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at a much higher intellectual level. But the problems attending all subscriptions plagued this one. The first undertaker went bankrupt, and ended up in prison, whence he wrote pleading letters to the Royal Society bemoaning his involvement in the enterprise. By 1744, when the notorious George Psalmanazar first brought it to some kind of conclusion, it had grown to seven folio volumes and still not managed to move beyond the ancient world. Years behind schedule, it was by now the province of a string of Grub Street hacks. Yet the Universal History found readers across Europe, and had an influence even on Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopedia. Booksellers and printers across Europe sought to reprint it, while in London a new fit of speculation saw it grow again into what eventually became a sixty-six-volume set. And in Ireland George Faulkner saw his opportunity.

Faulkner thought of his reprint of the Universal History partly as a national project. It would be, he announced, "the greatest and most expensive Work ever yet attempted in this Kingdom." Issued in folio, it would sell at seven guineas-half the price of the London version. The first volume was duly published in February 1744. But soon it was clear that he would face a rival from the Dublin equivalent of Grub Street. Charles Leslie, a goldsmith, was the principal undertaker of this rival edition. His "great and cheap undertaking" appealed for subscribers to register at the Secretary's Office in Dublin Castle-perhaps an indication of administration support. Either that, or they could attend Richard Dickson, a bookman who ran a Rayner-style "elixir warehouse" in Dublin. The actual printer of the work was to be Margaret Rhames.44 None of these, it is important to note, was a member of the guild. Their edition was to be issued in octavo, making it much cheaper than Faulkner's folio. Faulkner duly complained of this attempt to "pirate" his edition. But it seemed to him more than a routine piece of opportunism. The pirates, he remarked darkly, were "itinerant Projectors"- that is, speculators, akin to hawkers of culture, who were "acting asAgents for People Abroad." Their true intent was nothing less than "to destroy Printing in this Kingdom." They had recently tried their "Experiments" in England and Scotland, Faulkner claimed, and had also previously tried, but failed, to undermine the industry in Ireland. If they succeeded this time then they would destroy learning and the arts in his country He therefore called on "Patriots" to help him to "confound such horrid Devices." Escalating the struggle, he promised to commit all the engravers in Ireland to his own edition. Together he and his compatriots would prove once and for all that Ireland possessed the patriotism, skill, and craft solidarity to complete such a work and eliminate its piratical rival.45

Faulkner's rather cryptic remark about foreign agents had a specific target. He was referring to Thomas Bacon-the same man whose testimony about posting we began with. Bacon had established himself in Dublin in the late 1730s. In 1741, the maverick LondonerThomas Osborne- a fellow participant in the Universal History-had introduced Samuel Richardson to him. Richardson had then asked Bacon in Dublin to reprint volumes three and four of Pamela for him. Faulkner had got to the work first, however, and Richardson had retaliated by sending Bacon 750 copies of the London-printed impression to sell against Faulkner's. This had caused the Dublin booksellers to suspect that Bacon was a mole-an agent sent by Richardson to undermine their entire trade. They believed that Bacon had received 1,5oo copies, not 750-enough to swamp the market. Furthermore, they were convinced that Osborne too had "joined in this detestable scheme" by sending type for Bacon to use in his reprint.46 Now, when they found that Bacon was in on the rival Universal History, they concluded that the publishing project was in effect a new assault on Irish publishing itself.

So Faulkner took an unusual, indeed unprecedented, step. He united the whole Dublin trade