D. W. Hayton is a Visiting Professor in the School of English and History at the University of Ulster. He was previously Professor of Early Modern Irish and British History at Queen's University Belfast, where he remains Professor Emeritus. He has written widely on Irish and British history, 1680–1750, and co-edited The House of Commons 1690–1715, 5 volume set (Cambridge, 2002) for the History of Parliament Trust. He is a Member of the Royal Irish Academy. Adam Rounce is an Associate Professor in the School of English at the University of Nottingham. He has written extensively on various seventeenth- and eighteenth-century writers, including Dryden, Pope, Churchill, Warton, and Johnson. His monograph on literary culture and lack of success in the long eighteenth century, based around figures known to Samuel Johnson, entitled Fame and Failure, 1720–1800: The Unfulfilled Literary Life, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2013.

'… hugely and lastingly impressive.' James Ward, The Review of English Studies

• List of illustrations; General editors' preface; Acknowledgements; Chronology; List of abbreviations; Introduction; Irish political writings after 1725; Associated materials: 1. Hints for Intelligencer Papers, and Maxims Examined; 2. Letter to the Printer of Thoughts on the Tillage of Ireland; Appendices: A. Memorial of the Poor Inhabitants of Ireland; B. The Craftsman's First Letter of Advice, 7 November 1730; C. The Case of the Woollen Manufacturers; D. To The Author of those Intelligencers Printed at Dublin; E. Dublin Weekly Journal, Saturday, June 7th, 1729; Textual introduction; Textual accounts of individual works; Bibliography; Index.