Sarah Harding

Sarah Harding (fl. 1721–9) was an Irish printer and publisher who suffered "inopportune imprisonments" for some of her publications. She is known for publishing Jonathan Swift's A modest proposal in 1729 (An idea that the poor could sell their children as food). Biography Sarah Harding was the wife and business partner of printer John Harding near Fishamble Street, on the Blind Quay, Dublin. Her mother was a well-known Dublin printer, Elizabeth Sadlier, and it is possible that it was this connection that drew John into the printing business. Following her husband's imprisonment for publishing an unauthorised version of the lord lieutenant's speech on the opening of the parliamentary session, Harding took over the printing business. Her first publication was a pamphlet, The present miserable state of Ireland (1721), that is occasionally attributed to Jonathan Swift. Her husband was released in 1721, and employed by Swift to publish a half-page protest against the proposed bank of Ireland. It was not for the Hardings' skill or refinement as printers that Swift chose them, but due to their willingness to "issue ephemeral, adventurous, even dangerous papers of controversy". The Hardings risked prosecution again after John's publishing of Swift's Drapier's Letters, with the couple arrested and but on trial in November 1724, but were not convicted. John Harding died on 19 April 1725, with Harding giving birth to a son, provocatively named John Draper Harding, in May 1725.