Poetry

The Rape of the Lock, and Other Poems

by Alexander Pope

In 1711 Lord Petre cut a lock of hair from Arabella Fermor’s head without her leave, and their two families fell out over it. Pope was asked to laugh them into friendship again, and wrote a mock-epic that tells the theft with all the machinery of Homer: sylphs, a game of cards fought like a battle, and a journey to the Cave of Spleen. Like Lilliput, it makes a great war out of a very small thing.

The librarian

Read it in the Library After Dark Or read it as plain text

Reading time

About 3 hr 40 min

Where to find it

Lilliput

Edition

Project Gutenberg, eBook #9800. In the public domain in the United States.