THE POETICAL WORKS OF ALEXANDER POPE.: Fore-Edge With Memoir, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes, by George Gilfillan. The Gilfillan Poets, series

[FORE–EDGE PAINTING]

THE POETICAL WORKS OF ALEXANDER POPE.

With Memoir, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes, by George Gilfillan. The Gilfillan Poets, series

POPE, Alexander

Published by Edinburgh, London, Dublin. James Nichol & James Nisbet and Co. 1856.

Bound in full forest green hard grain Morocco, gilt paneling on the front and rear boards, full gilt spine, marble endpapers and gilt dentles. A beautiful tight binding and very crisp clean text. Near perfect condition.

2 Vols in one. Alexander Pope (1688-1744), English poet, literary dictator of his age and regarded as the English epitome of neo-Classicism. His poetry is characterized by satire, epigram, didacticism, smoothness and technical finish, invective, biting and malicious wit, and skillful use of the closed or heroic couplet. Pope, a Catholic and the son of a linen-draper in London, was unable to attend a public school or a university because of governmental restrictions against Catholic after the Revolution of 1688. A hunchback and cripple as the result of a serious illness in childhood, Pope relieved his sense of rancor in jealous, spiteful, and venomous attacks on his contemporaries; because of this, he was called the "Wicked Wasp of Twickenham", form the name of the London suburb where he lived. He was a Tory in politics and a friend of John Gay and Jonathan Swift. His best-known works are "Pastorals", 1709; "Essay on Criticism", 1711; which made Pope famous and which, he claimed he wrote when he was only twelve years old; "The Rape of the Lock", 1712; "Windsor Forest", 1713; translations of the "Iliad", 1715-1720; and the "Odyssey", 1725 -1726

FORE-EDGE PAINTING

An early fore-edge painting of Windsor great park and Castle.
Windsor-Forest by Pope,

"Thy forests, Windsor! And thy green retreats, At once the Monarch's and Muse's seats, Invite my lays."

$1,350Usd