Cadenus and Swift’s Most Valuable Friend: Reassessment of the Relationships Between Swift, Stella and Vanessa

These books are being reissued as they appeared in the first Dolmen Press editions in one composite volume, with an invaluable, contextual introduction by eighteenth-century Swift scholar Andrew Carpenter. He assesses the reaction of Swift’s serious biographers and commentators to the original publications: ‘… two remarkable books, driven by sympathetic and intuitive enquiry, which made an important contribution to Swift studies when they appeared in the 1960s and which still remain significant for all those interested in Swift’s life and works’. Cadenus is primarily concerned with the relationship between Swift and Vanessa (Esther Van Homrigh), Swift’s Most Valuable Friend with that between Swift and Stella (Esther Johnson). Both help to determine the precise nature of this triangle, and the impact it had on his writing and career.