The Poems of Alexander Pope: A reduced version of the Twickenham Text

There are many great poems here including those for which Pope is best known. Fine poetry reading too.

The kindle version is very poorly done. In particular, the notes - essential for following Pope's allusions, many of which were pretty obscure even when they were first published two and a half centuries ago - are jumbled together en mass at the end of the book, without any links to the text. They are essentially unusable, and so is the book. It's not that the publisher didn't know how to link, as there are hyperlinks for the indexes of titles and first lines. But for the all-important notes, that was apparently too much trouble. Funny thing is, they've priced this edition like a professional work, rather than the public domain hackwork that it more nearly resembles.

Browsing in my local bookstore this afternoon, I was amazed to see -- in Greenville, SC -- the Yale paperback of the one-volume "Twickenham" edition of the works of Alexander Pope, edited by John Butt. Butt had completed work on the full multi-volume edition, of which he was General Editor, by the time I arrived at Edinburgh in 1962 as a first year undergraduate, and he was working on the Oxford History of English Literature volume that focused on the 18th Century. Butt died, at the age of 59, in the Fall of 1965, my final year, having succumbed to a degenerative muscular disorder of which there was no sign when he lectured to us freshmen on various topics, including ballads, and even sang, unaccompanied, one or two. He struck us as a charming and gracious man who obviously loved talking about the literature that interested him.The fact that the Twickenham text is still in print is testimony to the quality of his editorial work. As another reviewer notes, it's a handsome book, containing all the Pope texts except for the translations of Homer. There are copious notes, as there have to be for a writer so immersed in the culture and politics (literary and otherwise) of his time, but readers who are seriously interested in Pope will find the extensiveness of the notes (which are usefully at the bottoms of the pages of text to which they refer) one of the good reasons for getting this volume. It's poignant to think that I enjoy good health at an age that a great scholar like Butt didn't live to see, but this edition is a worthy monument to him.

This one-volume reprint of all the authentic original poems of Alexander Pope, first published in 1963, derives from the Twickenham Edition, the recognized standard text of Pope's poetry. It is exhaustive, even down to containing early versions of lines like the verses on "Atticus" which ended up years later in the "Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot," and reprints both the "Tibbald" and "Cibber" versions of the "Dunciad." It also has a great deal of useful editorial annotation, though not so much as to overwhelm or supplant Pope's own text and frequent notes. Highly recommended to all who love Pope's verse.

Milton, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, and Pope, to me are the "Big Four" English bards.This volume is not the complete text of all extent works, but ahs the vast majority of Pope's best compositions. The binding is apprpriate to the contents inside- in that is i substantial and will last a long time.Thanks- Nick

This is an attractively produced volume of Pope's poetry and an excellent addition to the Everyman Pocket Poets Library.It is indeed pocket size, which means, with the sheer quantity of content, that the font is not large but it makes up for this by having a quite superb selection of poetry [ no prose - so no letters to the Blount sisters or Swift and no Preface to Shakespeare].There are early works, including the very early Ode on Solitude and uncut Essay On Criticism, Rape of the Lock and Eloisa To Abelard, then later poetry, including the first 2 Epistles from the Essay On Man and Epistle to Arbuthnot.However, I think it is a pity that the first edition, 1728 of The Dunciad is included rather than Pope's revised 1743 edition with the Poet Laureate, Colley Cibber as the King Of Dulness, in place of Lewis Theobald. It is a major revision and even a selection from it, as in the little hardback Oxford, intro by Dyson, would I believe be better than the 1728 edition.There are no notes, which effectively makes this volume an attractive additional edition to have. Many readers with an interest in Pope will want the Dunciad 1743 and at least some of the prose and some notes, as in the Penguin edition edited Danrosch or the Oxford Major Works, edited Rogers.So – even with the provisos noted above, I recommend this volume because of the overall generous selection of poetry.

We have to lean how to read again. What an amazing command of the English language. Also a wonderful sense of humour. Pope's verse is something to be savoured. A rich tapestry.

Having misplaced my original University text, I was wary about purchasing this publication "sight-unseen." I was delighted to find that this publication is of equal merit to my original text.