Memoirs of the Extraordinary Life, Works and Discoveries of Martinus Scriblerus - Brossura

'this malicious and energetic (and little-known) satire on intellectual pretensions is an important rediscovery: a fugitive text published in 1741 in the great Augustan poet's collected prose works, though written much earlier by Pope, with the help of his crony, physician-wit-bon vivant John Arbuthnot (and possibly with help from their mutual friend Jonathan Swift). It relates the efforts of self-styled philosopher (and egotist) Cornelius Scriblerus to breed and develop a genius: his son Martinus. Thereafter, we're treated to the latter's educative adventures, including an early "disposition to the mathematics . . . [evidenced] by his drawing parallel lines on his bread and butter"; the study of anatomy by observation of a corpse brought home for his edification; complex litigation ensuing from Martinus's love for a beauteous Siamese twin; and the production of such eminent arcana as his "complete digest of the laws of nature." This effervescent lampoon anticipates both Swift's mature satires and Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy. More than a bit arch, but marvelously entertaining. One wonders how it ever drifted out of the canon.' --Kirkus Review

'...a comedy undertaken by the most brilliant and most facetious men of their time' --Peter Ackroyd

'a good-humoured p***-take, happy to mock the more innocuous follies of its time, whether they be the preening self-love of the genteel or the pretensions of the literary world.' --The Guardian

Alexander Pope is the greatest English poet of the eighteenth century, with The Rape of the Lock universally regarded as his masterpiece. Peter Ackroyd began his literary career as a poet before moving into fiction, most recently London: The Biography, and biographies of Dickens, Blake and T.S. Eliot amongst others.