Maynard Mack has accomplished what was thought by twentieth-century scholars to be Herculean task, a definitive biography of Alexander Pope. Alexander Pope: A Life (1985) has been unanimously praised for its remarkable breadth of information, carefully considered suppositions, and graceful style. Yet Mack would probably disdain calling the book his greatest achievement. He has always considered teaching his most important task and has been a teacher at Yale since the 1930s. While he has produced accurate and thorough editions of works by Pope and William Shakespeare, among others; compiled and edited valuable anthologies and collections; and written highly acclaimed books and articles, particularly on the literature of the Renaissance and the eighteenth century, teaching remains the work of which he is most proud, work that carries on the tradition of his father.

Maynard Mack was born on 27 October 1909 in Hillsdale, Michigan, to Jesse Floyd Mack and Pearl Vore Mack...