Chapter 6 - Delegating in London, Recouping in Dublin

Summary

London publication still held apparent advantages that Dublin could not reliably offer (legally secured copyrights, high-quality printwork, effective distribution and assistance from the established contacts of Swift’s London years). After the Drapier affair, there was a brief period when the Dublin-based Swift once more centred his publications in London, arguably to the benefit of Swift in print, though not in the end to the satisfaction of Swift himself. Now that Tooke was dead, Swift sold the copy of his Travels to his successor, Benjamin Motte the younger, and provided Pope with material for a joint set of London Miscellanies. Later, enraged by the selection and censorship they had exercised, Swift responded by conniving at the appearance of authorial revisions in Dublin reprints – even while entrusting Irish friends with more poems to carry to press in London.