Augustan Critical Writing, edited by Peter Womersley (Penguin, £10.99 in UK)

The title may sound uninviting, but this is more than an anthology for the use and assistance of harassed Eng. Lit. students. It includes, for instance, Dryden's marvellous "Of Dramatick Poesie", one of the first great critical essays in English literature, and Pope's "Essay on Criticism" and his preface to his edition of Shakespeare (it is often forgotten that he was an eminent editor as well as a noted translator). As a counterpoise, there is the attack on Pope by John Dennis, a man otherwise hardly remembered today. And there is a real curiosity piece in the preface written by Richard Bentley, the great classical scholar, to his "edited" edition of Milton's "Paradise Lost" - a version justly execrated at the time, and now as justly forgotten except by period scholars.