In 1971, Ronald Paulson published his monumental two-volume critical biography of William Hogarth, thus establishing his own reputation as a major critic on art and literature of the eighteenth century and gaining recognition for Hogarth as a central figure in British art and culture. In the twenty years since the book's original publication, Paulson's viewpoint on his subject has changed and his knowledge of the period has grown and been refined. In the same two decades, there has been a general growth of knowledge and interest in the eighteenth century in general and in major figures such as Defoe, Fielding, Poe, and Swift. This is the first of three volumes of a fully revised work on Hogarth, which will make the books available at affordable prices to a new and wider audience of readers.