Subjects
Satire, Fantasy and Writings on the Supernatural by Daniel Defoe
General Editors W R Owens and P N Furbank
Volume Editors: David Blewett, Peter Elmer, John Mullan, Geoffrey Sill and G A Starr
Works of Daniel Defoe
The Pickering Masters
978 1 85196 728 5: 234x156mm: £350.00/$625.00
978 1 85196 733 9: 234x156mm: £350.00/$625.00
Daniel Defoe (1660–1731) is now best known as a novelist, but in his own lifetime he was much more famous as a political satirist. This was the great age of poetic satire, and Defoe clearly had ambitions to rival poets like Dryden. Defoe’s poetry abounded in savagely satirical sketches of personalities, and lashed corruption and hypocrisy. The importance he placed on poetry as a vehicle for serious political argument is seen in the sheer scale of a major work, the lengthy twelve-book Jure Divino (1706), an elaborate and learned attack on theories of the ‘divine right’ of monarchs.
This new set is edited to the highest standards, offering readers accurate texts and a wealth of editorial matter including introductions, full explanatory and textual notes, and consolidated index. The edition will be of interest to scholars of the eighteenth century, its politics, religion and literature.
Contents
Volume 1
A New Discovery of an Old Intreague (1691); An Encomium upon a Parliament [1699]; The Pacificator. A Poem (1700); The True-Born Englishman. A Satyr (1700 [perhaps for 1701]); Ye True-Born Englishmen Proceed [1701]; The Mock Mourners. A Satyr, by Way of Elegy on King William (1702); Reformation of Manners, a Satyr (1702); The Spanish Descent. A Poem (1702); More Reformation. A Satyr upon Himself (1703); A Hymn to the Pillory (1703); A Hymn to the Funeral Sermon [1703]; An Elegy on the Author of the True-Born-English-Man. With an; Essay on the Late Storm (1704); A Hymn to Victory (1704); The Double Welcome. A Poem to the Duke of Marlboro’ (1705); The Dyet of Poland, a Satyr (1705); A Hymn to Peace. Occasion’d, by the Two Houses Joining in One; Address to the Queen (1706); A Hymn to the Mob (1715)
Volume 2
Jure Divino: A Satyr In Twelve Books (1706)
Volume 3
The Consolidator (1705); Memoirs of Count Tariff, &c (1713); The Quarrel of the School-Boys at Athens (1717)
Volume 4
Minutes of the Negotiations of Monsr. Mesnager (1717); Secret Memoirs of a Treasonable Conference at S— House (1717) [for 1716]; The Old Whig and Modern Whig Revived (1717)
Volume 5
Acknowledgements; Introduction; The Conduct of Christians made the Sport of Infidels (1717); A Continuation of Letters written by a Turkish Spy (1718)
Volume 6
The Political History of the Devil (1726)
Volume 7
A System of Magick (1727)
Volume 8
An Essay on the History and Reality of Apparitions (1727)
Reviews
'Under the editorship of W R Owens and P N Furbank, the Pickering & Chatto series promises to be the most authoritative and extensive publishing of Defoe's writings ever...the potentially radical effect of this project may well be to eventually displace the centrality of Defoe's novels, and enable students and scholars to begin to envision a new Defoe.
...While this latest edition displays the cross-current of ideas between Defoe's many works, it also alerts us to the value and power of these works in themselves. [It] demonstrates Defoe's generic malfeasance, his poetic irreverence, his narrative daring, and his eccentric modernity. Satire, Fantasy and Writings on the Supernatural by Daniel Defoe should be a vital and vitalising addition to any institution serious about the study of Defoe and the eighteenth century.'
– Stephen H Gregg, English