Christian Ludwig Liscow was the author of some of the most biting satires of the first half of the eighteenth century. The targets of his attacks were respected scholars in their day but have now largely been forgotten; accordingly, Liscow, too, has been relegated to a position of obscurity. But his treatises, written anonymously or under a pseudonym, appeared at a time when the nature of satire was being reexamined; thus Liscow contributed substantially to a new understanding and broadening of the definition of satire--to include less idealism, more realism and irony--in eighteenth-century literature.

Little is known of Liscow's early years. At the time of his birth in Wittenburg on 26 April 1701 his father, Joachim Friedrich Liscow, was a minister; until two years earlier he had held a court position in Grabow. Liscow's mother was Margarethe Catharina Liscow, née Hausvoigt. During Liscow's youth the family moved to...