date of 1752. There were two mottoes, one of which was the appropriate—
“Felices ter & amplius Quos irrupta tenet Copula;”
and the dedication, brief and simply expressed, was to Ralph Allen. As before, the “artful aid” of advertisement was invoked to whet the public appetite.
“To satisfy the earnest Demand of the Publick (says Millar), this Work has been printed at four Presses; but the Proprietor notwithstanding finds it impossible to get them (sic) bound in Time, without spoiling the Beauty of the Impression, and therefore will sell them sew’d at Half-a-Guinea.”
This was open enough; but, according to Scott, Millar adopted a second expedient to assist Amelia with the booksellers.
“He had paid a thousand pounds for the copyright; and when he began to suspect that the work would be judged inferior to its predecessor, he employed the following stratagem to push it upon the trade. At a sale made to the booksellers, previous to the publication, Millar offered his friends his other publications on the usual terms of discount; but when he came to Amelia, he laid it aside, as a work expected to be in such demand, that he could not afford to deliver it to the trade in the usual manner. The ruse succeeded—the impression was anxiously bought up, and the bookseller relieved from every apprehension of a slow sale.”
There were several reasons why—superficially speaking—Amelia should be “judged inferior to its predecessor.” That it succeeded Tom Jones after an interval of little more than two years and eight months would be an important element in the comparison, if it were known at all definitely what period was occupied in writing Tom Jones. All that can be affirmed is that Fielding must have
