Paper War of 1752–1753
In 1752, Henry Fielding started a "paper war", a long-term dispute with constant publication of pamphlets attacking other writers, between the various authors on London's Grub Street.
Although it began as a dispute between Fielding and John Hill, other authors, such as Christopher Smart, Bonnell Thornton, William Kenrick, Arthur Murphy and Tobias Smollett, were soon dedicating their works to aid various sides of the conflict.
The book's title character, Amelia, was involved in an accident that damaged her face, and Hill, mocking the way Fielding described the scene, claimed that she "could charm the World without the Help of a Nose.
"[5] In response to both the revelation and personal attacks, Fielding wrote on 11 January 1752: "If the Betrayer of a private Treaty could ever deserve the least Credit, yet his Lowness here must proclaim himself either a Liar, or a Fool.
[1] Although the work was published anonymously, it was commonly known that it was produced by Hill, and he soon followed up the pamphlet with his 25 August 1752 The Inspector column in the London Daily Advertiser.
[10] Although it is quite possible that the first work in the "war" was produced by Smart on 29 April 1751,[11] it is also possible that the origins of the dispute could be traced even further back to Hill's publications between February and March 1751.
[12] On 11 January 1752, Fielding responded to Hill and those who supported his view of Amelia in The Covent-Garden Journal by stating: a famous Surgeon, who absolutely cured one Mrs Amelia Booth, of a violent Hurt in her Nose, insomuch, that she had scarce a Scar left on it, intends to bring Actions against several ill-meaning and slanderous People, who have reported that the said Lady had no Nose, merely because the Author of her History, in a Hurry, forgot to inform his Readers of that Particular.
[14] On 25 January 1752, Fielding defended his work again by bringing the novel before the imaginary "Court of Censorial Enquiry", in which Hill and the other critics are the prosecutors and it is they, not Amelia, that are truly put on trial.
[15] The work was modelled after Jonathan Swift's The Battle of the Books and Fielding pretended to be a military leader that would lead "English VETERANS" against those who were compared to characters from the Greek and Roman classics along with those from modern French literature.
[15] By February, Kenrick joined in and "dramatized" the "Paper War" in a production called Fun and proceeded to defend Fielding.
[17] However, Smart did begin directly participating in the matter 4 August 1752 with the publication in The Midwife of a parody on Hill's "Inspector" persona.
[1] On 1 February 1753, Smart published The Hilliad, an attack upon Hill that one critic, Lance Bertelsen, describes as the "loudest broadside" of the war.
