Rochester, [John Wilmot Earl of] / [Devonshire, William Cavendish, Duke of] / [Dorset, Charles Sackville, Earl of] / [Roscommon, Wentworth Dillon, Earl of].

The Works of the Earls of Rochester, Roscomon [sic], and Dorset; The Dukes of Devonshire, Buckinghamshire, &c. With Memoirs of their Lives. In Two Volumes. With Additions, and Adorned with Cuts [complete with all eight copper-engravings].

Two Volumes, bound in One Volume (complete set). London, Printed in the Year, 1756. Small Octavo (9.3 cm x 16.2 cm). Pagination: Volume I: Frontispiece-Portrait of John, Earl of Rochester, 168 pages with five copper-engravings (plus Frontispiece) / Volume II: Frontispiece-Portrait, 168 pages with one copper-engraving (plus Frontispice). Hardcover / Original, 18th full leather of the 18th century with gilt lettering and ornament on spine. In protective Mylar. Firm with NO splitting but spine starting. Binding rubbed and some bumping to corners only. Interior in excellent condition. From the library of Daniel Conner (Connerville / Manch House), with blindstamped name of “Manch, Ballineen, Co. Cork” to endpaper and half-title.

John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1 April 1647 (O.S.) – 26 July 1680 (O.S.)) was an English poet and courtier of King Charles II’s Restoration court, who reacted against the “spiritual authoritarianism” of the Puritan era. Rochester embodied a novel rebellion against the puritan programme, and he became as well known for his rakish lifestyle as for his poetry, although the two were often interlinked. He died as a result of a sexually transmitted infection at the age of 33.

Rochester was described by his contemporary Andrew Marvell as “the best English satirist”, and he is generally considered to be the most considerable poet and the most learned among the Restoration wits. His poetry was widely censored during the Victorian era, but enjoyed a revival from the 1920s onwards, with reappraisals from noted literary figures such as Graham Greene and Ezra Pound. The critic Vivian de Sola Pinto linked Rochester’s libertinism to Hobbesian materialism.

During his lifetime Rochester was best known for A Satyr Against Reason and Mankind and it remains among his best-known works today.

Rochester’s poetic work varies widely in form, genre, and content. He was part of a “mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease”, who continued to produce their poetry in manuscripts, rather than in publication. As a consequence, some of Rochester’s work deals with topical concerns, such as satires of courtly affairs in libels, to parodies of the styles of his contemporaries, such as Sir Carr Scrope. He is also notable for his impromptus, one of which is a teasing epigram on King Charles II:

We have a pretty witty king,
Whose word no man relies on.
He never said a foolish thing,
And never did a wise one.

To which Charles supposedly replied, “That’s true, for my words are my own, but my actions are those of my ministers”.

Rochester’s poetry displays a range of learning and influences. These included imitations of Malherbe, Ronsard, and Boileau. He also translated or adapted from classical authors such as Petronius, Lucretius, Ovid, Anacreon, Horace, and Seneca.

Rochester’s writings were at once admired and infamous. A Satyr Against Mankind (1675), one of the few poems he published (in a broadside in 1679), is a scathing denunciation of rationalism and optimism that contrasts human perfidy with animal wisdom.

The majority of his poetry was not published under his name until after his death. Because most of his poems circulated only in manuscript form during his lifetime, it is likely that much of his writing did not survive. Burnet claimed that Rochester’s conversion experience led him to ask that “all his profane and lewd writings” be burned; it is unclear how much, if any, of Rochester’s writing was destroyed.

Rochester was also interested in the theatre. In addition to an interest in actresses, he wrote an adaptation of Fletcher’s Valentinian (1685), a scene for Sir Robert Howard’s The Conquest of China, a prologue to Elkanah Settle’s The Empress of Morocco (1673), and epilogues to Sir Francis Fane’s Love in the Dark (1675), Charles Davenant’s Circe, a Tragedy (1677). The best-known dramatic work attributed to Rochester, Sodom, or the Quintessence of Debauchery, has never been successfully proven to be written by him. Posthumous printings of Sodom, however, gave rise to prosecutions for obscenity, and were destroyed. On 16 December 2004 one of the few surviving copies of Sodom was sold by Sotheby’s for £45,600.

”[Rochester’s] letters to his wife and to his friend Henry Savile … show an admirable mastery of easy, colloquial prose.″

Scholarship has identified approximately 75 authentic Rochester poems. Three major critical editions of Rochester in the twentieth century have taken very different approaches to authenticating and organising his canon. David Vieth’s 1968 edition adopts a heavily biographical organisation, modernising spellings and heading the sections of his book “Prentice Work”, “Early Maturity”, “Tragic Maturity”, and “Disillusionment and Death”. Keith Walker’s 1984 edition takes a genre-based approach, returning to the older spellings and accidentals in an effort to present documents closer to those a seventeenth-century audience would have received. Harold Love’s Oxford University Press edition of 1999, now the scholarly standard, notes the variorum history conscientiously, but arranges works in genre sections ordered from the private to the public. (Wikipedia)

• Keywords: 18th Century – Rare · 18th Century Literature · 18th Century Poetry · Catalogue No.10 – International Literature · English Literature – Rare · English Literature of the 18th Century · English Poetry · Poetry – Rare
• Language: English
• Inventory Number: 32350AB

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