# Is "The Rape of the Lock" by Alexander Pope a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope (Bernard Lintott, London, 1714) is identified by: The collected form is the five-canto separate: "The Rape of the Lock. The census note is confirmed, with one refinement worth publishing: the poem's true first appearance in print is the anonymous two-canto version, and there it is titled "The Rape of the Locke" — with the final "e" — printed at pp.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- The collected form is the five-canto separate: "The Rape of the Lock
- An Heroi-Comical Poem
- In Five Canto's
- Written by Mr
- Pope," London, printed for Bernard Lintott, 1714 (Foxon P941); octavo, [8], 48 pp., the title printed in red and black, with an engraved frontispiece and five plates — one before each canto — by Claude Du Bosc after Louis Du Guernier, plus engraved headpieces, a tailpiece and an initial letter by Simon Gribelin
- This is simultaneously the first separate, first complete (five-canto) and first illustrated edition; it was published on 4 March 1714, reportedly sold 3,000 copies in four days, and was reprinted within the same year, so any edition statement on the title page and the strength of the plate impressions both require checking
- Publisher imprint reads Bernard Lintott, London

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Alexander Pope |
| Publisher | Bernard Lintott, London |
| Year | 1714 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | The collected form is the five-canto separate: "The Rape of the Lock |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
The collected form is the five-canto separate: "The Rape of the Lock. An Heroi-Comical Poem. In Five Canto's. Written by Mr. Pope," London, printed for Bernard Lintott, 1714 (Foxon P941); octavo, [8], 48 pp., the title printed in red and black, with an engraved frontispiece and five plates — one before each canto — by Claude Du Bosc after Louis Du Guernier, plus engraved headpieces, a tailpiece and an initial letter by Simon Gribelin. This is simultaneously the first separate, first complete (five-canto) and first illustrated edition; it was published on 4 March 1714, reportedly sold 3,000 copies in four days, and was reprinted within the same year, so any edition statement on the title page and the strength of the plate impressions both require checking. Because the six images are copperplate engravings, impressions vary in strength from the beginning to the end of a single print run, and worn plates were touched up for later editions — plate quality is therefore corroborating evidence only, and the collation, the red-and-black title and the absence of a later edition statement must carry the identification.

## Is this the true first?
The census note is confirmed, with one refinement worth publishing: the poem's true first appearance in print is the anonymous two-canto version, and there it is titled "The Rape of the Locke" — with the final "e" — printed at pp. [353]-376 of Bernard Lintot's "Miscellaneous Poems and Translations. By Several Hands" (London, May 1712; Griffith 6; ESTC T5777; octavo). Pope sold that two-canto text to Lintott in March 1712 and was later paid to expand it; the 1714 Lintott separate is the form universally called "the first edition of The Rape of the Lock," but it is the first of the enlarged text, not the poem's first printing. Two traps follow: leaves extracted or disbound from the 1712 Miscellany are offered as a "first edition" of the poem although no separate 1712 printing exists, and the spelling "Locke" versus "Lock" is itself the quickest way to tell the 1712 miscellany text from the 1714 book. There is no UK/US or original-language precedence question — Pope wrote in English and both printings are London, Lintott.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club edition of the 1714 exists. Circulating copies are modern reprints and illustrated re-issues; the most frequently misidentified is Aubrey Beardsley's illustrated edition (London: Leonard Smithers, 1896 — frontispiece and nine drawings, seven of them plates, with 37 copies on Japanese vellum of which 25 were for sale) and its very numerous later reprints, alongside Penguin, Oxford, Dover and print-on-demand facsimiles struck from ECCO scans. A copy with Beardsley's rococo line drawings is never the 1714; the 1714 plates are engravings by Du Bosc after Du Guernier.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Rape of the Lock* by Alexander Pope a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-rape-of-the-lock
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.