Author: [WEBBE (Cornelius]:
Title: The Posthumous Papers, Facetious and Fanciful, of a Person Lately about Town.
Description: London: William Sames..., 1828. FIRST EDITION. 8vo, 192 X 113 mms., pp. ix [x blank], 304, steel-engraved frontispiece, and five other engraved plate at pages 58, 80, 119, 249, 281, contemp;orary half plum calf, gilt spine, morocco label, paper boards; some off-setting from plates but a good to very good copy. The work was reviewed in one of the earliest, if not the earliest, issues of the journal The Athenaeum, which began with an implied warning: "Neither the title nor the preface to this volume would give the reader a just idea of the grave beauties which are to be found in some portions of its contents. The title is in an affected style of fashion, and the preface is hackneyed and commonplace; but some of the papers are of decided excellence, and one of them of surpassing power, pathos, and beauty - without a rival, we should almost say, in any tale of equal length than we can call to recollection." And then the stinger: "To speak frankly, however, of the work before us, its great defect is its inequality. There are some tales in it quite unworthy of any printed collection...."

Keywords: tales humour literature


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