Memoirs of the Extraordinary Life, Works & Discoveries of Martinus Scriblerus: Written in Collaboration by the Members of the Scriblerus Club: John ... Parnell, and Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford

This eighteenth-century satire is the product of a distinguished club whose members included Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, John Gay, John Arbuthnot, Thomas Parnell, and Robert Harley. Together they set out to lampoon bad taste in learning and the arts by publishing the errors and pretensions of the fictional Martinus Scriblerus. With the death of Queen Anne the group disbanded, leaving Pope to finish the project thirty years later. This long-neglected masterpiece is accompanied by a preface that sets the Scriblerus club in its historical context and extensive notes that clarify the many allusions and discuss the themes of each chapter. Still amusing, the work is also an invaluable source of information on Augustan taste in such areas as education, music, philosophy, and science.