A Splendid Shilling
An uncirculated 1701 Shilling, minted in the year of John Phillips's short poem, entitled "A Burlesque of Milton"; it was a first of its kind, a poem about owning not a shilling in the world. Photo courtesy Royal Mint Museum.
DISPOSSESSION SUMMARY
A Lock of Hair
A love token or a mourning ring (depending on how you look at it), crafted from gold, crystal, and diamond. Nestled at its heart is a small swatch of material braided from human hair. AN1418875001 © Trustees of the British Museum
A Book of Accounts
A page from Alexander Brodie's New and Easy Method of Book-Keeping (1722), 8, engraved by George Bickham the Elder. Bickham and his mercurial son specialized in trompe-l'oeil, eye-catching realism, and engravings meant to simulate handwriting.
Blank Paper (2)
A sheet of blank paper, sacrificed by Laetitia Pilkington into a poem about dispossession, and included as part of her scandal-memoir. Pilkington, Memoirs of Mrs. Laetitia Pilkington, 3 vols. (London, 1735), 1.109.
The Lost Property Office
An artist's fantasy of the interior of the Lost Property Office, a clearing-house for "drop'd," "forgot," "misplaced," or otherwise "lost" property. “Honest Jonathan in His Repository,” in Life and Glorious Actions . . . of Jonathan Wilde (London, 1725). Courtesy Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
A Grub-Street Poet
William Hogarth, The Distrest Poet (1736). Hogarth's poet, dwelling in poverty, is writing about riches; he is borrowing scraps and ideas from other people's work. Photo by Author. Original at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.
A Portrait of John Gay
John Gay, by George Bickham the Elder. This so-called "medley print" is a still life of low art composed from pirated bits of poetry and sold by the George Bickhams, father and son. Image Courtesy National Portrait Gallery, NPG d9490.
Jonathan Wild
An articulated male skeleton, age forty, believed to be of Jonathan Wild. RCSHM/Osteo. 336. Courtesy Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons, England.