Monday, April 6, 2015

Poets at Play

Frederick Langbridge - Poets at Play: A Handbook of Humorous Recitations (1888)

Open Library direct link (volume 1)
Open Library direct link (volume 2)
Open Library main page

Two volumes of comic poetry might seem a bit much but this amount was probably meant so reciters would have a wide selection.  Skimming shows that these don't appear to be classics but the emphasis is on the comic not the poetry.  Best-known names are Lewis Carroll, Bret Harte and W.S. Gilbert (the book's dedicatee) but the bulk are unfamiliar.  Still, I can't resist "The Chimpanzor and the Chimpanzee" which could be a hoot spoken aloud (with its Professor Balaam Vermicelli Lepidoptera FitzApe) or titles like "Fugitive Lines on Pawning My Watch", "The Weather in Verse", "The Puzzled Census-Taker", "Christmassing a la Mode de Slumopolis" or "Villon's Straight Tip to All Cross Coves".