This volume investigates the authentic corpus of John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester, by reconciling disparate manuscript traditions to establish a definitive scholarly text. Harold Love, a preeminent authority on seventeenth-century literature and manuscript circulation, utilizes rigorous textual criticism to strip away centuries of editorial corruption. By analyzing the social and political context of the Restoration court, the work provides a framework for understanding how Wilmot's poetry functioned as both a private performance and a public provocation.

Scholars and literary historians regard this edition as the definitive resource for the study of Rochester's work due to its meticulous attention to textual provenance. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose and the exhaustive nature of the critical apparatus provided by Love.