“ CURLL, EDMUND (1675–1747) , English bookseller, was born in 1675 in the west of England. His parents were in humble circumstances. After being apprenticed to an Exeter bookseller he came to London and started business on his own account, advertising himself by a system of newspaper quarrels. His connexion with the anonymously-published Court Poems in 1716 led to the long quarrel with Pope, who took his revenge by immortalizing Curll in the Dunciad. Curll became notorious for his indecent publications, so much so that “Curlicism” was regarded as a synonym for literary indecency. ”