Precocious Piggy (The Headlong Career and Woful Ending of Precocious Piggy) A Facsimile Reproduction of the original Manuscript in The Huntington Library, San Marino, California by Hood, Thomas - 1969-01-01

Castle Press, 1969-01-01. Paperback. Very Good. Grant Dahlstrom / the Castle Press [Published date: 1969]. Paper covers, (staple bound). A facsimile reproduction of the original manuscript in The Huntington Library, San Marino, California. With introduction by James Thorpe. In very good condition. Illustrated paper covers have very light bumping to edges and corners and very light overall scuffing. Binding tight. Pages clean and unmarked. NOT Ex-library. NO remainder marks. Wonderful illustrations. [From Introduction]Precocious Piggy came into existence more than a century ago. The verses telling of his career were invented in England by Thomas Hood in about 1835 for the pleasure of his two small children, Frances and Tom. They chuckled so much over Piggy that they wanted to share him with other children. After their father died, Tom wrote down the verses and drew pictures to illustrate the episodes in Piggy's career. It is a reproduction of this manuscript, now in the Huntington Library, that we offer in a color facsimile. As the manuscript is the joint work of a father and his son, perhaps it can give joint pleasure to parents and their children. The charm of the story of Piggy's headlong career and woful ending lies in the sprightliness of the cheerful verse and the attraction of the engaging drawings. The verse trips along with gaiety, and the repetitions quickly make the adventures seem familiar. Piggy is fitted with a new set of eye-catching clothes in each episode, and the figures in the background are drawn with loving care: the butterfly about to be ensnared in the spider's web, the cat watching a bird nest, Piggy pulling the lawn roller, the sample mustaches for sale, the costumes at the ball, and dozens of other details invite us to look again and again. Thomas Hood (1799-1845) wrote both comic and serious poems. (Among the former are his "Stanzas Composed in a Shower-Bath," and the latter include "The Song of the Shirt," one of the most effective of all writings against social injustice.) He delighted in word-play, and puns flowed from his pen . . .