Building on the strength of Keith Walker’s acclaimed The Poems of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1984), leading scholar Nicholas Fisher presents a thoroughly revised and updated edition of the work of one the greatest Restoration wits. Includes the text of Lucina’s Rape, Rochester’s adaptation of Fletcher’s revenge tragedy Valentinian, in a text that readily identifies Rochester’s revisions Presents the poems in versions that were current during Rochester’s lifetime, allowing the reader to experience the poems as Rochester’s contemporaries did Incorporates insights and discoveries made over the last twenty-five years and texts of manuscripts that previously were unavailable for study

Reprint of the original, first published in 1875.