Yes, Phil Porney, the "lover of prostitutes" is an ironic pseudoonym (though not acronym), but Mr. Porney, who shows up as the author of a number of works, seems to have been a French teacher and translator.
Robert Folkenflik Professor of English University of California Irvine, CA 92697
On Sat, 13 Oct 2007, John Dussinger wrote:
Distinguished List,
I have yet another question about an anonymous work-- _A Modest Defence of Publick Stews_ (1724). In my youth I had always assumed that it was written by Bernard Mandeville, along with all the ironic play of his _Fable of the Bees_ toward awakening the English public to the economic benefits of vice, whatever the moral outrage resulting from these revelations. In the ODNB, M.M. Goldsmith leaves open the question of whether Mandeville was the author of _A Modest Defence_ and cites a Lawrence Lefever as a possible alternative. Yet in ECCO the digital copies of the original microfilm texts come up with "Phil-porney" as the author, surely an ironic acronym, but nevertheless not mentioned in the ODNB article on Bernard Mandeville.
Can anyone help clarify whether we should give up entirely the idea of Mandeville as the author of this piece on public whorehouses? If so, can we safely attribute it to some other author and maybe explain why ESTC settled with that "Phil-porney" signature to the Dedication?
JD
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