Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope was born on May 21st 1688, Popes education was effected greatly by a law passed banning all Catholics from voting, attending school, holding any public offices, and teaching. Alexander Popes, Aunt taught him to read and write, and around 1698 he got further education from Twyford school, then in 1699 he was attending two separate Catholic schools, some areas still tolerated the schools even though they were highly illegal.


In 1700 his family moved to a somewhat small estate at Popeswood and Binfield, Berkshire. The cause of the move was due to an anti-Catholic sentiment and statute, preventing any Catholics from living in a 10 mile radius of London or Westminster. Pope would describe the country side around this house in a later poem Windsor Forest.

 During this time Popes formal education had ended, he would self educate himself by reading books and poems by classical writers, some examples are Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, and many others, and he had come into contact with figures from a literary society, William Wycherley, William Congreve, Samuel Garth, William Trumbull, and William Walsh.

While in Binfield Pope had made some very important friends, one such being John Caryll, John was twenty years older then Pope, and has made many acquaintances in the London literary world, John is the one whom Pope had met William Wycherley, and william Walsh, and through John he had met the Blount sisters, Teresa, and Martha Blount. Both of which are alleged lovers.

When Pope was 12, he had suffered a great many illnesses, such as Potts disease, Potts disease is a form of Tuberculosis that affects the bone, it had deformed his body and left him with a permanent hunch. His Tuberculosis infection had created other health issues, such as respiratory issues, aches, inflamed eyes, and a series of other health problems.

In Popes early career, around 1709, in May, he had published Pastorals, in the sixth part of Tonson's, Poetical Miscellanies, to which brought Pope instant fame. He followed it up by publishing An Essay on Criticism, in May 1711, Which was equally loved. In 1712, Rape of the Lock was published, and revised in 1714, while in 1713 he had published Windsor Forest. Rape of the Lock was considered his most popular poem.


I will look up his later life in a short period, I am having trouble finding information that looks reliable.