Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) - photo 1
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Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

Lot 175
15.12.2023 11:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Sold
£ 12 600
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1108975
Lot 175 | Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
Estimate value
£ 8 000 – 12 000
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
Autograph letter signed ('J. Swift') to Benjamin Motte, Dublin, 15 July 1732
1½ pages, 183 x 149mm, integral address leaf. Provenance: Christie's, 11 June 1980, lot 490.

A declaration of confidence in the publisher of Gulliver's Travels. Swift writes to assure Motte that he is to be his only publisher both during his lifetime and posthumously, in collaboration with Alexander Pope as his literary executor. He is sufficiently recovered from his 'lameness' to be able to ride 'in Gambadoes', though not yet in stirrups: I ride twice or thrice a week about ten miles at a time, and I begin to walk the town'. If he is sufficiently recovered to be able to sail, he hopes to come to England to Amesbury, and then to spend the winter with Pope. He concludes with acknowledgement of a delivery of Bibles, 'and Dr Felton's books', and with reference to financial matters.

Upon my word, I never intended that any but yr self should be concerned as Printer or Bookseller in any thing that shall be published with my consent while I am alive or after my death by my Executors. As to my posthumous things I shall intrust them to Mr Pope, but with a strong recommendation that you alone may be employd, supposing and being assured of your honest and fair dealing ... I am likewise desirous that some time or other all that I acknoledge to be mine in prose and verse, which I shall approve of with any little things that shall be thought deserving should be published by them selves by you, during my life ... and this you may say to Mr Pope, as my resolution ...

Benjamin Motte (1693-1738) was most famously the publisher of Gulliver's Travels in 1726, which he achieved in collaboration with Alexander Pope whilst successfully preserving Swift's anonymity; from 1727 he also published the Miscellanies of Swift and Alexander Pope. His work with Swift was not without risk – he was briefly arrested in 1734 after the publication of An Epistle to a Lady. Swift's plans for a visit to England came to nothing – he was not to leave Ireland after 1727.

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