The Collected Verse of John, Lord Hervey (1696–1743)

The first ever edition of the collected verse of John, Lord Hervey, an eighteenth-century aristocrat, courtier, politician and poet.

John, Lord Hervey (Author), Bill Overton (Edited by), Elaine Hobby (With), James McLaverty (With)

9781107010178, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 24 November 2016

822 pages, 3 b/w illus.
23.5 x 16 x 4.8 cm, 1.28 kg

'This substantial and handsomely produced volume both makes a valuable contribution to our knowledge of eighteenth-century English poetry and offers a touching tribute to a distinguished scholar in that field. Bill Overton was Professor of Literary Studies at Loughborough University until his untimely death in 2012.' David Hopkins, The Review of English Studies

John, Lord Hervey (1696–1743), the confidant of Queen Caroline and antagonist of Alexander Pope, was a government minister, a political pamphleteer and a poet. In his verse writings, collected together for the first time in this edition, he savagely attacks his opponents, including the King and his ministers, as well as Pope, but he also expresses his deepest personal feelings. Hervey was married, with eight children, and his verse conveys his affection for his wife and family members, but his strongest commitment was to his lover, Stephen Fox. Some of his verse is written directly to Fox, but he also explores intense emotional conflicts in Ovidian epistles (which include 'lesbian' poems), in a verse tragedy Agrippina and through his collaborative poetic relationship with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Although his verse was sometimes mocked by contemporaries, he was a fluent and flexible versifier and a master of poetic argument.

List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
Chronology
Abbreviations
Introduction
Epistles
Satires
Elegies, epitaphs and an epilogue
Epigrams and a riddle
Occasional verse - social, humorous and complimentary
Shorter translations, paraphrases and imitations
Telemachus and Agrippina
Embedded original verse
Verse in Latin and in French
Descriptions of manuscript sources
List of print sources
Textual introduction
Lists of emendations and historical collations
Appendices
Index of titles
Index of first lines
Index (names, places and historical events).

Subject Areas: Gay & Lesbian studies [JFSK], Literary studies: poetry & poets [DSC], Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD], Poetry by individual poets [DCF]