The Poems of Alexander Pope: Volume One

The Poems of Alexander Pope is a multi-volume edition of the poetry of Alexander Pope (1688-1744) resulting from a thorough reappraisal of his work, from composition through to reception. The annotations and headnotes are full and informative, and the layout is designed to enable the reader to navigate easily between the poems, the record of variants and the editorial commentary. The poems are presented in chronological order of publication, with original capitalisation, italicisation, punctuation and spelling preserved. A record of variants to each poem illustrates the changes Pope made in subsequent editions, and full editorial annotation sets the poems in appropriate literary, historical and cultural contexts. This volume contains the poetry that appeared between 1709 and 1714, including the Pastorals and the 'Rape of the Locke'. Much of the publication history of these poems shows Pope collaborating with the major writers and publishers of his time, as might be expected of a writer whose preparation for a literary career was so meticulous. But Pope was also beginning to establish himself on his own account, publishing (at first anonymously) a substantial statement of ideas, An Essay on Criticism. Another separate pamphlet, Windsor-Forest, constituted his distinctive contribution to the heavy freight of 'Peace' poems prompted by the Treaty of Utrecht. In all, the poems presented in this volume reveal an engagement with the literary and publishing industry that is at once amenable and independent.

Julian Ferraro is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of English, University of Liverpool, UK. He works chiefly on seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century poetry, particularly satire, and on twentieth-century and contemporary literature and culture, particularly pictorial narrative, the relationship between literature and architecture, and the literary representation of money. He has published many articles on Alexander Pope, with a particular focus on his manuscripts, together with articles on subjects ranging from Joseph Conrad to contemporary comics. Paul Baines is Professor in the Department of English, University of Liverpool, UK. He works chiefly on literature and culture in the long eighteenth century, especially satire, crime and the book trade. His main publications are The House of Forgery in Eighteenth-Century Britain (1999), The Complete Critical Guide to Alexander Pope (2000), Five Romantic Plays 1768-1821 (co-edited with Edward Burns, 2000), Edmund Curll, Bookseller (with Pat Rogers, 2007) and The Collected Writings of Edward Rushton (2014).

Note by the General Editors; Chronology of Pope's Life and Publications; Preface; Acknowledgements; 1. January and May (1709); 2. The Episode of Sarpedon (1709); 3. Pastorals (1709); 4. An Essay on Criticism (1711); 5. Lines from The Critical Specimen (1711); 6. Sapho to Phaon (1712); 7. Messiah (1712); 8. The First Book of Statius his Thebais (1712); 9. The Fable of Vertumnus and Pomona (1712); 10. To a Young Lady, with the Works of Voiture (1712); 11. On Silence (1712); 12. To the Author of a Poem, intitled, Successio (1712); 13. Verses design'd to be prefix'd to Mr. Lintott's Miscellany (1712); 14. The Rape of the Locke (1712); 15. On a Fan of the Author's Design (1712); 16. Windsor-Forest (1713); 17. Prologue to Cato (1713); 18. Ode for Musick (1713); 19. The Gardens of Alcinous (1713); 20. Epigram upon Two or Three (1713); 21. The Wife of Bath Her Prologue (1713); 22. Prologue, Design'd for Mr. D---'s last Play (1713); 23. The Arrival of Ulysses in Ithaca (1713); Bibliography; Indexes of Titles and First Lines