The Rape of the Lock (An Heroi-Comical Poem in Five Cantos)

WHAT dire offence from am rous causes springs What mighty contests rise from trivial things... In a world apparently light-years away from the Me Too movement huge offence was caused in the early ...

WHAT dire offence from am rous causes springs What mighty contests rise from trivial things... In a world apparently light-years away from the Me Too movement huge offence was caused in the early 18th-century when Lord Petre cut a lock of society beauty Arabella Fermor s hair, provoking scandal and disgrace. Pope wrote the poem in an effort to reconcile Miss Fermor, immortalised as Belinda. The mock-heroic poem, light, elegant and witty, was an immediate success and remains a classic of English literature. Roland Pym completed the illustrations in the 1980s, but they have not been published until now.