Rehabilitating the Rev John Trusler

Arts & Ideas

BBC

Society & Culture

4.2 • 599 Ratings

🗓️ 22 June 2018

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sophie Coulombeau tells the story of John Trusler, an eccentric Anglican minister who was the quintessential 18th-century entrepreneur. He was a prolific author, an innovative publisher, a would-be inventor, and a ‘medical gentleman’ of dubious qualifications. Dismissed by many as a conman and scoundrel, today, few have heard of the man but his madcap schemes often succeeded, in different forms, a century or two later. In his efforts we can trace the ancestors of the thesaurus, the self-help book, Comic Sans, professional ghostwriting, the Society of Authors, and electrotherapy. New Generation Thinker Sophie Coulombeau, from Cardiff University, argues that telling his story can help us to reinterpret and rehabilitate the very idea of 'failure'.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right?
0:23.3	It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream.
0:28.8	Listen to Evil Genius on BBC Sounds.
0:32.1	This is the BBC.
0:34.8	Hello, I'm Shahid Abari.
0:36.5	Welcome to Broadcasters of the Future on those we have forgotten, but really shouldn't have.
0:42.1	A series of the essay program recorded for BBC Radio 3 in front of an audience at the York Festival of Ideas.
0:49.3	Dr. Sophie Colombo is a lecturer in English literature at Cardiff University. Her novel, Rights, was published in
0:55.5	2012. She's presented on Radio 3 and has also devised and recorded a series of podcasts for the
1:01.2	new statesman called The Great Forgetting Women Writers Before Austin. Contrarily, Sophie is here
1:07.7	tonight to rehabilitate a man writer before Austin, the Reverend John Trussler.
1:13.1	So let us canter back to the 18th century for some literary cut and thrust.
1:23.7	This is what they said about him.
1:26.6	A literary peddler, whose smallware is of the vilest quality.
1:33.2	He has spawned upon the public innumerable goods too contemptible to deserve enumeration.
1:40.0	It is a scandal to the discernment of the literary world that such a pettifogging
1:45.1	driveler in the trade of authorship has not long ago been ruined and broken.
1:53.0	In his own mind, the Reverend John Trusler was an Anglican minister, a prolific author
1:58.6	with more than 50 publications to his name, an innovative publisher,
2:02.8	an entrepreneur, and a visionary. But to his critics, he was a talentless self-promoting
2:10.4	hack, a scoundrel and a cad. His cheerful plagiarism, earthy subject matter matter and brash self-promotion insulted his readers.
2:21.5	He was a disgrace to the Church of England, and he deserved to be ruined and broken.
	...

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