The Rape of the Lock

About this book

A stolen lock of hair becomes the cause of a battle fought with fans, cards, flirtation and supernatural helpers. Alexander Pope elevates a small fashionable quarrel to the scale of epic warfare.

The Rape of the Lock is a brilliantly controlled satire of eighteenth-century society, turning a social slight into an elaborate poem of vanity and wounded pride. Its sylphs and airy machinery give the comedy an enchantment of its own. Every polished line reveals how seriously people can treat the most ridiculous things.