Someone has to do the dirty works: it's Depp

By LOUISE JURY

He was a legendary hell-raiser in the licentious court of the Restoration king, derided by his peers for his "contempt of decency" and the author of elegant, if explicit, poetry. Yet in the three centuries since the premature death of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, his works have been a naughty pleasure appreciated by a small band of readers - primarily consisting of English undergraduates.

But with Hollywood star Johnny Depp starring as Rochester in a new £10 million ($18 million) screen version of his life, entitled The Libertine, publishers have decided the poetry that made Rochester famous is ripe for a renaissance.

Penguin Classics, whose latest edition of the works of Rochester has been out of print for several years, is publishing a new selected works tailormade for the movie fan who is inspired to turn to the original source of inspiration.

There are hopes that Johnny Depp may do for 17th century poetry what Four Weddings and a Funeral did for W.H. Auden and The English Patient achieved for Herodotus, the 5th century BC historian.

More than 100,000 copies of an Auden anthology were sold after his poem, Funeral Blues, was quoted in Four Weddings. Annual sales of Herodotus shot up from 12,000 to 50,000 copies immediately after his writings were featured in the film of Michael Ondaatje's book.

Rochester at least has the selling point of being a taboo-buster: he wrote more frankly on sex than most writers before the 20th century. Laura Barber, editorial director for Penguin Classics, said the film, originally due for release this month but now set to hit the screens in the new year, was the ideal opportunity to get a significant author back on the bookstore shelves.

"I've always thought it was a shame that we didn't have Rochester on the list. It's one of the few things that students like to study because it's just so full of filth, so it seemed odd that we couldn't keep an edition in print," she said.

Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester, was born in 1647 and educated at Oxford and on the Grand Tour courtesy of King Charles II in gratitude for the service of the young man's father, who was a royalist general under Charles I.

He arrived at court at the age of 17 and quickly set the pace for a coterie of charming wits who surrounded the king.

He wrote poetry, had a penchant for practising disguises and rapidly acquired a reputation for wildness, serving as a model for countless young rakes in Restoration comedies. He was even banished from court at one point after mistakenly, and possibly drunkenly, handing King Charles some coarse lines on the King himself instead of a lampoon on ladies, and his career plummeted into melancholy decline.

He fell out with his former friend, Dryden, the greatest poet of his age, and was embroiled in fights and lawsuits. Never robust in health, he died in 1680, at the age of 33.

Johnson, the 18th century writer, said of Rochester: "With an avowed contempt of decency and order, a total disregard to every moral, and a resolute denial of every religious observation, he lived worthless and useless and blazed out his youth and health in lavish voluptuousness."

Rochester is likely to reach a wider audience thanks to the film, shot on the Isle of Man this year with John Malkovich and Samantha Morton also in the cast.

Television and film adaptations of literary classics often have dramatic effects on sales. There was a surge in interest in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet after Baz Luhrmann's film in 1996 and the BBC's adaptation of Wives and Daughters in 1999 prompted a run on Elizabeth Gaskell, as did any serialisation of Austen or Trollope.

The life of Alexander the Great, compiled from the writings of ancient historians Arrian, Quintus Curtius Rufus and Plutarch, is being prepared prior to the release of films starring Colin Farrell and Leonardo Di Caprio.

- INDEPENDENT