Steven N. Zwicker is Stanley Elkin Professor of Humanities at Washington University, St. Louis and Professor of English and Adjunct Professor of History. He is the editor of The Cambridge Companion to English Literature, 1650-1740 (Cambridge, 1998), Reading, Society, and Politics in Early Modern England, ed. with Kevin Sharpe (Cambridge, 2003), John Dryden: Selected Poems (2001), Refiguring Revolutions, ed. with Kevin Sharpe (1998), Lines of Authority (1993), Politics of Discourse, ed. with Kevin Sharpe (1987) and Politics and Language in Dryden's Poetry (1984).

• Chronology; Part I. Pleasures of the Imagination: 1. Composing a literary life: introduction Steven N. Zwicker; 2. Dryden and the theatrical imagination Stuart Sherman; 3. Dryden and the energies of satire Ronald Paulson; 4. Dryden and the imperial imagination Laura Brown; 5. Dryden and the invention of Augustan culture Paul Davis; 6. Dryden's triplets Christopher Ricks; Part II. A Literary Life in Restoration England: 7. Dryden's London Harold Love; 8. Dryden's theatre and the passions of politics Paulina Kewes; 9. Dryden's anonymity John Mullan; 10. Dryden and the modes of restoration sociability Katsuhiro Engetsu; Part III: 11. Dryden and patronage John Barnard; 12. Dryden and political allegiance Annabel Patterson; 13. The piety of John Dryden John Spurr; 14. Dryden's 'Fables' and the judgment of art Anne Cotterill; 15. Dryden and the problem of literary modernity: epilogue Steven N. Zwicker.

'… a more formidable and important volume, at once authoritative and innovative, than its modest dress would suggest …'. The Times Literary Supplement