Thursday, November 03, 2011

A Modest Plea for Help

I'm teaching Swift's "A Modest Proposal" next week, and I thought it would be cool to look at it on EEBO and maybe show the students.

But I can't seem to get EEBO to find it. I've tried looking under Swift, under the title without Swift's name, under keywords from the title, and so forth. But I haven't had any luck.

And now, of course, I'm completely obsessed. I think we should have a new rule that any early text posted to the web should come with an STC or Wing number so that I can look it up easily!

In lieu of that, however, I'd be grateful if someone with access to Wing or better searching skills on EEBO can help, please. If I can get a Wing number or something, I should be able to get it, assuming it's on EEBO. (It was published in Dublin first, and second, but also eventually in England, but I couldn't find it at all.)

Thanks! (I'd be happy to send a picture postcard from, say, Norwich or somewhere equally exciting to anyone who can help!)

4 comments:

  1. I think it's not on EEBO because it was published after 1700 - the ESTC reckons the first edition was 1729. Hence it won't be in Wing, either.

    http://estc.bl.uk/F/48K2FG7QLJKV12FH3RHCL57EPIJRPEEPBTXJ44XYEUD4YL1D9H-03910?func=full-set-set&set_number=119036&set_entry=000001&format=999

    It should presumably be on ECCO though, if you have access to that? I don't, so am not able to check myself.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I came here to say what Mercurius did, but I can add that it is on ECCO.

    If you have to access ECCO through a proxy server, you can use this document ID to go straight to it: CW3303992719.

    Brian

    P.S. Did you end up visiting Paris?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yay you guys! Thanks for reminding me! You would think I'd have thought of that.

    I haven't made it to Paris YET, but that's the plan for the weekend after Norwich! (For us, it will be a four day weekend!) I'm very excited :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I don't even know what EEBO is, so I'm no help on that front (and it looks like you got all the help you need anyway). But here's what I was going to say that worked really well last year when I taught Swift: Before they read it, we watched and talked about clips from The Colbert Report, which helped them understand the idea of a persona who's saying something outrageously opposite of what the author actually wants to communicate. That may not be an option in your UK classroom setup, but I thought I'd just pass it along.

    ReplyDelete