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Culture notes

Alexander Pope, inventor of celebrity

Depictions of the poet were ubiquitous in the 18th century. The finest have now been brought together for a show at Waddesdon Manor

26 July 2014

9:00 AM

26 July 2014

9:00 AM

‘The Picture of the Prime Minister hangs above the Chimney of his own Closet, but I have seen that of Mr Pope in twenty Noblemen’s Houses,’ wrote Voltaire in 1733.

Alexander Pope’s start in life was not promising. A crippled hunchback, suffering chronic ill-health, he was, as a Catholic, excluded from Court, allowed to live no closer to Westminster than Chiswick.

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