The Works of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (Oxford English Texts) - Tapa dura

The notes that explain this rich embroglio of lovers, monarch, male rivals, and political intrigue are so richly detailed and touch upon topics of so much erotic piquancy, that they often read like scholarly minatures of seventeenth-century novellas. (SEL, Summer 2000)

One other feature of this edition I think is innovatory - the use of computational stylists to determine authorship in seventeenth-century poetry ... This edition supersedes all earlier editions of Rochester. (Keith Walker, The Yearbook of English Studies, 31)

It contains everything that a student of Rochester might reasonably expect from a Clarendon Press Works together with some prose pieces ... All this is accompanied by a commentary that draws fully on Love's own immense knowledge of Rochester and his seventeenth-century contexts. (Keith Walker, The Yearbook of English Studies, 31)

this is an important book (The Times 7/10/99)

It is a strength of Love's edition that he does not attempt the impossible task of resolving the uncertainties but seeks overtly to incorporate the fact of authorial and textual instability into his editorial method ... There has never before been an edition so fully and learnedly annotated and so wisely and thoughtfully conceived ... The commentary is admirable, with magisterial coverage of political background, court doings and social mores. (Claude Rawson, TLS 17/09/99)

Now he has received the accolade of a full-dress edition from Oxford University Press ... excellent explanatory notes - straight-faced - but not strait-laced ... this is an important book (Jim McCue)

John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester (1647-80), was a leading member of the group of `court wits' surrounding Charles II. In this edition, Harold Love, one of the leading scholars of seventeenth-century manuscript circulation, presents a scholarly text based on detailed examination of the manuscripts, with full textual and explanatory notes.