Alexander Pope Born in the city of London, Alexander Pope is regarded to as the leading 18th century English poet, and as the greatest of all English verse satirists. His father and mother being Roman Catholics were prohibited from living within ten miles of London due to new acts of Parliament in the late 1600's. Between 1696 and 1700 Pope was tutored at home by a priest, and then enrolled in two Catholic schools, but was mainly self-educated. Due to his religion at the time, it was impossible for him to follow a career and be permitted to enroll in a university.
Being able to read Latin, Greek French and Italian at a very young age he was already writing verses and at the age of sixteen didn't know that his later writings would be published as his "Pastorals."(The New Enc. Britannica; Vol. 9,605) In 1700 the Pope family moved to Whithill house at Binfield in Winsor Forest, up till then Pope was a healthy child until 5 years after their move he was diagnosed with tubercular bone disease.
A likeness of Pope derived from a portrait by Will...
Alexander Pope's house at Twickenham
Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 – 30 May 1744) is ge...Throughout his life he would refer to it as "long Disease, my life."(http://landlow .stg.brown.edu/c32/pope/bio.html) The disease left him frail, likely to obtain various other illnesses, humpbacked, and fully-grown at a height of only four and a half feet. In his early twenties he frequently visited London and became acquainted with the literary publishers there, including Wychereley and Walsh (Collier's Encyclopedia, 397) In 1709 the "Pastorals," Popes first published work, appeared in Tonsong's Poetical Miscellanies. (Collier's Encyclopedia, 397) After his first published work "Pastorals," Pope's confidence in his writings grew. As his poems grew in numbers his topics became more abstract. In Pope's composition of "An Essay of Man," pope thought of the happiness, worship and glory in his description of man.