Satire raged in England in the early 18th century. Personal abuse, among both Whigs and Tories whose antipathies were still kindled by the embers of revolutionary fires and the intimate group of Augustan men of letters whose presiding wits were Swift and Pope, was savage. The Worshipful Company of Stationers’ authority over the book trade, in particular its censoring powers, had waned and the operation of the fledgling Copyright Act of 1710 was fitful. Publishers and booksellers, usually the same persons, had a field day. ‘Grub Street’ entered the language as the name for the London coven of hack writers and their publishers. Edmund Curll was its high priest.

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