John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester and Baron of Adderbury in England, Viscount Athlone in Ireland, infamous in his time for his life and works and admired for his deathbed performance, was the cynosure of the libertine wits of Restoration England. He was anathematized as evil incarnate and simultaneously adored for his seraphic presence, beauty, and wit, even from his first appearance at the court of Charles II. This mercurial figure left a body of literary work the exact dimensions of which have provided an almost intractable puzzle. Whatever answer is provided for this conundrum of scholarship, the extent of his corpus will be small in comparison to his reputation. The oeuvre, not intended for publication as ordinarily understood, is that of an aristocratic courtier. The works are meant to be seen, perhaps, as ephemera, as bright filaments of the central work of art, the author himself, rather...