Defining Rochester’s Canon in the Eighteenth Century: The Role of Bragge and Curll

Abstract

Abstract Benjamin Bragge and Edmund Curll published one of the most popular poetry collections of the eighteenth century: The Miscellaneous Works of the Right Honourable the late Earls of Rochester and Roscommon. Originally produced by Bragge in 1706, then reissued the following year under Curll’s imprint, its first part initiated what David Vieth termed the C series of Rochester’s collected poems that enjoyed at least 25 iterations until c.1798. The inaccuracy of the title—no place was found for Rochester’s play Valentinian, his letters, his lyrics or the Alexander Bendo advertisement—was compounded not only by the absence of any texts scholars now perceive to be authoritative but by incorrect attributions for three-quarters of its predominantly libertine and satiric matter, the majority of which, surprisingly, had already been printed under Rochester’s name. Curll published two further editions which continued Bragge’s emphasis and increased the publications’ attraction for the unsophisticated reader. From 1718 the miscellany was published anonymously, perhaps initially under Curll’s direction, and the now settled contents formed the basis on which Rochester’s poetry was understood and appreciated. Despite Vieth’s accurate definition of the canon in 1968, the record of the Bragge-Curll misattributions continues to impede an accurate public perception of Rochester’s poetic achievement.