ABSTRACT

The Critical Heritage gathers together a large body of critical sources on major figures in literature. Each volume presents contemporary responses to a writer's work, enabling students and researchers to read for themselves, for example, comments on early performances of Shakespeare's plays, or reactions to the first publication of Jane Austen's novels.
The carefully selected sources range from landmark essays in the history of criticism to journalism and contemporary opinion, and little published documentary material such as letters and diaries. Significant pieces of criticism from later periods are also included, in order to demonstrate the fluctuations in an author's reputation.
Each volume contains an introduction to the writer's published works, a selected bibliography, and an index of works,authors and subjects.
The Collected Critical Heritage set will be available as a set of 68 volumes and the series will also be available in mini sets selected by period (in slipcase boxes) and as individual volumes.

chapter |40 pages

Introduction

part I|310 pages

Contemporary Criticism 1705–44

chapter I|16 pages

General Reactions 1705–20

chapter 1|1 pages

Wycherley welcomes the young poet

April 1705

chapter 2|1 pages

Opinions of Gay and Addison

May, October 1712

chapter 3|8 pages

John Dennis's ‘Character' of Pope

May 1716

chapter 4|1 pages

Welsted on Pope's Vulgar art'

March 1717

chapter 5|3 pages

Parnell assesses Pope's early career

1717

chapter 6|2 pages

Two assessments

1718, 1719

chapter I|12 pages

Pastorals

2 May 1709

chapter 7|3 pages

Reactions 1705–9

chapter 8|3 pages

Wycherley's public acclamation

1709

chapter 9|8 pages

Pope compares himself with Philips

1713

chapter I|16 pages

An Essay on Criticism

15 May 1711

chapter 10|7 pages

Dennis's first attack on Popey

June 1711

chapter 11|4 pages

Addison on An Essay on Criticism

December 1711

chapter 12|2 pages

Gildon's first attack on Pope

1711

chapter 13|4 pages

Aaron Hill ‘improves' An Essay on Criticism

1738

chapter 14|1 pages

Two contrasting views

1736, 1741

chapter I|2 pages

Messiah, a Sacred Eclogue

14 May 1712

chapter 15|2 pages

Steele's comments

1712

chapter I|4 pages

Windsor Forest

7 March 1713

chapter 16|2 pages

Dennis's opinion

1714

chapter 17|2 pages

Another comparison with Cooper's Hill

1720

chapter I|21 pages

The Rape of the Lock

2 March 1714

chapter 18|2 pages

Trumbull's and Berkeley's immediate response

March, May 1714

chapter 19|3 pages

‘Bawdy' in The Rape of the Lock

April 1714

chapter 20|10 pages

Dennis's opinion

May 1714ff.

chapter 21|2 pages

William Bond's opinion

1720

chapter 22|1 pages

Concanen's praise

1725

chapter 23|2 pages

A French assessment

1728

chapter 24|3 pages

Two Italian assessments

1739

chapter I|25 pages

Iliad

6 June 1715–May 1720

chapter 25|1 pages

Preliminary praise

1714

chapter 26|2 pages

Preliminary Censure from ‘Sir Iliad Doggrel'

March 1715

chapter 27|2 pages

The battle between Pope and Tickell begins

June 1715

chapter 28|4 pages

The public takes sides

June 1715-March 1717

chapter 29|2 pages

Theobald praises the Iliad

January 1717

chapter 30|5 pages

‘Sir Tremendous Longinus' replies

February 1717

chapter 31|2 pages

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's praise

September 1717

chapter 33|4 pages

William Melmoth's opinion

1719

chapter I|1 pages

A Roman Catholick Version of the First Psalm

30 June 1716

chapter 34|1 pages

Blackmore on Pope's profane obscenity

1717

chapter I|3 pages

Eloisa to Abelard

3 June 1717

chapter 35|3 pages

Matthew Prior's and James Delacour's praise

1719, 1730

chapter I|1 pages

Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady

3 June 1717

chapter 36|1 pages

Blacklock is ‘thrown into Agitation'

c. 1742

chapter I|17 pages

General Reactions

1721–9

chapter 38|2 pages

Concanen praises Pope with Eusden

1722

chapter 39|3 pages

Bolingbroke gives advice

1724

chapter 40|2 pages

Young urges Pope to satire

1725

chapter 41|2 pages

Praise from a young admirer

1727

chapter 42|1 pages

Voltaire on Pope

1726, 1726–9

chapter 43|2 pages

An American admirer

1727, 1728

chapter 44|2 pages

Dennis reacts to the news of The Dunciad

May 1728

chapter 45|5 pages

Concanen turns against Pope

August 1728

chapter 46|1 pages

Savage and Atterbury on Pope's superiority

1729

chapter I|44 pages

Odyssey

23 April 1725-June 1726

chapter 47|2 pages

‘Homerides' on Pope's sharp practice

July 1725

chapter 48|3 pages

Defoe defends Pope's business ethics

July 1725

chapter 49|29 pages

Joseph Spence on the Odyssey

June 1726

chapter 50|10 pages

Further remarks by Joseph Spence

August 1727

chapter 51|1 pages

Concanen on Pope as translator

1728

chapter I|11 pages

The Dunciad

18 May 1728

chapter 52|6 pages

A ‘Club' of dunce retorts

May 1728

chapter 53|4 pages

The Dunciad a misuse of Pope's genius

27 June 1728

chapter 54|2 pages

Swift on The Dunciad's Obscurity

July 1728

chapter I|17 pages

The Dunciad Variorum

10 April 1729

chapter 56|6 pages

Dennis on The Dunciad

July 1729

chapter 57|2 pages

The Dunciad beneath Pope's dignity

August 1729

chapter 58|2 pages

Jacob supports Dennis

December 1729

chapter 59|6 pages

Walter Harte defends Pope's satire

1731

chapter 60|1 pages

Fielding on Pope's achievement

1739

chapter I|27 pages

General Reactions

1730–44

chapter 61|1 pages

Richardson assesses Pope

c. 1730–4

chapter 62|3 pages

Pope as Augustan poet

1730

chapter 63|1 pages

Pope compared to Boileau

Summer 1733

chapter 64|1 pages

Pope's manly satire

June 1733

chapter 65|2 pages

The Poet finish'd in prose

June 1735

chapter 66|1 pages

Ordure from Grub Street

November 1735

chapter 67|2 pages

An epistle from South Carolina

1737

chapter 69|2 pages

A tribute to Pope's greatness

1739

chapter 70|1 pages

Isaac Watts on Pope

1731

chapter 71|2 pages

Satire a betrayal of Pope's genius

1742

chapter 72|10 pages

Sawney and Colley

1742

chapter I|2 pages

‘Ethick Epistles' (an abandoned project)

1729–36

chapter 73|2 pages

Bolingbroke and Swift comment

1734, 1736

chapter I|3 pages

Moral Essays IV: Epistle to Burlington, of Taste

14 December 1731

chapter 74|1 pages

Chandos exculpates Pope

1731

chapter 75|2 pages

Welsted on Pope's ‘Libel'

1732

chapter I|1 pages

Moral Essays III: To Allen Lord Bathurst, of the Use of Riches

15 January 1733

chapter 76|1 pages

Swift on obscurity

1733

chapter I|9 pages

Imitations of Horace, Satire II. i

February 1733

chapter 77|4 pages

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu replies in kind

March 1733

chapter 78|5 pages

Satire as Pope's vice

March 1733

chapter I|39 pages

An Essay on Man

20 February 1733–24 January 1734

chapter 79|1 pages

Pope describes the poem's reception

1733

chapter 80|3 pages

Initial reactions

1733–4

chapter 81|3 pages

Pope's orthodoxy queried

1736

chapter 82|11 pages

Abbé du Resnel's opinion

1736

chapter 83|11 pages

Crousaz attacks An Essay on Man

1737

chapter 84|9 pages

Dr Warburton replies to Crousaz

1738

chapter 85|1 pages

‘A Hodge-Podge Mess of Philosophy'

1742

chapter I|2 pages

Epitaph On Mr. Gay in Westminster Abbey

June/July 1733

chapter 86|2 pages

Swift's criticisms

1733

chapter I|10 pages

Imitations of Horace: Serm. I. ii (Sober Advice from Horace)

28 December 1734

chapter 87|10 pages

Thomas Bentley satirizes Pope

1735

chapter I|2 pages

An Epistle from Mr. Pope to Dr. Arbuthnot

2 January 1735

chapter 88|2 pages

Three opinions

1734–42

chapter I|2 pages

Epilogue to the Satires: Dialogue II

18 July 1738

chapter 89|2 pages

Opinions of Aaron Hill and Swift

1738

chapter I|9 pages

The New Dunciad: As it was Found in the Year 1741

20 March 1742

chapter 90|1 pages

The reaction of Shenstone and Grey

March–April 1742

chapter 91|5 pages

Cibber's story of Pope on the ‘Mount of Love'

July 1742

chapter 92|1 pages

Fielding champions Pope

August 1742

chapter 93|2 pages

Richardson on The Dunciad (1742)

1743

chapter I|4 pages

The Dunciad in Four Books

19 October 1743

chapter 94|4 pages

‘Orator' Henley on The Dunciad (1743)

1743

chapter 95|1 pages

Richardson on The Dunciad (1744)

1744

chapter I|5 pages

A Final Tribute

chapter 96|5 pages

An Elegy by a friend

1744

part II|178 pages

Later Criticism

chapter 97|5 pages

An early biographer's assessment

1745

chapter 98|2 pages

Gray on Pope and virtue

1746

chapter 99|2 pages

Johnson on ‘Sound and Sense'

1751

chapter 100|6 pages

Warburton as editorial commentator

1751

chapter 101|1 pages

Catherine Talbot on Pope

1751

chapter 102|1 pages

Cowper on Pope's Homer

c. 1753–7

chapter 103|1 pages

French praise for the Pastorals

1753

chapter 104|4 pages

A mid-century comparison of Pope and Dryden

February 1753

chapter 105|6 pages

Warton on Pope's borrowings

1753

chapter 106|29 pages

Warton's Essay, volume i

1756

chapter 107|4 pages

Johnson reviews Warton

before 15 May 1756

chapter 108|9 pages

Johnson on Pope's Epitaphs

1756

chapter 109|1 pages

Voltaire on Pope as philosophe

1756

chapter 110|2 pages

Richardson on Pope's lack of genius

1757

chapter 111|4 pages

Critical clichés of 1759

chapter 112|5 pages

Young on Pope's lack of originality

1759

chapter 113|2 pages

Algarotti on Pope

1759

chapter 114|3 pages

Johnson on Pope and ‘easy poetry'

October 1759

chapter 115|4 pages

Pope and Boileau in conversation

1760

chapter 116|2 pages

An Edinburgh professor's view

c. 1762

chapter 117|7 pages

Lord Kames on Pope

March 1762

chapter 118|6 pages

Pope, Homer, and the nature of genius

1762

chapter 119|2 pages

A French imitator of The Dunciad

1764

chapter 120|2 pages

Pope, ‘The Last English Muse'

1764, 1767

chapter 121|7 pages

Ruffhead replies to Warton

1769

chapter 122|2 pages

Johnson reviews Ruffhead

1769

chapter 123|2 pages

Thomas Warton on The Temple of Fame

1774

chapter 124|4 pages

Sound and sense in Pope again

1776

chapter 125|5 pages

Stockdale replies to Warton

1778

chapter 126|2 pages

William Cowper on Pope

1780–1, 1782

chapter 127|33 pages

Johnson on Pope

1781

chapter 128|14 pages

Warton's Essay, volume ii

1782

chapter 129|4 pages

Hayley on Pope's genius and his satire

1782

chapter 130|2 pages

Johnson on ‘whit'

1782

chapter 131|2 pages

Vicesimus Knox on the two parties in English poetry

1782