Avoiding the "Cooler Tribunal of the Study": Richard Brinsley Sheridan's Writer's Block and Late Eighteenth-Century Print Culture

ELH ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 831-856
Author(s):  
Frank Donoghue
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Print Culture ◽  
Writer's Block ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Writer’S Block

The Adventures of Miss Sophia Berkley: Piracy, Print Culture, and Irish Gothic Fiction

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-244
Author(s):  
Christina Morin
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Print Culture ◽  
Gothic Literature ◽  
Literary Production ◽  
Gothic Novel ◽  
Gothic Fiction ◽  
Publication History ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
History Of

Published in Dublin by the prominent Catholic printing firm of James Hoey, The Adventures of Miss Sophia Berkley (1760) has been identified in recent years as an earlier Irish gothic fiction than Horace Walpole's putatively pioneering gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto (1764). The discovery that Sophia Berkley is, in fact, a re-print of an earlier London publication, The History of Amanda (1758), casts significant doubt on the novel's contribution to the development of Irish gothic literature. This article argues that attention to the particulars of the novel's publication history as well as its later misidentification paints a revealing picture of popular publishing in Dublin in the latter half of the eighteenth century. It further contends that Sophia Berkley's identification as early Irish gothic – although mistaken – has proven instrumental in scholarly re-evaluations of late-eighteenth century Irish gothic literary production.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Mitchell Sommers
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Print Culture ◽  
Premature Death ◽  
Business Partner ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Patent Medicine

The introduction focuses on Ebenezer Sibly’s premature death in 1799, and the proving of his will. Sibly’s will is a fascinating document that he hoped would bring order to his family and finances after his death. It did the opposite, instead alienating his brother and executor Manoah and setting the stage for sprawling lawsuits between his daughter Urania, and last business partner, Charles Wilson Saffell, over control of Sibly’s estate, and especially his patent medicine business. The introduction also briefly presents the Siblys as an ambitious family who sought more than their humble origins as shoemakers would destine them for. The rise of the Siblys is set against their religious backgrounds and the print culture of late eighteenth-century London.

scholarly journals "The Brain-Sucker: Or, the Distress of Authorship”: A Late Eighteenth-Century Satire of Grub Street

Authorship ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingo Berensmeyer ◽  
Gero Guttzeit ◽  
Alise Jameson
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Print Culture ◽  
Short Fiction ◽  
Critical Edition ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Implications ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Brain

Originally printed in the first issue of The British Mercury in 1787, “The Brain-Sucker: Or, the Distress of Authorship” is a piece of satirical short fiction that has so far received only little attention in discussions of eighteenth-century print culture and practices of authorship. Probably written by the Scottish radical John Oswald (c. 1760-1793), “The Brain-Sucker” is told in the form of a letter by a farmer who tells an absent friend about his unfortunate son Dick, whose brain has become infected by poetry. This “disorder” leads Dick to London, where he falls prey to a ruthless publisher, known as “the Brain-sucker”, who keeps him like a slave in a Grub Street garret. The farmer then travels to London to save his son from the clutches of the Brain-Sucker. We present the text, for the first time, in a critical edition, collated from the three surviving copies, with textual and explanatory notes. In the accompanying essay, we discuss the text’s context of origin in late eighteenth-century Grub Street and the cultural implications of its satirical presentation of authorship.

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