Selected Poems - Everyman's Library Paper Author:John Dryden Dryden, a fervent royalist throughout the Civil War and the regicide, raised satire to an art of great delicacy. His devastating account of political incompetence in the Popish Plot, "Annus Mirabilis," is perhaps his greatest work; this edition includes among other writings his courageous vindication of the king, "Absalom and Achitophel," as... more » well as his hilarious attack on mediocre poetics in "Mac Flecknoe."« less