THE LIFE OF ALEXANDER POPE, ESQ. Compiled from original manuscripts; with a critical essay on his writings and genius …

[POPE.] RUFFHEAD, Owen.

Published by London: printed for C. Bathurst H. Woodfall W. Strahan J. and F. Rivington W. Johnston B. White T. Caslon T. Longman B. Law Johnson and Payne S. Bladon T. Cadell and the executors of A. Millar, 1769

About this Item

8vo, pp. [vi], 578; with an engraved frontispiece; in contemporary speckled calf, gilt, spine gilt (a little rubbed, joints slightly cracked, lacks label). First edition: a substantial biography, with much new information, written at the suggestion of Warburton, to whose collection of Pope's manuscripts Ruffhead was given access. Warburton read the proofs of this book, and made corrections. Owen Ruffhead (ca. 1723-1769) grew up in London, where his father was a baker; the proceeds of a winning lottery ticket were used to give him a good education, and he became a lawyer. His venture into literary biography had a mixed reception; Samuel Johnson famously remarked that Ruffhead 'knew nothing of Pope and nothing of poetry'. Despite such opinions, the syndicate of booksellers who published this biography quickly reprinted it in quarto to accompany a new four-volume collected edition of Pope's works. The frontispiece depicts a commemorative monument erected by Warburton in 1761.

Seller Inventory # 25277

Bibliographic Details

• Title: THE LIFE OF ALEXANDER POPE, ESQ. Compiled from original manuscripts; with a critical essay on his writings and genius …
• Publisher: London: printed for C. Bathurst H. Woodfall W. Strahan J. and F. Rivington W. Johnston B. White T. Caslon T. Longman B. Law Johnson and Payne S. Bladon T. Cadell and the executors of A. Millar
• Publication Date: 1769
• Binding: Hardcover
• Seller catalogs:
  • Biography