$11.99

144 Pages
©1992
Fyfield Books (Carcanet)

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Rochester, incontestably the greatest of the Restoration poets and reprobates, is presented in The Debt to Pleasure both in his own words and the words of those who loved or loathed him. The book is a mosaic in which the poet's voice and the voice of his age sound with a startling, ribald and riotous clarity.

As John Evelyn recalls: 'Mr Andrew Marvell (who was a good Judge of Witt) was wont to say that [Rochester] was the best English Satyrist and had the right veine. Twas pitty Death tooke him off so soon.’

John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1648-1680) was born near Oxford and studied at Wadham College, Oxford, where he was awarded an MA. He travelled until 1664, but was then imprisoned in the Tower of London for a time, allegedly for trying to abduct a Somerset heiress, whom he married upon his release from prison. He wrote satires, love poems and plays throughout his adult life, and died at Woodstock Park in July 1680.