About Gildon

Introduction to the Gildon Digital Documentary Edition

Charles Gildon is an under-studied eighteenth-century poet, author, and critic. Writing during the age of Daniel Defoe (author of Robinson Crusoe), Jonathan Swift (author of Gulliver's Travels), and Alexander Pope (author of The Rape of the Lock), Gildon has famously attacked all of these men in print, landing himself on the wrong side of literary history.

Nevertheless, Gildon' work is important for understanding the culture of the Grub Street hack writers, the dramatic productions of the late seventeenth century, and the critical standards of the day, and his work of prose fiction The Golden Spy made him the originator of the object narrative sub-genre in English. This documentary edition of the works of Charles Gildon makes corrected, searchable versions of his work more readily available for readers and scholars. In addition, this edition includes a collection of twentieth-century scholarly works about Gildon to preserve them and make them more accessible.