Fair proceeding or not, Swift concealed himself so carefully that A Tale was fathered on several possible authors at the time of publication, and the task of determinately fixing a name to it cannot even now be said to be complete. He was always elusive about the publication of his writings, but his attitude to A Tale was uncommonly evasive and prickly. An anxious desire for anonymity, at odds with a sometimes adolescent pride in virtuosity, remains a deep and problematic principle throughout the book. Although the author, using the proprietorial metaphors of conception and origin, aggressively proclaims that ‘He conceived it was never disputed to be an Original, whatever Faults it might have’ (p. 13), he shows no eagerness to disclose the identity of this original artist.