The Early Publishing History of "A Modest Proposal"

1st Edition: "A Modest / Proposal / For preventing the / Children / Of / Poor People / From being a / Burthen to their Parents, / Or the / Country, / And / For making them Beneficial to the / Publick."  Dublin: Printed by S Harding, Opposite the Hand and Pen near Fishamble-Street, on the Blind Key.  MDCCXXIX (1729).

1st Reprint, 1st Edition: "A Modest / Proposal / For preventing the / Children / Of / Poor People / From being a / Burthen to their Parents, / Or the / Country, / And / For making them Beneficial to the / Publick."  "By Dr. Swift."   Dublin: Printed by S. Harding: / London, Re-printed; and sold by J. Roberts / in Warwick-lane, and the Pamphlet-Shops. / M.Dcc,XXIX (1729).

2nd Reprint, 1st Edition: "A Modest / Proposal / For preventing the / Children / Of / Poor People / From being a / Burthen to their Parents, / Or the / Country, / And / For making them Beneficial to the / Publick." Dublin: / Printed: and Reprinted at London, for / Weaver Bickerton, in Devereaux-Court / near the Middle-Temple. M.DCC.XXX (1730).

In the next year, "A Modest Proposal" was republished in England with two prefatory essays concerning economic conditions and naming the English  "absentee landlords" who took the Irish tenants' rents and spent them abroad, removing scarce money from the Irish economy:

"A / View / Of The / Present State of Affairs / In the Kingdom of / Ireland; / In Three Discourses. / Viz. / I. A List of the Absentees of Ireland, and the / Yearly Value of their Estates and Incomes spent / abroad.  With Observations on the present Trade and / Conditions of that Kingdom. / II. The Present State of Ireland Considered: / Wherein the List of Absentees of Ireland is / occasionally Answer'd. / III. A Modest Proposal for Preventing the / Children of the Poor People from being a Burthen to their / Parents or the Country, and for making them / Beneficial to the Publick.  By Dr. Sw--ft. / = / Printed at Dublin: / Reprinted at London, for Weaver Bickerton, / in Devereaux-Court, near the Middle-Temple. / M.DCC.XXX (1730) / -- / (Price Two Shillings.)

Herman Teerink.     A bibliography of the writings in prose and verse of Jonathan Swift, D. D. .The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1937. 826.4 S97Qt   Pages 281-2.  If you want to pursue this source of evidence in a paper, please don't hesitate to ask for help understanding the abbreviations and other conventions of bibliographic description.  Once you figure out how to use sources like these, they can reveal important details of a work's reception in its various stages of publication, as well as its periods of relative unpopularity.