must be regarded as the standard modern edition of the
poems. The Twickenham editors generally retain the
typography, spelling, and punctuation of the eighteenth
century, which have been modernized in the text of this
selection. Though occasionally capitals and contractions have
been retained in the interests of emphasis and rhythm, for the
most part the text conforms to modern usage. The standard
modern texts of Pope for reference are:
The Twickenham Edition of the Poems of Alexander Pope,
general editor John Butt, in ten volumes, London and New
Haven: Methuen, 1938–68, with index (volume XI edited
by Maynard Mack, 1969). Available in a single volume
edited by John Butt, London: Methuen, 1963, University
paperback, 1965.
The Prose Works of Alexander Pope, volume one 1711–20
edited by Norman Ault, Oxford: Black well, 1936, and
volume two 1725–44 edited by Rosemary Cowler, Oxford:
Blackwell, 1986.
The Correspondence of Alexander Pope, edited by George
Sherburn, in five volumes, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956.
Other useful texts are given in the bibliography.
NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION1 From Samuel Johnson, The Life of Pope. The standard
scholarly edition is Lives of the English Poets by Samuel
Johnson, edited by George Birkbeck Hill, 3 vols, London:
- For convenience references in these notes are to the
Everyman edition in two volumes, London and New York:
Dent, 1925, here to vol. 2, p. 211.
2 Pope’s own comment to Joseph Spence in Anecdotes...of
Books and Men by Joseph Spence, edited by James
M.Osborn, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966.
3 Johnson, Life, p. 151.
4 Ibid. p. 172. The verses mentioned occur in the Horatian
imitation ‘To Mr Fortescue’, line 130, included in this
selection.
5 Spence, p. 318, cited by F.W.Bateson in Volume III, ii of
The Twickenham Edition of the Poems of Alexander Pope,