The Cat-Fight; A Mock Heroic Poem. Supported with Copious Extracts from Ancient and Modern Classic Authors. Meant as Illustrative, though Some (Not So Immediately Relative) Pressed in by Medium of Their Intrinsic Merit; Making Something like What Has Been Termed a Narrow Rivulet of Text, and a Wide Extended Meadow of Notes. By Doctor Ebenezer Mack, Author of "Anatomy of Rhyme," &c. illustrated with Five Engravings, Designed and Executed by D. C. Johnston, of Philadelphia, Author, from Recollection, of "Matthew at Home, In La Diligence, Polly Packet," & Illustrated with five engraved plates, drawn and executed by David Claypool Johnston.

MACK, EBENEZER.

Published by Sold at 350 Water-Street., New York, 1824

About this Item

12mo. 276pp. 185x115mm. Contemporary calf, leather spine label, Engraved frontis and 4 engraved plates (one supplied in facsimile) . Bookplate of Raymund C. Keople. Covesr rubbed, upper cover nearly detached. Ref.: Malcolm Johnson, David Claypool Johnston American Graphic Humorist, 1798-1865, AAS, 1970, #176. Shoemaker 16972. The second book ever illustrated by the great American graphic artist, David Claypool Johnston, 1798-1865, preceded only by "The History of Cockney Dandies" of 1819 (see Johnson, David Claypool Johnston, AAS, 1970). The text is a concatenation of irrelevancies, mostly in verse. In the Introduction in verse, the author, Doctor Ebenezer Mack (1791-1849) promises numerous quotations, seemingly incoherently, from classical sources, both Latin and Greek and even from Camoens' great Portuguese Lusiad, then muses on the death of various cats, in verse. In Part One, two Irishmen, Jemmy O'Kain and Pat M'Hone,fight like cats, compete irrelevantly to the explanations of the author, mostly in couplets, while the couplets are attended by Notes, again mostly in verse, about 20 times the length of each couplet, full of classical references which seem to have no relevance to the hodge podge of a text. In Part Two, Subsequent Notes, the first section is called Patrick W[hack] O'Neal's Job of Journey-Work. It goes on in verse in the fashion of the Notes of Part One, with innumerable classical references without coherence, or, seemingly, significance. Seller Inventory # 022497

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Cat-Fight; A Mock Heroic Poem. Supported...

Publisher: Sold at 350 Water-Street., New York

Publication Date: 1824

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Good

Edition: First edition.