P. Hammond 
John Dryden [PDF ebook] 
A Literary Life

John Dryden was England »s most outstanding and controversial writer for the last four decades of the seventeenth century. He dominated the literary world as a satirist, a skilled and versatile dramatist, a pioneer of literary criticism, a writer of religious poetry, and an eloquent translator from the great classical poets. The present book discusses Dryden »s career both chronologically and thematically, taking issue with his enemies » denigration of his integrity, and revealing him as a subtle, passionate and sceptical writer.