Anticipation

This is the first reprint since 1822 of a politico-literary satire that delighted a generation of readers during and after the American War of Independence. It has seemed to the editor, and to others who encouraged the project, that the neglect of Anticipation has been due less to its want of interest than to the want of a properly edited reprint. The mere presence in it of so many names with deleted letters has discouraged later readers. The present volume provides an account of the author and of the setting and reception of Anticipation, an accurate text, explanatory notes, and a bibliography of Tickell’s writings.

Anticipation was written and printed hastily; and the spelling (especially of proper names), the punctuation, and sometimes even the grammar are erratic. But since it has proved impossible to distinguish the carelessness of the printer from that of the author, I have followed the first issue literally except when corrections were available in the following later ones: “The Third Edition, Corrected,” which appeared within a week of first publication; “The Tenth Edition, Corrected,” 1780, which was the last published during Tickell’s life; and “A New Edition, Corrected,” 1794, a re-issue occasioned, probably, by Tickell’s death and set from new type. Two or three flagrant errors (e.g., the name “Bonille” for “Bouillé” at p. 59) and a few typographical absurdities (such as quotation marks without mates) recur in all the London issues. These I have corrected without warrant from any text.

It should be stated that in the Introduction I have usually not cited sources for dates and other biographical details when the sources are correctly given in W. Fraser Rae’s article on Tickell in The Dictionary of National Biography. Unless otherwise indicated, the place of publication of all works cited is London.

A great many friends have contributed to the making of this book, and almost as many librarians in the United States and England have aided my researches for it. Some special debts I wish to record here. Randolph G. Adams, Director of the William L. Clements Library at Ann Arbor, Julian P. Boyd, Librarian of Princeton University, and Professor George Sherburn of Harvard have read my manuscript and given me helpful advice. W. S. Lewis, Esq., of Farmington, Connecticut, kindly allowed me to quote from notes written by Horace Walpole in a copy of Anticipation now in Mr. Lewis’ collection of Walpoliana; Richard Eustace Tickell, Esq., of London, sent me useful material from the Tickell family papers; Mrs. Flora V. Livingston and Mr. William Van Lennep, curators, respectively, of the Widener Collection and the Theatre Collection in the Harvard College Library, allowed me to quote from manuscript letters in their charge; the New York Public Library gave me permission to reproduce the title-page that precedes the text. For aid in preparing the Bibliography of Tickell’s Writings I am most indebted to Mr. John D. Gordan of the New York Public Library, who read and ably criticized it; to Miss Anne S. Pratt of the Yale University Library, and Mr. Frederick R. Goff of the Library of Congress, who answered numerous bibliographical inquiries; to the Union Catalog in the Library of Congress and its staff; and to the admirable Bibliotheca Americana, begun by Joseph Sabin, continued by Wilberforce Eames, and then completed by R. W. G. Vail, New York, 1868-1937. The services of Herbert B. Anstaett, Librarian of Franklin and Marshall College, have been so various, constant, and indispensable that they deserve my most sincere thanks. No thanks, however, can be adequate for the devoted work and interest bestowed on the preparation of this book, from beginning to end, by my wife.