Isaac Bickerstaff Esq was a pseudonym used by Jonathan Swift as part of a hoax to predict the death of then-famous Almanac-maker and astrologer John Partridge.
"All Fools' Day" (1 April, now known as April Fools' Day) was Swift's favourite holiday, and he often used this day to aim his satirical wit at non-believers in an attempt to "make sin and folly bleed". Disgruntled by Partridge's sarcastic attack about the "infallible Church" written in his 1708 issue of Merlinus Almanac, Swift projected three letters and a eulogy as an elaborate plan to "predict" Partridge's "infallible death" on 29 March, the anniversary of the famous 1652 "Black Monday" eclipse, widely seen as discrediting to astrology.
The first of the three letters, Predictions for the Year 1708, published in January 1708, predicts, among other things, the death of Partridge by a "raging fever". In the second letter, The Accomplishment of the First of Mr. Bickerstaff's Predictions, published in March 1708, Swift writes not as Bickerstaff but as a "man employed in the Revenue", and "confirms" the imaginary Bickerstaff's prediction. To accompany The Accomplishments, Swift also published an elegy for Partridge in which, typical of Swift's satire, he blames not only Partridge, but those who purchase the Almanacs as well:
Here, five Foot deep, lies on his Back,
A Cobler, Starmonger, and Quack;
Who to the Stars in pure Good-will,
Does to his best look upward still.
Weep all you Customers that use
His Pills, his Almanacks, or Shoes;
And you that did your Fortunes seek,
Step to his Grave but once a Week:
This Earth which bears his Body's Print,
You'll find has so much Vertue in't,
That I durst pawn my Ears 'twill tell
Whate'er concerns you full as well,
In Physick, Stolen Goods, or Love,
As he himself could, when above.
The hoax gained immense popularity, and plagued Partridge to the true end of his life. Mourners, believing him dead, often kept him awake at night by crying outside his window. Accounts of an undertaker arriving at his house to arrange drapes for the mourning, an elegy being printed and even a gravestone being carved, culminate in Partridge publishing a letter in hopes of having the last word and proclaiming (and reclaiming) himself as living. In 1709 Swift, writing as Bickerstaff for the last time, published A Vindication of Isaac Bickerstaff, in which he abandoned any real attempt to maintain the hoax but disputed Partridge's public letter, saying, "There were sure no man alive ever to writ such damned stuff as this." He went on sarcastically to reason that "Death is defined by all Philosophers [as a] Separation of the Soul and Body. Now it is certain, that the poor Woman, who has best Reason to know [Partridge's wife], has gone about for some time to every Alley in the Neighbourhood, and swore to the Gossips, that Her Husband had neither Life nor Soul in Him."
Later in 1709, Richard Steele bolstered the release of his new paper The Tatler by naming the fictitious Isaac Bickerstaff Esq. as editor. The Tatler had occasional contributions from Swift, although largely written by Steele and Joseph Addison.
Benjamin Franklin based the persona of "Poor Richard", the author of Poor Richard's Almanack , on Swift's Bickerstaff character. [1]
In Jules Verne's 1895 novel Propeller Island , the governor of the titular island is named Cyrus Bikerstaff, in tribute to Swift's character.
H. P. Lovecraft used the pseudonym "Isaac Bickerstaffe [sic], Jr." in 1914 for a series of letters to the editor of The Providence Evening News, refuting the predictions of an astrologer the paper published. [2]
The Canadian caricaturist Don Evans (born Toronto, 1936) published in 1975–85 three volumes of cartoons under the pseudonym Isaac Bickerstaff. He lives in Orillia, Ontario, where he is active in local politics. [3] Personal archives including 300 drawings are at the University of Calgary. [4]
In the novel The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2008) and its eponymous 2018 film adaptation, the lead character, author Juliet Ashton, writes under the pen name Izzy Bickerstaff.
Adam J. Smith and Jo Waugh of The Conversation and Patricia Casey, writing for the Irish Independent , have suggested that fictional Twitter user Titania McGrath, created by comedian and Spiked columnist Andrew Doyle, was influenced by Bickerstaff. [5] [6]
Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer, poet, and Anglican cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, hence his common sobriquet, "Dean Swift".
A hoax is a widely publicised falsehood so fashioned as to invite reflexive, unthinking acceptance by the greatest number of people of the most varied social identities and of the highest possible social pretensions to gull its victims into putting up the highest possible social currency in support of the hoax.
Sir Richard Steele was an Anglo-Irish writer, playwright and politician best known as the co-founder of the magazine The Spectator alongside his close friend Joseph Addison.
An almanac is a regularly published listing of a set of current information about one or multiple subjects. It includes information like weather forecasts, farmers' planting dates, tide tables, and other tabular data often arranged according to the calendar. Celestial figures and various statistics are found in almanacs, such as the rising and setting times of the Sun and Moon, dates of eclipses, hours of high and low tides, and religious festivals. The set of events noted in an almanac may be tailored for a specific group of readers, such as farmers, sailors, or astronomers.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1704.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1709.
Poor Richard's Almanack was a yearly almanac published by Benjamin Franklin, who adopted the pseudonym of "Poor Richard" or "Richard Saunders" for this purpose. The publication appeared continually from 1732 to 1758. It sold exceptionally well for a pamphlet published in the Thirteen Colonies; print runs reached 10,000 per year.
John Partridge was an English astrologer, the author and publisher of a number of astrological almanacs and books.
Farmers' Almanac is an annual American periodical that has been in continuous publication since 1818. Published by Geiger of Lewiston, Maine, the Farmers' Almanac provides long-range weather predictions for both the U.S. and Canada. The periodical also provides calendars and articles on topics such as full moon dates, folklore, natural remedies, and the best days to do various outdoor activities.
Old Moore's Almanac is an almanac which has been published for nearly two and a half centuries. Its founder, Theophilus Moore, ran a classical academy at Milltown which was then a village near Dublin. A teacher of Irish, English, Greek and Latin, he became known as a clever mathematician and a wizard of astrology, gaining the nickname 'The Irish Merlin'. He published his Old Moore's Almanac for the first time in 1764, and received such support that the other Irish almanacs gradually dwindled away. Theophilus Moore is now buried in the Drumcondra Churchyard, in Dublin, but the tradition of Old Moore's Almanac continues unbroken to this day.
Events from the year 1708 in Great Britain.
Titan Leeds (1699–1738) was an 18th-century American almanac publisher.
Astrology had support in early Christianity, but support declined during the Middle Ages. Support for it grew again in the West during the Renaissance.
Rev. Nehemiah Strong was an American astronomer and meteorologist who was the first Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Yale College from 1770 and produced a series of annual ephemerides, the astronomical element in almanacs, which were printed in Hartford, Connecticut, and in New Haven.
Ames' Almanack (almanac) was the first almanac printed in the British North American colonies. While Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanack is more widely known, the Ames' Almanack had a much larger readership. Franklin's publication had a circulation of 10,000 copies compared to 60,000 for the Ames' Almanack.
Bickerstaff is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
The Tatler was a British literary and society journal begun by Richard Steele in 1709 and published for two years. It represented a new approach to journalism, featuring cultivated essays on contemporary manners, and established the pattern that would be copied in such British classics as Addison and Steele's The Spectator, Samuel Johnson's The Rambler and The Idler, and Goldsmith's Citizen of the World. The Tatler would also influence essayists as late as Charles Lamb and William Hazlitt. Addison and Steele liquidated The Tatler in order to make a fresh start with the similar Spectator, and the collected issues of Tatler are usually published in the same volume as the collected Spectator.
Martin Powell, was an Irish master puppeteer and puppet show impresario, who put on a repertoire of satirical and parodical marionette shows that invariably featured the Punch character. He drew audiences first at provincial towns such as Bath, then moving his venue to London. His theatre established itself in early 1710 at its first location, at the north end of St. Martin's Street intersected by Litchfield St., not quite in Covent Garden. But by 1711 he relocated the theatre to the galleries of Covent Garden, at Little Piazza, opposite St. Paul's Church.
Richard Baldwin was a British printer accused of seditious work. He worked closely with Abigail Baldwin who was his wife.
Titania McGrath (@TitaniaMcGrath) is a parody Twitter account created and run by Andrew Doyle, a British comedian and Spiked columnist. Doyle describes her as "a militant vegan who thinks she is a better poet than William Shakespeare". As of March 2021, the character has more than 600,000 followers. Using this pseudonym, Doyle wrote a book, Woke: A Guide to Social Justice, which was published on 7 March 2019. His second book under the name, My First Little Book of Intersectional Activism, was published in September 2020. He also created a live comedy show featuring Titania, which debuted at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 2019.