St Peter's, Marlborough,...
controversy. After their collaboration, Curll was able to hire away one of Morphew's hack writers.
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 PriorMatthew Prior
Matthew Prior was an English poet and diplomat.Prior was the son of a Nonconformist joiner at Wimborne Minster, East Dorset. His father moved to London, and sent him to Westminster School, under Dr. Busby. On his father's death, he left school, and was cared for by his uncle, a vintner in Channel...
. Jacob Tonson
Jacob Tonson
Jacob Tonson, sometimes referred to as Jacob Tonson the elder was an 18th-century English bookseller and publisher....
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
Publicity
Publicity is the deliberate attempt to manage the public's perception of a subject. The subjects of publicity include people , goods and services, organizations of all kinds, and works of art or entertainment.From a marketing perspective, publicity is one component of promotion which is one...
, however, and Curll published the book anyway. In 1710, he printed up Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...
's Meditation Upon a Broomstick
Meditation Upon a Broomstick
thumb|right|A Meditation Upon a Broomstick is a satire and parody written by Jonathan Swift in 1701. Edmund Curll, in an attempt to antagonize and siphon off money from Swift, published it in 1710 from a manuscript stolen from Swift , but the satire's origins lie in Swift's time...
. He also that year wrote a "key" to other Swift works, and in 1713 he produced a key to A Tale of a Tub
A Tale of a Tub
A Tale of a Tub was the first major work written by Jonathan Swift, composed between 1694 and 1697 and published in 1704. It is arguably his most difficult satire, and perhaps his most masterly...
. Swift was angry at Curll for revealing his authorship of the works (as Swift was ascending in the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
), but he was also amused at the dullness of Curll's explication of his works. He wrote to Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...
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
Gulliver's Travels
Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships, better known simply as Gulliver's Travels , is a novel by Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of...
. Another alleged case of unauthorized publication came with the poet Edward Young
Edward Young
Edward Young was an English poet, best remembered for Night Thoughts.-Early life:He was the son of Edward Young, later Dean of Salisbury, and was born at his father's rectory at Upham, near Winchester, where he was baptized on 3 July 1683. He was educated at Winchester College, and matriculated...
, 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
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...
. Curll got three anonymous poems, by Pope, John Gay
John Gay
John Gay was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for The Beggar's Opera , set to music by Johann Christoph Pepusch...
, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
The Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was an English aristocrat and writer. Montagu is today chiefly remembered for her letters, particularly her letters from Turkey, as wife to the British ambassador, which have been described by Billie Melman as “the very first example of a secular work by a woman about...
. 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
Barnaby Bernard Lintot
Barnaby Bernard Lintot , English publisher, was born at Southwater, Sussex, and started business as a publisher in London about 1698...
, 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
John Oldmixon
John Oldmixon was an English historian.He was a son of John Oldmixon of Oldmixon, Weston-super-Mare in Somerset. His first writings were poetry and dramas, among them being Amores Britannici; Epistles historical and gallant ; and a tragedy, The Governor of Cyprus...
'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
Robert South
Robert South was an English churchman, known for his combative preaching.-Early life:He was the son of Robert South, a London merchant, and Elizabeth Berry...
, former head of Westminster School
Westminster School
The Royal College of St. Peter in Westminster, almost always known as Westminster School, is one of Britain's leading independent schools, with the highest Oxford and Cambridge acceptance rate of any secondary school or college in Britain...
. 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
John Wesley
John Wesley was a Church of England cleric and Christian theologian. Wesley is largely credited, along with his brother Charles Wesley, as founding the Methodist movement which began when he took to open-air preaching in a similar manner to George Whitefield...
, 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.
Biographies, obscenity and "Curlicisms"
He was notorious for commissioning hack-writtenGrub Street
Until the early 19th century, Grub Street was a street close to London's impoverished Moorfields district that ran from Fore Street east of St Giles-without-Cripplegate north to Chiswell Street...
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
John Arbuthnot
John Arbuthnot, often known simply as Dr. Arbuthnot, , was a physician, satirist and polymath in London...
'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
Gilbert Burnet
Gilbert Burnet was a Scottish theologian and historian, and Bishop of Salisbury. He was fluent in Dutch, French, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Burnet was respected as a cleric, a preacher, and an academic, as well as a writer and historian...
and Elias Ashmole
Elias Ashmole
Elias Ashmole was a celebrated English antiquary, politician, officer of arms, astrologer and student of alchemy. Ashmole supported the royalist side during the English Civil War, and at the restoration of Charles II he was rewarded with several lucrative offices.Ashmole was an antiquary with a...
. 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
John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby
John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby, KG, PC , was a poet and notable Tory politician of the late Stuart period, who served as Lord Privy Seal and Lord President of the Council.-Career:...
. He was summoned to the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
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
Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe , born Daniel Foe, was an English trader, writer, journalist, and pamphleteer, who gained fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel, as he helped to popularise the form in Britain and along with others such as Richardson,...
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
De Usu Flagrorum
Tractus de usu flagrorum in re Medica et Veneria is a 1639 treatise by Johann Heinrich Meibomius . The English title is A Treatise on the Use of Flogging in Medicine and Venery...
. 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
Christ
Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...
, 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
John Ker
John Ker was a Scottish spy during the Jacobite risings.-Biography:Ker was born in Ayrshire. His true name was Crawfurd, his father being Alexander Crawfurd of Crawfurdland, but having married Anna, younger daughter of Robert Ker, of Kersland, Ayrshire, whose only son Daniel Ker was killed at the...
, 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
Robert Walpole
Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, KG, KB, PC , known before 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole, was a British statesman who is generally regarded as having been the first Prime Minister of Great Britain....
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 of 1728) and were fined for the Nun in her Smock and The use of flogging, and sentenced to an hour in the pillory
Pillory
The pillory was a device made of a wooden or metal framework erected on a post, with holes for securing the head and hands, formerly used for punishment by public humiliation and often further physical abuse, sometimes lethal...
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.
Curll and the Dunciad
Pope and Curll tangled again in 1726, when he published some of Pope's letters without authorization. Pope avenged himself by having Curll figure very prominently in the 1728 Dunciad. In fact, no figure, including the "King of Dunces" Lewis TheobaldLewis Theobald
Lewis Theobald , British textual editor and author, was a landmark figure both in the history of Shakespearean editing and in literary satire...
(nor, later, Colley Cibber
Colley Cibber
Colley Cibber was an English actor-manager, playwright and Poet Laureate. His colourful memoir Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber describes his life in a personal, anecdotal and even rambling style...
) is ridiculed as consistently and viciously in Dunciad as Edmund Curll. Curll's response was to print a pirate edition, then to produce a "Key" to the poem to explain all the people Pope attacked, and then to publish reply poems that were attacks on Pope personally. The Popiad, written possibly by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, The Female Dunciad, and The Twickenham Hotch-Potch all came out in 1728 as answers. In 1729, Pope's Dunciad Variorum took further, prose swipes at Curll, and Curll produced The Curliad: a Hypercritic upon the Dunciad Variorum. It contained an autobiography, a defense against charges of obscenity (explaining that the flogging text had been meant as a cure for impotence), and a defense of his actions with Pope.
Later in 1729, Curll set out to publish a volume of William Congreve. John Arbuthnot
John Arbuthnot
John Arbuthnot, often known simply as Dr. Arbuthnot, , was a physician, satirist and polymath in London...
complained in the press of Curll's action, so Curll renamed his shop "Congreve's Head" and put up a bust of Congreve to spite Arbuthnot and Congreve's friends. In 1731 he moved shops to Burleigh Street and advertised an upcoming life of Pope, saying, "Nothing shall be wanting but his (universally desired) Death." In response to his call for materials, a person known as "P.T." offered Curll some Pope letters. The letters, however, were fakes, and the entire offer had been a set-up by Pope, who published a corrected version of his letters in 1735. Curll moved his shop again in that year and called it "Pope's Head" and sold under the sign of Pope. Two years later, he published five volumes of Pope's letters. In 1741, Pope finally prevailed against Curll in the courts. A court ruled that letters affix copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
to the author, although a recipient of a letter has no copyright status.
Merryland
In his last years Curll published a series of "MerrylandMerryland
The Merryland books were a somewhat peculiar genre of English 17th and 18th century erotic fiction in which the female body was described in terms of a topographical metaphor derived from a pun on Maryland. Four of the titles were published by 18th century controversialist Edmund Curll The...
" books which constitute a major contribution to the somewhat peculiar genre of English seventeenth and eighteenth century erotic fiction in which the female body (and sometimes the male) was described in terms of topographical metaphor. The earliest work in this genre seems to be Erotopolis: The Present State of Bettyland (1684) probably by Charles Cotton
Charles Cotton
Charles Cotton was an English poet and writer, best known for translating the work of Michel de Montaigne from the French, for his contributions to The Compleat Angler, and for the highly influential The Compleat Gamester which has been attributed to him.-Early life:He was born at Beresford Hall...
. This was included, in abbreviated form, in Curll's The Potent Ally: or Succours from Merryland (1741). Other works published by Curll include A New Description of Merryland. Containing a Topographical, Geographical and Natural History of that Country (1740) by Thomas Stretzer (of whom nothing is known), Merryland Displayed (1741) and set of maps entitled A Compleat Set of Charts of the Coasts of Merryland (1745).
In Curll's last years, he continued to publish "Curlicisms" mixed with serious and valuable works. His will indicates that his son had died without issue and that there was no family except his wife. Curll died in London on 11 December 1747.
See also
- Elizabeth BarryElizabeth BarryElizabeth Barry was an English actress of the Restoration period.She worked in big, prestigious London theatre companies throughout her successful career: from 1675 in the Duke's Company, 1682 – 1695 in the monopoly United Company, and from 1695 onwards as a member of the actors' cooperative...
(an actress whose biography Curll published) - Charles GildonCharles GildonCharles Gildon , was an English hack writer who was, by turns, a translator, biographer, essayist, playwright, poet, author of fictional letters, fabulist, short story author, and critic. He provided the source for many lives of Restoration figures, although he appears to have propagated or...
(another disreputable biographer whose accounts still inform biographies)