I’ve found that my students tend to start the semester laboring under the assumption that the literature of the 18th and 19th centuries is dry, dense, sexless stuff.  To break them of that notion, one of my favorite authors to start a new class off with is John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester.  (Johnny Depp played Rochester in the filmThe Libertine, for those who need a cinematic reference point.)  Rochester’s poetry is delightfully ribald and earnestly perverse; he used the kind of language Mike won’t let us get away with here at Liar Society.  Rochester’s most famous poems are, of course, “The Disabled Debauchee” and “The Imperfect Enjoyment,” poetic explorations of impotence and premature ejaculation, respectively.  To get a full sense of what Rochester’s poetry is all about, consider that one of his best verses is titled “Signior Dildo.”  Yes, it is about exactly what you think it is.

And yet, complete as it is, I cannot in good faith recommend this particular collection of his work.  The Filiquarian Publishing edition commits a cardinal sin: it clothes lovely words poorly.  To be blunt, this book is ugly.  The cover is a hideously pixelated scan of the portrait that hangs in London’s National Portrait Gallery.  The font is legible, but plain.  And the amount of wasted white space in the book is simply unforgivable.  While I encourage all and sundry to seek out Rochester’s poetry for its, ah, edifying, properties, I must insist that they do so elsewhere.  This volume would be an embarrassment to the better dressed texts in your library.

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