active 1702-1712 Edward Bysshe

Edward Bysshe was an English miscellaneous writer active in the early 1700s, known above all for The Art of Poetry (1702), later expanded as The Art of English Poetry. The book combined advice on writing verse with a rhyming dictionary and a wide-ranging anthology of poetic excerpts, making it a practical reference work for readers, students, and would-be poets.

Very little about his personal life can be confirmed. Older biographical sources say he described himself as a "gent." on his title pages, may have belonged to the Surrey Bysshe family, and seems to have earned his living in London through hack writing. Because the surviving record is so thin, he is remembered more through his books than through documented details of his life.

That legacy is still notable. Whatever its limitations as a guide to great poetry, Bysshe's handbook was widely used and remained influential well beyond its first publication, especially as a tool for finding rhymes and borrowing examples from earlier English poets.