Fisher Nicholas - John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester: the Poems and Lucinas Rape

John Milton Complete Shorter Poems edited by Stella P. Revard

John Milton, Paradise Lost edited by Barbara K. Lewalski

John Milton Prose: Major Writings on Liberty, Politics, Religion, and Education edited by David Loewenstein

This paperback edition first published 2013
2013 Keith Walker and Nicholas Fisher

Edition history: Blackwell Publishing Ltd (hardback, 2010)

Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwells publishing program has been merged with Wileys global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business to form Wiley-Blackwell

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rochester, John Wilmot, Earl of, 16471680.
John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester : the poems, and Lucinas rape / edited by Keith Walker and Nicholas Fisher.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4051-8779-4 (cloth) ISBN 978-1-118-43879-4 (pbk.)
I. Walker, Keith, 19362004 II. Fisher, Nicholas III. Title.
PR3669.R2A6 2010
821.4dc22

2009032171

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Cover image: Hendrick Danckerts, Whitehall from St Jamess Park, c. 1675 (detail). Crown copyright: UK Government Art Collection.
Cover design by Richard Boxall Design Associates

IN MEMORY OF

KEITH WALKER & HAROLD LOVE

(19362004) (19372007)

. Engraved portrait of Rochester, 1681 (collection of Howard Erskine-Hill)

Keith Walker died in 2004. This is a revised and updated version of his acclaimed 1984 edition of Rochesters poems, to which has been added the play Lucinas Rape Or The Tragedy of Vallentinian (rst published as Valentinian: A Tragedy (London, 1685)). Where possible, privately-produced texts from sources close to Rochester in his holograph or from within his wider family or from a highly placed Court ofcial have been selected. Until Harold Loves comprehensive edition for Oxford University Press in 1999, Walkers had been the only full, critical, old-spelling edition of Rochesters verse and the preferred edition for many Rochester scholars. Loves detailed records of manuscript variations have superseded the comparatively limited textual comparisons Walker included, and these have therefore now been omitted, not least in order to prevent this revision becoming too unwieldy. It remains true to the spirit of Walkers edition, however, not least in the arrangement of the poems by genre (and where possible chronologically), in the notes and above all in following Walkers original principle of making Rochester available to students and scholars in versions that were read in his lifetime.

My chief debts are, rstly, to Ken Robinson, who introduced me to the Earl of Rochester while I was an undergraduate at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, and then supervised my masters dissertation on satiric and verse epistles in the Restoration Period; and, secondly, to Paul Hammond at the University of Leeds who was the supervisor of my doctoral dissertation on the early publishing history of Rochesters work, and has generously continued to allow me to draw on his detailed knowledge of Restoration literature. I cannot adequately express my debt to them both, and particularly to Paul Hammond, for their stimulation, patience and advice over a lengthy period. I am also most grateful for the individual kindnesses and encouragement I have received from Philip Aherne, Peter Beal, John Carey, Larry Carver, Warren Chernaik, Robert Hume, David Gareth Jones, Thomas MacFaul, Brian Oatley, James Grantham Turner and Henry Woudhuysen. Philippa Martin, Curator of the Government Art Collection, provided invaluable advice and help, and Howard Erskine-Hill generously allowed me to include an illustration of Rochester from his extensive collection of prints from the long eighteenth century. This edition has also proted greatly from the enthusiasm and expertise of the publishing team at Blackwell Emma Bennett, Caroline Clamp, Isobel Bainton and Sarah Pearsall and I must also record the tolerance of my wife Pam, and children Francis, Rachel and Harriet, which has been nothing short of heroic.