![[SWIFT, Jonathan]. Predictions for the year 1708 … . Written to prevent the people of England from being further impos’d on by vulgar almanack-makers. By Isaac Bickerstaff Esq. [London]: John Morphew, 1708.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2015/NYR/2015_NYR_12435_0168_000(swift_jonathan_predictions_for_the_year_1708_written_to_prevent_the_pe120520).jpg?w=1)
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[SWIFT, Jonathan]. Predictions for the year 1708 … . Written to prevent the people of England from being further impos’d on by vulgar almanack-makers. By Isaac Bickerstaff Esq. [London]: John Morphew, 1708.
8° (187 x 112mm). (Title slightly soiled.) Modern green straight-grained quarter morocco.
FIRST EDITION of the first of Swift’s Bickerstaff pamphlets, published at the end of January 1708. John Partridge was responsible for the poor grammar and syntax of the long-running almanac Merlinus Liberatus, and had likewise offended Swift by his Nonconformity and aggressive claims to prognostic power. Ehrenpreis notes that “One year he boasted he had exactly foretold a particular death” (Swift. ii. 199). Bickerstaff is not just a pseudonym, but the persona of an astrologer who is superior to “the common Dealers in it, the Students in Astrology, the Philomaths, and the rest of that Tribe.” He wonders at the credulity of country gentlemen “poring in Partridge’s Almanack, to find out the events of the year.” Instead he offers his own predictions, the first “trifle” being the announcement that Partridge the almanack-maker “will infallibly dye upon the 29th of March next, about Eleven at night, of a raging fever.” AN IMPORTANT AND ELUSIVE TRACT. Although there were seven editions, no auction sale of any edition has been recorded since 1980. Rothschild 1995; Rumbold, Parodies, Hoaxes, Mock Treatises 37-40, 642-47; Teerink 483.
8° (187 x 112mm). (Title slightly soiled.) Modern green straight-grained quarter morocco.
FIRST EDITION of the first of Swift’s Bickerstaff pamphlets, published at the end of January 1708. John Partridge was responsible for the poor grammar and syntax of the long-running almanac Merlinus Liberatus, and had likewise offended Swift by his Nonconformity and aggressive claims to prognostic power. Ehrenpreis notes that “One year he boasted he had exactly foretold a particular death” (Swift. ii. 199). Bickerstaff is not just a pseudonym, but the persona of an astrologer who is superior to “the common Dealers in it, the Students in Astrology, the Philomaths, and the rest of that Tribe.” He wonders at the credulity of country gentlemen “poring in Partridge’s Almanack, to find out the events of the year.” Instead he offers his own predictions, the first “trifle” being the announcement that Partridge the almanack-maker “will infallibly dye upon the 29th of March next, about Eleven at night, of a raging fever.” AN IMPORTANT AND ELUSIVE TRACT. Although there were seven editions, no auction sale of any edition has been recorded since 1980. Rothschild 1995; Rumbold, Parodies, Hoaxes, Mock Treatises 37-40, 642-47; Teerink 483.