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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2021
The works included in this volume
This volume of the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Jonathan Swift contains the three texts which together made up Swift's early satiric and intellectual masterpiece, ATale of a Tub: that is, ATale of a Tub itself; A Full and True Account of the Battel, Fought last Friday, between the Antient and the Modern Books in St James's Library; and ADiscourse Concerning theMechanical Operation of the Spirit. In a Letter to a Friend. A Fragment.
In addition, this volume includes two further categories of writing:
(i) early writings clearly acknowledged by Swift, which were associated either with Swift's work on the posthumous publication of the works of Sir William Temple or with the Tale: that is, the editorial materials, including prefaces and notes, from Temple's Letters (1700), Miscellanea. The Third Part (1701), Letters to the King (1703), and Memoirs. Part III (1709), and Swift's correspondence with Benjamin Tooke, Junior, in 1710, regarding the fifth edition of the Tale;
(ii) writings by others, which have a clear, vital and contemporary connection with the Tale: that is, relevant passages fromWilliam Wotton's Observations upon the Tale of a Tub (1705); Edmund Curll's Complete Key to the Tale of a Tub (1710); and relevant passages from the Miscellaneous Works, Comical and Diverting, byT.R.D.J.S.D.O.P.I.I., published in Holland in 1720. These non-canonical materials are printed in an appendix.
Works not belonging to either of these categories will be published in later volumes of this edition.
‘A Tale of a Tub’, ‘The Battel of the Books’ and ‘A Discourse Concerning theMechanical Operation of the Spirit’
Publication
The first edition of A Tale of a Tub, with The Battel of the Books and The Mechanical Operation of the Spirit, was published on 10 May 1704; it was advertised in the Post Man for 9 May as to be published the next day and in the Daily Courant for 10 May as to be published that day. Swift's usual practice would be to ensure he was out of England before the date of a London publication; unusually, the first edition of the Tale was published some three weeks before he left for Ireland at the end of May.
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