INTRODUCTION.

I. PUBLICATION.

A Tale of a Tub was published in the spring of 1704, in a volume which contained also An Account of a Battel between the Antient and Modern Books in St. James's Library and A Discourse Concerning the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit. The volume was anonymous, and no part of it had hitherto been printed.

It is a question how far the author was responsible for the publication of the volume, and for the text as it appeared. From statements in the 'Apology' prefixed to the fifth edition in 1710,' in the Bookseller to the Reader', and in Swift's letter to Tooke of June 29, 1710,3. we learn that there were three copies of the manuscript of the Tale,-a 'blotted' or corrected copy which the author had by him, a copy which he had 2. lent to a person since dead and which came to the bookseller's hands in 1698, and a copy of some part' a which Swift had lent to Thomas Swift, his 'little parson cousin'. The author, we are told, had intended to make another copy, with many alterations', but was forestalled by the publication of the copy procured by the bookseller.

The friend to whom the author lent the copy is said to have given it to the bookseller, and to have expunged

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certain Passages where now the Chasms appear under the Name of Desiderata';' and for this surreptitious copy' the bookseller is said to have given a good sum of money. In four different places in the Apology' the author asserts that his papers were out of his control when the Tale was printed. On the other hand there is a passage in the Conclusion' of the Tale' which would suggest that the author dealt directly with the bookseller: 'No Man hath more nicely observed our Climate, than the Bookseller who bought the Copy of this Work.... I desired to know, considering my urgent Necessities, what he thought might be acceptable this Month'. If we took this literally we should have to hold that the author himself disposed of the copy.

These statements, and other conflicting but not irreconcilable statements about the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit, cannot fail to suggest deliberate mystification. On the whole it seems probable that the book was published through the agency of a friend, who may have exercised a certain amount of discretion-probably a very small amount-in seeing it through the press.

It was quite in keeping with Swift's methods on other occasions to provide the printer with a fair copy of the manuscript, and to keep the blotted' autograph. When he brought out his Letter to the October Club it was a transcript in another hand that he sent to the press, in order that he might not be known for author'. A similar course was followed with Gulliver's Travels,