Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
Poet, was born in London, of Roman Catholic parentage. Pope received a somewhat desultory education at various Roman Catholic schools, but after the age of 12, when he had a severe illness brought on by over-application, he was practically self-educated. By 1704 he had written a good deal of verse, which attracted the attention of Wycherley (q.v.), who introduced him to town life and to other men of letters. The Rape of the Lock, which came out in 1714, placed his reputation on a sure foundation, and thereafter his life was an uninterrupted and brilliant success. In 1713 Windsor Forest (which won him the friendship of Swift) and The Temple of Fame appeared, and in 1715 the translation of the Iliad was begun, and the work published at intervals between that year and 1720. It had enormous popularity, and brought the poet £5000. It was followed by the Odyssey (1725-26) While engaged upon these he removed to Chiswick, where he lived 1716-18, and where he issued in 1717 a collected edition of his works, including the Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady and the Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard. His next task was his edition of Shakespeare (1725), a work for which he was not well qualified, though the preface is a fine piece of prose. The Miscellanies, the joint work of Pope and Swift, were published in 1727-28, and drew down upon the authors a storm of angry comment, which in turn led to the production of The Dunciad, first published in 1728, and again with new matter in 1729, an additional book-the fourth-being added in 1742. In it he satirised with a wit, always keen and biting, often savage and unfair, the small wits and poetasters, and some of a quite different quality, who had, or whom he supposed to have, injured him. Between 1731 and 1735 he produced his Epistles, the last of which, addressed to Arbuthnot, is also known as the Prologue to the Satires, and contains his ungrateful character of Addison under the name of "Atticus;" and also, 1733, the Essay on Man, written under the influence of Bolingbroke. His last, and in some respects best, works were his Imitations of Horace, pub. between 1733 and 1739, and the fourth book of The Dunciad (1742), already mentioned. A naturally delicate constitution, a deformed body, extreme sensitiveness, over-excitement, and over-work did not promise a long life, and Pope died on May 30, 1744, aged 56.
From Biographical Dictionary of English Literature - the Everyman Edition of 1910

links:  - Alexander Pope: an overview