The Prankster and the Astrologer: Jonathan Swift's Legendary Hoax

In light of 1 April Fool’s Day, I have included the following article of colonial pranksters which may find funny.

- Rick

In the winter of 1708, London's streets buzzed with an extraordinary prediction. A previously unknown astrologer named Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, had published an almanac boldly forecasting the death of John Partridge—one of England's most prominent astrologers—on March 29 at precisely 11 p.m. from "a raging fever." What followed became one of history's most elaborate and consequential pranks, a masterwork of satire that would span months, destroy a career, and cement its creator's reputation as a master of April Fools' Day mischief.

The Master Satirist and His Target

Jonathan Swift, later famous as the author of Gulliver's Travels, was already known in 18th-century London for his razor-sharp political commentary and biting social satire. April Fools' Day was widely reported to be Swift's favorite holiday, and he frequently used it "to make sin and folly bleed" through his satirical wit.

His target, John Partridge, was no minor figure. As the most prominent almanac-maker of the early 18th century, Partridge published the widely-read Merlinus Almanac, filled with astrological predictions for the coming year. Almanacs were the most popular form of literature at the time, and Partridge's position as a leading astrologer and physician went largely unchallenged among a London society eager to find order and meaning in the world.

What drew Swift's ire was Partridge's attack on the Church of England. In his 1708 almanac, Partridge sarcastically referred to the church as "infallible"—a jab that the devout Anglican cleric Swift could not ignore. Swift's response would be devastating.

Act One: The Prediction

In January or February 1708, Swift published Predictions for the Year 1708 under the pseudonym Isaac Bickerstaff, presenting himself as a reform-minded astrologer determined "to prevent People from being further Impos'd on by Vulgar Almanack Makers." The pamphlet contained various predictions, but one stood out with calculated nonchalance.

"My first prediction is but a trifle," Swift wrote, "yet I will mention it, to show how ignorant those sottish pretenders to astrology are in their own concerns. It relates to Partridge, the almanack-maker. I have consulted the stars of his nativity by my own rules, and find he will infallibly die upon the 29th of March next, about eleven at night, of a raging fever; therefore, I advise him to consider of it, and settle his affairs in time."

The prediction caused a sensation. Londoners were both shocked and amused by this bold claim. Partridge himself responded immediately with fierce indignation, publishing his own pamphlet: Squire Bickerstaff Detected; or, The Astrological Impostor Convicted. He declared Bickerstaff a fraud and predicted that "the End of March will plainly show the Cheat."

Act Two: The Death Announcement

On the evening of March 29—the very date Swift had predicted—an elegantly printed, black-bordered elegy appeared on London's streets announcing Partridge's death. According to this broadside, Bickerstaff had visited Partridge on his deathbed, where the dying astrologer confessed to being a fraud who had only written predictions to support his family.

Within hours, on March 30 or 31, another pamphlet circulated: The Accomplishment of the First of Mr. Bickerstaff's Predictions. This time Swift wrote not as Bickerstaff but as an anonymous "man employed in the Revenue," an independent witness confirming the astrologer's demise. The account noted that Bickerstaff's timing had been off by almost four hours—Partridge had died at 7:05 p.m. rather than 11 p.m.—but otherwise the prediction had been remarkably accurate.

Given the slow speed at which news traveled in 1708, word of Partridge's death became generally known throughout London on April 1—April Fools' Day.

Act Three: The Living Dead Man

On the morning of April 1, John Partridge—very much alive—awoke to discover he was officially dead. A sexton knocked at his window asking about arrangements for his funeral sermon. As he walked through London's streets, acquaintances stared at him in shock or stopped him to remark how much he resembled their deceased friend John Partridge. An undertaker appeared at his door to arrange funeral drapes.

Accounts vary, but mourners reportedly kept him awake at night crying outside his window. Some sources claim a gravestone was even carved. The hoax had taken on a life of its own.

Act Four: The Vindication

Enraged, Partridge published pamphlets insisting he was alive. Swift, still writing as Bickerstaff, responded with devastating logic in A Vindication of Isaac Bickerstaff (1709). He argued that Partridge was obviously dead because "no man alive ever writ such damn'd stuff" as appeared in Partridge's almanacs. He noted that Partridge's own wife had been heard swearing "her husband had neither life nor soul in him."

Swift even addressed the objection that Partridge continued publishing almanacs after his death, coolly observing that "Gadbury, Poor Robin, Dove, Wing, and several others, do yearly publish their almanacks, though several of them have been dead since before the Revolution."

The Aftermath

The hoax succeeded beyond Swift's wildest expectations. The Company of Stationers, which controlled publishing rights, applied to the Lord Chancellor for exclusive rights to continue publishing "Partridge's Almanac"—and were granted this right despite Partridge himself appearing in court to protest. As one scholar noted, as an almanac-maker, Partridge was now truly "dead."

By 1710, Partridge was thoroughly discredited as both astrologer and physician. He stopped publishing his almanacs, his career effectively destroyed by Swift's elaborate prank. The irony was complete: the astrologer who claimed to predict the future had been undone by a fake prediction about himself.

Partridge did eventually die—around 1714 or 1715—putting Swift's prediction off by approximately 62,000 hours, "the blink of an eye on fate's great cosmic scale," as one writer noted.

The Legacy

The Bickerstaff hoax became so famous that essayists Richard Steele and Joseph Addison adopted the Isaac Bickerstaff persona for their influential periodical The Tatler in 1709. The character lived on in English literature, inspiring writers from Benjamin Franklin to H.P. Lovecraft, who used the pseudonym "Isaac Bickerstaffe, Jr." in 1914 to refute an astrologer's predictions in a Rhode Island newspaper.

Swift's elaborate prank demonstrated the power of satire and the dangers of credulity. It revealed how easily public opinion could be manipulated—and how difficult it was to disprove a well-constructed lie, even when the "victim" stood before everyone alive and well.

More than three centuries later, the Bickerstaff-Partridge affair remains one of the greatest April Fools' pranks in history—a masterclass in sustained satirical performance that destroyed one man's career while cementing another's reputation as a literary genius and the undisputed master of All Fools' Day.

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