English essayist, critic, satirist, and one of the greatest poets of Enlightenment. Pope wrote his first verses at the age of 12. His breakthrough work, AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM (1711), appeared when he was twenty-three. Pope's physical defects made him an easy target for his fellow critics to mock, however he was also considered a leading literary critic of English Neoclassicism.

Most of his time Pope spent reading books from his father's library. While still at school, Pope wrote a play based on speeches from the Iliad. In 1700, when his family moved to Binfield in Windsor Forest, Pope contracted tuberculosis through infected milk.He also suffered from asthma and headaches, and his humpback was a constant target for his critics in literary battles - Pope was called a 'hunchbacked toad.' In middle age he was 4ft 6in tall and wore a stiffened canvas bodice to support his spine...