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Veblin, Ellen Rolfe. THE GOOSENBURY PILGRIMS: A Child's Drama. Boston: Lothrop, 1901. First Edition. Very Good cloth, in torn dustwrapper. This is a brilliant fairy novel of great wit, as conveyed by the extreme subtitle: "Being the Adventures of the Mother Goose People on a Pilgrimage to St. Ives; Wherein are recounted such Matters of Note as their taking Luncheon with The Three Bears; Their falling in with Bluebeard and with Jack the Giant-Killer; How they were, in some sort, Present at the Party in the Moon; Wherein, also, the Crooked Man is Broken Straight, nursed back to life by Ghosts at the Second Remove, and relieved of his Final Crookedness by the Great Mogul; How the Animals take a Vacation and are Locked into it; How the Pilgrims are rescued by Robin the Bobbin from a Great and Uncommon Treeing, are Entertained by the Genie at the Castle of the Sleeping Beauty; and, Finally, How they Arrive at St Ives, and the manner of their Escape therefrom." This rare book is at once zany and intellectual. Its author moved in Bohemian circles among artists, authors, composers, poets, and eccentric scholars. One of the latter was Thorstein Veblen, author of Theorist of the Leisure Class, and who coined the phrase "conspicuous consumption." Ellen soon married Thorstein, who has been called "the Victorian firebrand" and "a sexual swashbuckler." They were both regarded as odd and unpredictable, but so generous and appealing they were swiftly forgiven idiosyncrasies. Thorstein regarded Ellen a better writer than himself, and thought her book would be an acknowledged masterpiece even when his own was forgotten. Seller Inventory # 841
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