Finding Aid for the Alexander Pope [Letter, 1735 June 22?, to William Fortescue], 1735 June 22?
Cataloged by Manushag Powell, with assistance from Jain Fletcher and Laurel McPhee, August 2004; machine-readable finding
aid created by Caroline Cubé.
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Title: Alexander Pope [Letter, 1735 June 22?, to William Fortescue]
Date (inclusive): 1735 June 22?
Collection number: 170/332
Creator:
Pope, Alexander, 1688-1744
Extent:
1 leaf : paper ; 186 x 303 mm.
Abstract: Letter from Alexander Pope to his friend and legal advisor William Fortescue, largely concerning Pope's ongoing feud with
Edmund Curll.
Language: Finding aid is written in
English.
Repository:
University of California, Los Angeles. Library Special Collections.
Los Angeles, California 90095-1575
Physical location: Stored off-site at SRLF. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. Please contact the UCLA Library Special
Collections Reference Desk for paging information.
COLLECTION STORED OFF-SITE AT SRLF: Open for research. Advance notice required for access. Contact the UCLA Library Special
Collections Reference Desk for paging information.
Restrictions on Use and Reproduction
Property rights to the physical object belong to the UCLA Library Special Collections. Literary rights, including copyright,
are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright
and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
Cataloged by Manushag Powell, with assistance from Jain Fletcher and Laurel McPhee, August 2004, in the Center For Primary
Research and Training (CFPRT).
[Identification of item], Alexander Pope [Letter, 1735 June 22?, to William Fortescue] (Collection 170/332). UCLA Library
Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library.
UCLA Catalog Record ID:
4230403
Alexander Pope (May 21, 1688 - May 30, 1744) was one of the most influential and successful writers of the eighteenth century,
despite a physical disability and his Catholic faith during a Protestant regime. Pope participated in the first stirrings
of the modern copyright system by engaging himself with the question of literary propriety and ownership as an alternative
to private patronage.
This interest, as well as his fame and temper, led to numerous altercations with the infamously amoral publisher Edmund Curll.
This letter is evidence of one of their most important quarrels, though hardly the last. In 1726 Curll published an unauthorized
version of the correspondence of Pope and Henry Cromwell (Cromwell's mistress apparently procured him the letters), and –
skipping ahead over a number of skirmishes – in 1733 Pope began to engineer an elaborate plot to strike back. He desired to
publish an authorized collection of his own correspondence.
Using a variety of stratagems, he conveyed without using his name a large number of his letters, already printed and edited
by himself, to Curll in 1735. There is some question as to how long Curll was really fooled by Pope's manipulations, but on
12 May 1735 Curll published a two volume collection of Pope's letters. The resulting wrangling and counter-wrangling included
Pope's running newspaper advertisements denouncing Curll's edition as spurious, while at the same time, as noted in his letter
to William Fortescue, having Thomas Cooper claim copyright and publish an edition of the letters to compete with Curll's in
late May. Curll claimed in advertisements to be in possession of letters from Francis Atterbury to Pope and promised their
publication in a new edition; Cooper censured the claim (correctly) as false, Curll attempted legal recourse against Cooper's
competition, and Pope (in this letter) consulted William Fortescue, his friend and legal adviser, on the mess. Pope finally
put forth an elaborate authorized edition of his own in 1737.
William Fortescue was a close friend of Pope's, as well as a lawyer, Master of the Rolls, and MP. He is also the admonishing
second speaker in Pope's First Imitation of Horace (Sat. II.i).
This brief letter alludes to Pope's attempts to manipulate Curll in the matter of publishing Pope's correspondence in 1735.
Accompanying the manuscript is an undated dealer description, which states the letter is proof that Pope "was hand in glove
with the justices before whom his enemy appeared for trial." Though Justice Fortescue was involved in Curll's trial over the
pornographic Venus in the Cloister, this was unrelated to Pope. Pope did sue Curll in 1741 for publishing his correspondence
with Swift, but in this he was represented by William Murray, not William Fortescue. The clipping is correct, however, in
the letter offers a signed admission of Pope having worked with Cooper against Curll.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
Manuscripts.
The text of this letter also appears in George Sherburn's
Correspondence of Alexander Pope (Clarendon Press, 1956; see Volume 3, p 469). Sherburn silently emends some of Pope's abbreviations, and his punctuation
differs very slightly from that of the manuscript.
Bound Manuscripts Collection (Collection 170)
. Available at UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library.
Note
Layout: Autographed signed letter.
Script: Cursive.
Binding: Cloth-covered folder case.
Note
The text is as follows:
To Wm. Fortescue Esqr.
Dear Sir,
Since I left you, I am informed Curll has sent a Process upon Cooper, (the Publisher of the Letters wch I told you I connived
at, who Enterd them in the Hall-book), for what I know not? Only I am told he put an Advertisement into a news paper agst
Curll – I bid him send you the Process, yt [that] you may judge what is to be done in it; If any thing be necessary, pray
acquaint me.
I send Mrs. Blounts Receit, as you order'd. God prosper you, protect you, bless you! As I Love you, & shall ever d
Dear Sir, write me a Line / of your health soon. A. Pope.
Sunday / night