"Pope's letters are fascinating documents, apart from his importance as a poet. Highly revealing of his character - they also comprise a body of writing of interest for an understanding of his times: its personalities, its plots, its tragedies and exiles, its loves, its scandals, the movement of its religious, political, and philosophical ideas, its sense of poetry, and its notions of poetic craft and genre. " "George Sherburn's scholarly five-volume Collected Correspondence is the necessary basis for any new edition. The collection presented here is in the first place a balanced and varied selection from Sherburn. Since 1956, however, many new letters have been discovered, and this volume includes most of them. Many are among Pope's best, though they have till now been scattered in learned journals. " "This selection supplies an introduction, a commentary on each letter identifying allusions and quotations (with translations where necessary), and thematic and biographical indexes. "--Jacket.