Introduction

At the beginning of the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, Alexander Pope both invites his readers inside and slams the door on them. In one sense, Pope seals himself off from what he represents as a circulation of writings and authors that has proliferated out of control: parsons, poetesses, peers, and clerks all writing madly and circulating in person as authors along with their “papers,” as they “rave, recite, and madden round the land” (5–6). Yet in another sense, despite its enabling address to Arbuthnot, the Epistle is really addressed to the print market reader, who holds the 1735 folio poem or the 1735 Works in folio, quarto, or octavo in his or her hands (if not one of the several pirated editions of the poem which also appeared during the year). Pope meanwhile had already received £50 for the poem, in his customary arrangement at the time with his bookseller Lawrence Gilliver for one year's rights of copy, after which the copyright would revert back to Pope as part of his carefully tended authorial property. ¹