In the dazzling company of Alexander Pope and friends
In the summer of 1726, the writers Jonathan Swift and John Gay spent several weeks at the home of their friend Alexander Pope on the banks of the Thames at Twickenham (then known as ‘Twitnam’), not resting but toiling away at their various literary activities and mutually inspiring each other. On the surface they were an unlikely trio: Swift was almost 20 years older than either Pope or Gay; Pope was Catholic (at a time when Catholicism was still treated with suspicion) and financially independent, while Swift was an Anglican cleric, the Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin. Gay, in contrast, was a jobbing writer, dependent for financial security on his amiable sociability and maintenance of good relations with a long list of wealthy patrons.
