Reliquiae Hearnianae

The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature

Reliquiæ Hearnianæ: the remains of Thomas Hearne, extracts from his MS. diaries, collected with a few notes by P. Bliss. [Proofs of sheets [A] E, H-R, T-X, Aa, Bb, Dd-Gg, Ii-Nn, Pp. 3R with corrections by the editor, and letters from him to J.H. Markland, &c., inserted. The proofs of sheets E and Ii are each in 2 states].

Selected Works

The brightest star at the court of King Charles II, John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1647-80), lived a life of reckless debauchery and sexual adventuring that led to his death at the age of thirty-three - described by Samuel Johnson as having 'blazed out his youth and health in lavish voluptuousness'. Rochester was also one of the wittiest and most complex poets of the seventeenth century, writing comic verse, scurrilous satires and highly explicit erotica - from the bawdy self-portrait in 'The Maimed Debauchee' and the tender passion of 'Absent from thee I languish still' to the comic world-weariness of 'Upon Nothing' and 'A Satyr against Mankind', which mocks human follies. With endless literary disguises, rhymes and alliteration, humour and humanity, Rochester's poems hold up a mirror to the extravagances and absurdities of his age.