In this study, the author begins with the invention of the sonnet in 13th-century Italy and traces its progress to the time of Milton, showing how the form has developed and acquired the capacity to express lyrically the nature of the desiring self. In doing so, he aims to provide a concise critical account of the major British sonnet writers in relation to the sonnet's history. Poets covered include Petrarch, Wyatt, Sidney, Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton and Dante.

The copy of A Letter to Peter du Moulin from which this facsimile is taken is in the National Library of Scotland,pressmark NG.1341.c.1(8). The first and only issue, it runs to 36 pages with a title page and blank preliminary leaf, and cost sixpence; it is coarsely and probably hurriedly printed, with an error on the title page: to make sense of 'Prebendarie of the same Church,' the &c. after Casaubon's name should have been expanded to read 'and Prebendarie of Christ-Church, Canterbury.' An obliging contemporary has annotated the copy with the names of those whom Casaubon alludes to...

The copy of A Letter to Peter du Moulin from which this facsimile is taken is in the National Library of Scotland,pressmark NG.1341.c.1(8). The first and only issue, it runs to 36 pages with a title page and blank preliminary leaf, and cost sixpence; it is coarsely and probably hurriedly printed, with an error on the title page: to make sense of 'Prebendarie of the same Church,' the &c. after Casaubon's name should have been expanded to read 'and Prebendarie of Christ-Church, Canterbury.' An obliging contemporary has annotated the copy with the names of those whom Casaubon alludes to...