Memoirs of the Extraordinary Life, Works and Discoveries of Martinus Scriblerus

Rich with hilarious episodes, Scriblerus is an ingenious satire of false learning and bad taste that has much to say to the pseudo-intellectual world of today. By taking one ambitious father and his determination to do everything in his power to produce a child of genius, Pope exposes the true folly of the men of his age and their absurd veneration of the ancients. As this hallowed child grows into a man, it becomes clear that instead of being the scholar his father so desired, he is simply the inevitable offspring of a laughable generation of pseudo-intellectuals and literati.