Details

<p>List of Illustrations viii</p> <p>Note on This Edition ix</p> <p>Acknowledgments x</p> <p>Chronology xii</p> <p>Introduction xvii</p> <p>Further Reading xxviii</p> <p>Abbreviations xxxii</p> <p><b>Poems</b></p> <p>Juvenilia 1</p> <p>Love Poems 5</p> <p>Translations 56</p> <p>Prologues and Epilogues 61</p> <p>Satires and Lampoons 68</p> <p>Poems to Mulgrave and Scroope 111</p> <p>Epigrams, Impromptus, Jeux d’esprit, etc. 131</p> <p>Poems Less Securely Attributed to Rochester 138</p> <p>Lucina’s Rape or the Tragedy of Vallentinian 161</p> <p>Index of Proper Names 253</p> <p>Index of Titles and First Lines 257</p>

<p>“At last, an indispensable edition of Rochester for all scholars and teachers of the Restoration period. The drama <i>Valentinian/Lucina's Rape</i> is literally a revelation, over one thousand lines of authentic Rochester now visible in bold type.”—<b><i>James Grantham Turner</i></b>, University of California, Berkeley</p> <p>“Fisher’s edition of Rochester is not only a fitting and loving tribute to two great Rochesterians, Keith Walker and Harold Love: it is a considerable work of independent scholarship, providing an unmodernized text fully informed by the most authoritative manuscript sources and intelligently annotated. A delicious bonus is the inclusion of Rochester’s version of John Fletcher’s tragedy <i>Valentinian</i> entitled <i>Lucina’s Rape</i>. Rochester is one of the most influential writers not to have appeared extensively in print in his own lifetime. This important edition enables us to understand that influence and evaluate it anew.”—<b><i>Brean Hammond</i></b>, University of Nottingham</p> <p>"For scholars of seventeenth-century libertine culture and poetry lovers with a penchant for old-school smut, Rochester's verse holds abiding interest. Walker's and Fisher's edition makes these verses accessible to a broad audience, their exhaustive annotations and introductory material offering contextual information invaluable to readers new to this author, or indeed to the seventeenth century." (<i>M/C Reviews</i>, October 2010)</p>

<p><br /> <b>Nicholas Fisher</b> is an associate research fellow at the Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London. He has co-edited a performing edition of the early settings of Rochester’s songs, <i>Songs to Phillis</i> (1999), and has edited a collection of essays on the poet, <i>That Second Bottle</i> (2000).  He is currently completing a bibliography of the printed editions of Rochester's work.<br /> <br /> <b>Keith Walker</b> taught at University College, London from 1966 to 1996. Over the course of his notable career he produced distinguished editions of the works of many of the major Restoration and Eighteenth-Century writers, including The Poems of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1984), on which this new edition is based.</p>

<p>Infamous for their sexually explicit nature, the poems of the Restoration wit and satirist John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester, have been derided, snubbed, and praised as works of great genius. Keith Walker’s acclaimed 1984 edition of Rochester’s poems has been thoroughly revised and updated to incorporate insights and discoveries made over the past twenty-five years, and includes a text of Rochester’s play <i>Lucina’s Rape</i> - the brilliant re-working of Fletcher’s Jacobean tragedy <i>Valentinian</i> - which has been virtually ignored by modern scholarship. Presented in a text that readily identifies the 1,300 original lines that he introduced, this edition of the scandalously neglected play brings new light to Rochester studies, illuminating the dramatic skill of the great wit.</p> <p>Retaining all the outstanding features of Walker’s book, the poems are presented in versions that were current during Rochester’s lifetime and are arranged by genre. There are notes on dating and contemporary allusions, and the introduction includes an outline of Rochester's life, making this the ideal text for students and scholars.</p>

<p>“At last, an indispensable edition of Rochester for all scholars and teachers of the Restoration period. The drama <i>Valentinian/Lucina's Rape</i> is literally a revelation, over one thousand lines of authentic Rochester now visible in bold type.”—<b><i>James Grantham Turner</i></b>, University of California, Berkeley</p> <p>“Fisher’s edition of Rochester is not only a fitting and loving tribute to two great Rochesterians, Keith Walker and Harold Love: it is a considerable work of independent scholarship, providing an unmodernized text fully informed by the most authoritative manuscript sources and intelligently annotated. A delicious bonus is the inclusion of Rochester’s version of John Fletcher’s tragedy <i>Valentinian</i> entitled <i>Lucina’s Rape</i>. Rochester is one of the most influential writers not to have appeared extensively in print in his own lifetime. This important edition enables us to understand that influence and evaluate it anew.”—<b><i>Brean Hammond</i></b>, University of Nottingham</p> <p>"For scholars of seventeenth-century libertine culture and poetry lovers with a penchant for old-school smut, Rochester's verse holds abiding interest. Walker's and Fisher's edition makes these verses accessible to a broad audience, their exhaustive annotations and introductory material offering contextual information invaluable to readers new to this author, or indeed to the seventeenth century." (<i>M/C Reviews</i>, October 2010)</p>

GB