Jean Holdsworth’s novel published in 1977 highlights the contradiction of which readers of Pope become increasingly aware the longer they read Pope’s work and reflect on his life. His character is elusive seeming to alternate between kindness, warmth and generosity to his friends and vituperative and vengeful unkindness to his enemies. All this exists against the background of his persistent ill-health and extended periods of pain.
Commentators and biographers saw different facets again in his character. It’s no surprise perhaps that Pope’s character was strongly defended by Edith Sitwell in her 1930 biography. Youthful illness and unhappiness had marked her experience strongly and made her naturally sympathetic to Pope and all he endured.
For Sitwell, Pope was a writer above all with no further justification required.
Johnson in his ‘Lives of the Poets’ saw the contradictions but was savage in delineating what he saw as Pope’s vanity and insincerity.
But in the end, I feel, the work forgives and validates.
The Solitary Reader 