Hogarth began planning A Rake's Progress, the second of his narrative comic history cycles, immediately following the enormous financial success of his publication, by subscription, of the prints of A Harlot's Progress, in April 1732 (see separate entry in The Literary Encyclopedia). This time he planned a series of eight paintings ironically charting the protagonist's 'progress', and again planned to make prints of the paintings, which he would sell by subscription. He completed the paintings in mid-1734 and set to work engraving them, having previously advertised subscriptions for the prints as open on 22 December 1733 at a guinea and a half a set. He had learnt from his experience of publishing A Harlot'

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