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Pope's Dunciad of 1728: A History and Facsimile
Pope's Dunciad of 1728 A History and Facsimile Author:Alexander Pope, David L. Vander Meulen The poem Alexander Pope published as "The Dunciad" in 1728 was the core of the chef d'oeuvre that occupied him for at least half his life. After finally bringing the work to publishable form, he continually revised it and issued it in four major versions that appeared in nearly three dozen seperated editions. To provide that text, and to recogni... more »ze modern critical interest both in the significance of layout and in Pope's fastidious concern with the details of typographical appearance, the current edition reproduces in photofacsimile a large paper issue of the first edition now in the Berg Collection of The New York Public Library. It is probably the most important 1728 copy extant; in it Pope's friend Jonathon Richardson, Jr., recorded variations between the 1728 text and a now missing earlier draft, thereby chronicling the poet's creative process. An accompanying essay elaborates on the implicit emphasis of the facsimile by providing a thorough historical account of the composition and production of the poem through the 1728 edition. Several appendixes, which identify hundreds of textual changes Pope introduced in the later 1728 printings and record the names with which pirate printer filled Pope's satiric blanks, extend the historical account and explain the connection of the copy reproduced here with others.« less