Hogarth began planning

, the second of his narrative comic history cycles,

immediately following the enormous financial success of his publication, by subscription, of the prints of

, in April 1732 (see separate entry in

). This time he planned a series of eight paintings ironically charting the protagonist's 'progress', and again planned to make prints of the paintings, which he would sell by subscription. He completed the paintings in mid-1734 and set to work engraving them, having previously advertised subscriptions for the prints as open on 22 December 1733 at a guinea and a half a set. He had learnt from his experience of publishing

that prints were very easy for unscrupulous printsellers to have copied…

2822 words

Citation: Gordon, Ian. "A Rake's Progress". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 19 July 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7031, accessed 22 November 2024.]