Pope, Curll, and the Strategies of Anonymity
from Part IV - The Tug of War
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 June 2026
Part III concerns the quarrel between Curll and Pope, which went on for almost thirty years, and raises significant issues, not just as it affected their careers, but also as it inflects the history of the book. These matters include the situation of both authors and publishers after the Copyright Act; the nature of piracy; the habit of (in effect) self-publishing that Pope acquired; the implications of anonymity, on both sides of the fence; the relations between elite and popular culture; and the literary portrayal of booksellers. Chapter 8 focusses on anonymity in the presentation of Pope’s poems and Curll’s publications. A brief introductory segment describes the historical valency of anonymous writing. The subsequent discussion traces a development that James McLaverty has characterised as ‘the blurring of authorship’, and shows how this is played out in The Dunciad and Curll’s responses to the work. Attention is given to other items by Pope that appeared anonymously or pseudonymously, together with attacks by Curll that constitute a reply in kind.
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