The Rape of the Lock

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.