Rochester has the reputation as the archetypal 17th-century rake and with good reason. When Charles II returned to England in 1660, Rochester was at Wadham College, Oxford. Charles' restoration inspired celebrations in the college that were so riotous that Rochester broke off his studies. He wrote a poem in praise of the new king that brought him an annual pension of 500 pounds and from then on devoted himself to debauchery. In the short time that comprised the rest of his life - Rochester was only 33 when he died of tertiary syphilis - he loved both sexes wildly and indiscriminately; was confined to the tower for kidnapping an heiress; was released to fight a war against the Dutch; married and fathered children with his wife and his mistress; advanced the claims of Nell Gwyn; was banished repeatedly from Court for a multitude of misdemeanours; suffered the agonies of thrice being 'cured' of syphilis; and then returned in 1680, on his death bed, to the Protestant church. Yet this reckless courtier had other qualities too. Rochester's unique and exquisitely phrased love lyrics and poems on impotence, dissipation and erotic obsession are steeped in wisdom and passion. Voltaire would describe him later as 'a man of genius, and a great poet'. Cephas Goldsworthy's book considers the poetry in relation to its author's life and milieu. The result is a swashbuckling biography that throws the poet and his times into vivid relief.