A group of letters from the late 20th century found their way to Samuel Madden, who rushed to
publish them in this volume, but then destroyed most of the copies.
I found this account of
Madden’s book in Googlebooks scanned copy of the work. The note is attributed to
Anecdotes of the Life of Mr. Wm. Bowyer:
There is
something mysterious in the History of this Work; it was written by Dr. Samuel Madden,
Patriot of Ireland; & addressed in an Ironical Dedication, [to] Frederick Prince of Wales.
One Volume only of these Memoirs appeared, and whether any more were really intended is
uncertain. A Thousand Copies were printed, with such very great dispatch that three Printers
were employed on it (Bowyer, Woodfall, & Roberts,) but the whole of the Business was
transacted by Bowyer, without either of the other Printers ever seeing the Author: and the
Names of an uncommon number of reputable Booksellers appeared in the Title Page. The Book was
finished at the Press on March 24th 17323 and 100 Copies were that day
delivered to the Author: on the 29th a number of them was delivered to the several
Booksellers mentioned in the Title Page: and in four days after, all that were unsold,
amounting to 890 of these Copies, were recalled, and were delivered to Dr. Madden, to be
destroyed. The current report is, that the Edition was suppressed on the day of publication:
and that it is now exceeding scarce is certain. The reasons for the extraordinary
circumstances attending the printing and suppressing These Memoirs, are not very evident, and
still remain a Mystery.
In her Ph.D. dissertation, Dierdre Nà Chuanacháin
suggests that the reason for the suppression was the “ politicaland literary milieu” of
the times. Nevertheless, at least one copy of the work survived and is hailed as the first
literary work to actually write of the future (albeit as a satire and criticism of 18th
century Great Britain) and possibly the first to contain time travel (via an unexplained
method). Those two aspects led us to classify the work as a forerunner of science fiction.
— Michael Main
But as I am determined to give ſuch Readers and all Men, ſo full, and fair, and
convincing an Account of my ſelf and that celeſtial Spirit I receiv’d
theſe Papers from, and to anſwer all Objections ſo entirely, as to put
Ignorance, and even Malice it ſelf to Silence: I am confident, the ingenuous and
candid part of the World, will ſoon throw off ſuch mean narrow ſpirited
Suſpicions, as unjuſt and ungenerous.
1 English variant