The poem was published by subscription, and was a great pecuniary success.
This was in part due to the blunt importunity of Dean Swift, who said:
"The author shall not begin to print until I have a thousand guineas for
him." Parnell, one of the most accomplished Greek scholars of the day,
wrote a life of Homer, to be prefixed to the work; and many of the
critical notes were written by Broome, who had translated the Iliad into
English prose. Pope was not without poetical rivals. Tickell produced a
translation of the first book of the Iliad, which was certainly revised,
and many thought partly written, by Addison. A coolness already existing
between Pope and Addison was increased by this circumstance, which soon
led to an open rupture between them. The public, however, favored Pope's
version, while a few of the _dilettanti_ joined Addison in preferring
Tickell's.
The pecuniary results of Pope's labors were particularly gratifying. The
work was published in six quarto volumes, and had more than six hundred
subscribers, at six guineas a copy: the amount realized by Pope on the
first and subsequent issues was upwards of five thousand pounds--an
unprecedented payment of bookseller to author in that day.
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