Customer Reviews

Poems

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This one-volume reprint of all the authentic original poems of Alexander Pope, first published in 1963, derives from the Twickenham Edition, the recognized standard text of Pope's poetry. It is exhaustive, even down to containing early versions of lines like the verses on "Atticus" which ended up years later in the "Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot," and reprints both the "Tibbald" and "Cibber" versions of the "Dunciad." It also has a great deal of useful editorial annotation, though not so much as to overwhelm or supplant Pope's own text and frequent notes. Highly recommended to all who love Pope's verse.

Now, when I say "worthless edition" I do not at all refer to the Twickenham version of Mr. Pope's poetry, which is beyond excellent, but rather to the Kindle version of the Twickenham version, which one might have naively assumed would be the same. As I'm sure others have noticed, books on Kindle sometimes have a few mistakes in them. I do not consider this a very big deal in general, and I'm hardly about to complain about it in the free or ninety-nine cent books.

However, there are literally hundreds and hundreds of confusing errors in the Kindle edition of this book, which absolutely do not appear in its ink-and-paper incarnation. Some of them, such as one letter for another when the text is italicized, are consistent, but most are totally random. I'm familiar enough with the poetry that I'm rarely slowed down by these myself, but anyone who has not carefully read it before will be constantly baffled: an erroneous letter typically forms a different word, a word which makes absolutely no sense in the context, thus forcing you to guess at the real one, a frustrating exercise, to be sure, and one that must be repeated every few pages at the very least.

The kindle version is very poorly done. In particular, the notes - essential for following Pope's allusions, many of which were pretty obscure even when they were first published two and a half centuries ago - are jumbled together en mass at the end of the book, without any links to the text. They are essentially unusable, and so is the book. It's not that the publisher didn't know how to link, as there are hyperlinks for the indexes of titles and first lines. But for the all-important notes, that was apparently too much trouble. Funny thing is, they've priced this edition like a professional work, rather than the public domain hackwork that it more nearly resembles.

First, let me say that if you're brand new to Pope or probably won't be reading him for pleasure for the rest of your life, you might want to consider the very good and much less expensive The Major Works (Oxford World's Classics). Also important for people who will need to seriously study the 1743 Dunciad (the four book Dunciad with Cibber playing protagonist), this Twickenham edition will be a real pain. Twickenham prints the 1728 and 1743 versions, but doesn't repeat the notes in the 1743 edition, which means you have to flip back and forth to follow all the obscure references. Again, go with the Oxford if that's going to be a problem for you.

OK, all that said, if you're looking for a beautiful edition of Pope, the Twickenham is it. I don't know much about typesetting, but my goodness is this a gorgeously printed book. Pope's writing style is pure elegance, and the publishers have a made a book that perfectly fits the feel of its text. All the poems are here, with the exception of Pope's translations of Homer. Classics like The Rape of the Lock and the Dunciad are augmented by Pope's brilliant imitations of Horace (which are a real treat for those who can read Horace's Latin) and his insightful and witty poetic essays.

This is a worthy edition to any bookshelf, and a beautiful enough book to make a great gift. Add a little Pope to your life.