Defoe, the Sacheverell Affair, and A Letter to Mr. Bisset (1709)

Seager, Nick

Abstract

This article aims to remove the “probable” caveat from one title listed in P. N. Furbank and W. R. Owens’s Critical Bibliography of Daniel Defoe (1998). It demonstrates that previously overlooked external evidence confirms the internal evidence cited by Furbank and Owens, showing that Defoe certainly was the author of A Letter to Mr. Bisset (1709). Item “103(P)” in the Critical Bibliography should now be simply “103.” Our knowing for certain he wrote the pamphlet also presents an opportunity to clarify precisely how Defoe satirizes Henry Sacheverell in this neglected piece.

Citation

Seager, N. (2021). Defoe, the Sacheverell Affair, and A Letter to Mr. Bisset (1709). Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 115(1), 79-86. https://doi.org/10.1086/712790

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 15, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Mar 1, 2021
• Publication Date: Mar 1, 2021
• Journal: Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America
• Print ISSN: 0006-128X
• Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 115
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 79-86
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/712790
• Publisher URL: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/712790