It is suggested in the ‘Introduction’ that ‘Books [are] the Children of the Brain’ (p. 71), and here the author renounces paternity of his book. He authorises the bookseller to father it indiscriminately, and purely for mercenary reasons, on whomever fashion most favours, be he a hack (Durfey) or a genius (Congreve). The book is orphaned, disowned by its proud but servile author, cut off from its origin, and sent seeking filiation into the world. Set loose in a culture orphaned from seminal origins of legitimacy by the wilfullness of its recent history, the orphaned text generates myths of origin and authenticity in a frantic attempt to claim or forge a legitimacy to which it has no natural claim. In A Tale's parodic sphere, lines of authority have always already been subverted and the origin has always already been irrecoverably displaced. Authoritative utterance is impossible, and the wit and motion is the sound of the book-bastard's attempt to mock up the impression that it has a right to exist.