Alexander Pope (1688-1744) was an English poet best known for his satirical verse and use of the heroic couplet. Some of Pope's most popular works include his essay on criticism as well as the poems The Rape of the Lock and The Dunciad.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744) was an English poet best known for his satirical verse and use of the heroic couplet. Some of Pope's most popular works include his essay on criticism as well as the poems The Rape of the Lock and The Dunciad.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744) was an English poet best known for his satirical verse and use of the heroic couplet. Some of Pope's most popular works include his essay on criticism as well as the poems The Rape of the Lock and The Dunciad.

This eminent English poet was born in London, May 21, 1688. His parents were Roman Catholics, and to this faith the poet adhered, thus debarring himself from public office and employment. His father, a linen merchant, having saved a moderate competency, withdrew from business, and settled on a small estate he had purchased in Windsor Forest. He died at Chiswick, in 1717.

Pope's life as a writer falls into three periods, answering fairly enough to the three reigns in which he worked. Under Queen Anne he was an original poet, but made little money by his verses; under George I. he was chiefly a translator, and made much money by satisfying the French-classical taste with versions of the "Iliad" and "Odyssey." Under George I. he also edited Shakespeare, but with little profit to himself; for Shakespeare was but a Philistine in the eyes of the French-classical critics. But as the eighteenth century grew slowly to its work, signs of a deepening interest in the...

Essay on Man is a philosophical poem, written, characteristically, in heroic couplets. Pope intended it as the centerpiece of a proposed system of ethics to be put forth in poetic form. It is an attempt to justify, as Milton had attempted to vindicate, the ways of God to Man, and a warning that man himself is not, as, in his pride, he seems to believe, the center of all things. Though not explicitly Christian, the Essay makes the implicit assumption that man is fallen and unregenerate, and that he must seek his own salvation.

This collection of literature attempts to compile many of the classic, timeless works that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price, in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them.