This major biography is the first full-length life of John Gay (1685-1732) for over fifty years. David Nokes's detailed and extensive research has unearthed several new discoveries, including hitherto unpublished letters, and possible attributions. Presenting Gay as a complex character, torn between the hopes of court preferment and the assertion of literary independence, this book is at once a lively and readable biography for the non-specialist, as well as a comprehensive and scholarly study. Perhaps best known for The Beggar's Opera , John Gay is here revealed to be a contradictory figure whose life defies strict generic categories. Often cast as a neglected genius, dependent upon others, Gay in fact left a healthy estate after his death. Depicted both as childlike innocent and rakish ladies' man by his friends, the same writer produced Polly , the most successful and subversive theatrical satire of his generation, which was banned from the stage. David Nokes argues that Gay's self-effacing and self-mocking literary persona was largely responsible for perpetuating an image of himself as a genial literary non-entity This book is intended for anyone interested in 18th-century Eng