The Callous Appetites of Debauched Readers: Edmund Curll and The Potent Ally
Abstract
The Potent Ally (1741) was an early spin-off from Thomas Stretser’s spectacularly successful erotic somatopia A New Description of Merryland (1740). This small collection of erotic verse and prose, published by Edmund Curll, contains the three most important prophylactic poems composed in the early eighteenth century. After a brief account of the marketing frame established by Curll for The Potent Ally, this essay provides a detailed textual and publication history of each of the three condom poems, which are the core of the collection. This essay identifies establishes early manuscript and lost printed versions of these mock-heroic celebrations of the newly-available condom, and provides an edited text of the previously-unpublished “Burlesque Ode in Imitation of Horace’s Integer Vitæ” (1706) by Charles Boyle, fourth Earl of Orrery.References
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A Catalogue of the Libraries of the Reverend and Learned Thomas Brathwaite, D. D. … And His Late Nephew, Tho. Brathwaite, Surgeon and Anatomist … Which will be Sold by auction, At John’s Coffee-House, in Cursitor’s-Alley, beginning on Monday the 21st Day of June 1731, and the following Days, till all are sold. By T. Payne, Bookseller, at the Crown in Pater-Noster-Row ([London: T. Payne, 1731]).
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Stretser, Thomas, A New Description of Merryland, 5th ed. (Bath: Printed: And sold by J. Leak there; and by E. Curll, at Pope’s Head in Rose-street, Covent-Garden, 1741).
Stretser, Thomas, A New Description of Merryland, 7th ed. (Bath: Printed: And sold by J. Leak there; and by E. Curll, at Pope’s Head in Rose-street, Covent-Garden, 1741).
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Wright, Joseph, ed., The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols. (London: H. Frowde; New York: G. P. Putnam’s sons, 1898–1905).
Ashbee, Henry Spencer, Centuria Librorum Absconditorum: Being Notes Bio- Biblio- Icono- Graphical & Critical On Curious & Uncommon Books (London: Privately Printed, 1879).
Bailey, Nathaniel, An Universal Etymological English Dictionary, New ed. (Edinburgh: Printed by Neill and Company; sold by J. Bell, C. Elliot, and the other booksellers, 1783).
Baine, Rodney M., “Rochester or Fishbourne: A Question of Authorship,” The Review of English Studies, Vol. 22, No. 87 (1946): 201–6.
Baines, Paul, and Pat Rogers, Edmund Curll, Bookseller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
Bond, Richmond P., English Burlesque Poetry (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1932).
Boyle, Charles, fourth Earl of Orrery, “The Earl of Roscomon to Orinda: an imitation of Horace. Integer vitæ, &c. Carm. lib. I. od. 22.” in Katherine Philips, Poems by the Most Deservedly Admired Mrs. Katherine Philips, the Matchless Orinda (London: Printed by J. M. for H. Herringman, 1667), B2r.
A Catalogue of the Libraries of the Reverend and Learned Thomas Brathwaite, D. D. … And His Late Nephew, Tho. Brathwaite, Surgeon and Anatomist … Which will be Sold by auction, At John’s Coffee-House, in Cursitor’s-Alley, beginning on Monday the 21st Day of June 1731, and the following Days, till all are sold. By T. Payne, Bookseller, at the Crown in Pater-Noster-Row ([London: T. Payne, 1731]).
Cotton, Charles, Erotopolis. The Present State of Betty-land (London: Printed for Tho. Fox, 1684).
Curll, Edmund, “To Florio, at York,” in Cupid’s Metamorphoses or, Love in all Shapes. Being The Second and last Volume of the Poetical Works of Mr. William Pattison (London: Printed in the year 1728), A2r–v.
Davis, Henry George, The Memorials of the Hamlet of Knightsbridge, edited by C. Davis (London: J. Russell Smith, 1859).
The English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) online [http://estc.bl.uk/].
Fielding, Henry, The Author’s Farce; and The Pleasures of the Town (London: for J. Roberts, 1730).
Gildon, Charles, The Lives and Characters of the English Dramatick Poets (London: Tho. Leigh and William Turner, [1699]).
Gooch, Leo, “James Radcliffe, styled third earl of Derwentwater (1689–1716),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/22983, accessed 22 December 2015]
Gordon, Patrick, Geography Anatomiz’d: Or, the Geographical Grammar. Being a Short and Exact Analysis of the Whole Body of Modern Geography, 15th ed. (London: For J. and P. Knapton, D. Midwinter [and nine others], 1737).
The Harlot’s Progress: Or, The Humours of Drury-Lane, 5th ed. (London, [1732]).
The Harlot’s Progress: Or, The Humours of Drury-Lane. In Six Cantos, 2nd ed. (London: Printed for B. Dickinson and R. Mountague, and sold by J. Brotherton, R. Ware, A. Dodd [and three others], 1732).
Harvey, Karen, “‘The Majesty of the Masculine-Form’: Multiplicity and Male Bodies in Eighteenth-Century Erotica,” in English Masculinities, 1660–1800, edited by Tim Hitchcock and Michèle Cohen (London: Routledge, 2014), 193–214.
Hatcher, Robert Anthony, James Trussell, Anita L. Nelson et al., Contraceptive Technology, 19th revised ed. (New York: Ardent Media, 2007).
Hayward, John Davy, “Mad Rochester” [a review of Johannes Prinz, John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester: His Life and Writings (Leipzig, 1927)], Times Literary Supplement (16 October 1930): 831a–b.
Horace, Odes and Epodes. Loeb Classical Library 33 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004).
Horace, Satires, Epistles and Ars Poetica. Loeb Classical Library 194 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1929).
An Impartial History of the Life, Character, Amours, Travels, and Transactions of Mr. John Barber (London: Printed for E. Curll, at Pope’s Head, in Rose-Street, Covent-Garden, 1741).
Jacob, Giles, The Poetical Register, 2 vols. (London: Printed for E. Curll, 1719).
Kearney, Patrick J., The Private Case: An Annotated Bibliography of the Private Case Erotica Collection in the British (Museum) Library (London: J. Landesman, 1981).
Lewes, Darby, Nudes from Nowhere: Utopian Sexual Landscapes (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000).
Lillywhite, Bryant, London Coffee Houses: A Reference Book of Coffee Houses of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Nineteenth Centuries (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1963).
Love, Harold, English Clandestine Satire (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2004).
The Luscious Poet: Or, Venus’s Miscellany (London: Printed for T. Dormer, 1732).
The Machine, or Love’s Preservative (London: Printed for T. Reynolds, 1744).
Martensen, Robert L., “John Radcliffe (bap. 1650, d. 1714),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/22985, accessed 22 December 2015].
“Memoirs of the Author’s Life, &c.” in Poetical Works of Mr. William Pattison (London: Printed for H. Curll), 1–60.
Minsheu, John, Minshaei emendatio, vel à mendis expurgatio, seu augmentatio sui Ductoris in linguas, The Guide into Tongues, 2nd ed. (London: John Haviland, 1627).
A New and General Biographical Dictionary, New ed., 8 Vols. (London: Printed for the Proprietors, 1795).
“New books printed for E. Curll,” [6-page] in Dean Swift’s Literary Correspondence, for twenty-four years; from 1714 to 1738 (London: Printed for E. Curll, at Pope’s-Head, in Rose-Street, Covent-Garden, 1741).
“New Books Printed for E. Curll,” [8-page] in Thomas Betterton, The History of the English Stage from the Restauration [sic] to the Present Time (London: Printed for E. Curll, 1741).
The New-Tea-Table Miscellany (Glasgow: James Knox, 1752).
Oxford English Dictionary (OED online) [http://www.oed.com/].
Partridge, Eric, A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 5th ed. 2 vols. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984).
Pattison, William, Cupid’s Metamorphoses or, Love in all Shapes. Being The Second and last Volume of the Poetical Works of Mr. William Pattison (London: Printed in the year 1728).
Pattison, William, The Poetical Works of Mr. William Pattison (London: H. Curll, 1727).
The Potent Ally: Or Succours from Merryland (Paris: Printed by direction of the author, and sold by the booksellers of London and Westminster, 1741).
Prinz, Johannes, John Wilmot Earl of Rochester (Leipzig: Mayer & Müller, 1927).
Rawlinson, Richard, Bodleian MS. [Rawl. J. 4o. 2].
Robertson of Struan, Alexander, Poems, on Various Subjects and Occasions (Edinburgh: Ch. Alexander, [n.d.]).
Rogers, Pat, The Samuel Johnson Encyclopedia (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996).
Rowe, Nicholas, The Poetical Works of Nicholas Rowe (Edinburgh: Apollo Press, 1781).
Rowe, Nicholas, The Poetical Works of Nicholas Rowe, Esq. (London: E. Curll, 1715).
Seccombe, Thomas, “Elizabeth Needham (d. 1731),” rev. Philip Carter, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/19842, accessed 22 December 2015].
Seccombe, Thomas, “William Pattison (1706–1727),” rev. John Wyatt, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/21586, accessed 22 December 2015].
Smith, Lawrence B., “Charles Boyle, fourth earl of Orrery (1674–1731),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/3124, accessed 22 December 2015].
Sotheby’s English Literature, History, Children’s Books and Illustrations [sale no. LO4413] (London: Sotheby’s, 16 December 2004).
Spedding, Patrick, “‘The New Machine’: Discovering the limits of ECCO,” Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. 44, No. 4 (2011): 437–53.
Spedding, Patrick, A Bibliography of Eliza Haywood (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2004)
Spedding, Patrick, ed., The Geography and Natural History of Mid-Eighteenth-Century Erotica. Eighteenth-Century British Erotica, Vol. 3 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2002).
Straus, Ralph, The Unspeakable Curll, being Some Account of Edmund Curll, Bookseller; To Which is added a Full List of His Books (1923; rpr. New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1970).
Stretser, Thomas, Merryland Displayed (Bath: Printed for the Author, and sold by J. Leake; and the Booksellers of London and Westminster, 1741).
Stretser, Thomas, A New Description of Merryland (Bath: Printed for W. Jones, and Sold by W. Lobb, 1741).
Stretser, Thomas, A New Description of Merryland, 5th ed. (Bath: Printed: And sold by J. Leak there; and by E. Curll, at Pope’s Head in Rose-street, Covent-Garden, 1741).
Stretser, Thomas, A New Description of Merryland, 7th ed. (Bath: Printed: And sold by J. Leak there; and by E. Curll, at Pope’s Head in Rose-street, Covent-Garden, 1741).
Vincent, John, “For Sale: Last Surviving Copy of ‘Quintessential’ English Pornography,” The Independent, 26 November 2004.
Ward, Edward, “St. Pauls Church; Or, The Protestant Ambulators. A Burlesque Poem,” in Æsop at Paris, His Letters and Fables. Translated from the original French ([London]: John How, 1701).
Weinreb, Ben, and Christopher Hibbert, eds., The London Encyclopedia (London: Papermac, 1987).
Wright, Joseph, ed., The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols. (London: H. Frowde; New York: G. P. Putnam’s sons, 1898–1905).
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2018-02-01
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