http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/102673506

The eighteenth-century British verse epistle

This is the first comprehensive study of the verse epistle in Britain during the eighteenth century, the period of its greatest importance. It offers a systematic definition of the form that attempts to do justice to its full variety, and it also provides convincing evidence of how popular a form it was. Through detailed analysis of a large number of examples of all types of epistle - including ethic, familiar, humorous, heroic, satirical and complimentary - it casts light both on well-known poems by such writers as Alexander Pope and Robert Burns, and on poems that are little known or not known at all. Among these are epistles by women such as Anne Finch, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Susanna Blamire, and by writers of both sexes from the labouring classes, such as Allan Ramsay, John Bancks and Mary Leapor.

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