A critical reappraisal of an important but neglected seventeenth-century English writer. Waller’s works, particularly his collection of Poems (1645), drew high praise from, and influenced, a number of well-known contemporary and future poets.

Acknowledgements List of Figures Abbreviations Notes on Contributors Introduction  Philip Major 1 ‘Power Unbounded and a Will Confined’: Waller’s Politics  Warren Chernaik 2 Banished from the ‘frantic isle’: Edmund Waller in Exile  Geoffrey Smith 3 Waller, Marvell, and ‘La Belle Stuart’ Reconsidered  Martin Dzelzainis 4 ‘… and Musick too’: Edmund Waller on the Pages of Ayres and Dialogues (1653)  Thomas Ward 5 ‘We Plough the Deep, and Reap What Others Sow’: Waller’s Panegyrick and the Empire of Trade  Stephen Deng 6 ‘… like Orpheus, with My Numerous Moan’: Wit by Association in Waller’s 1645 Poems  Tessie Prakas 7 ‘Such Huge Extremes’: Waller, Denham and the Emergence of Neoclassical Distichs  Richard Hillyer 8 Waller’s Elegies  Daniel Cook 9 In Praise of Mr. Waller  Gillian Wright 10 Waller and the Wits: Poetry, Reputation, and Generational Conflict at the Court of Charles II  Michael P. Parker Index