Humorists of the Eighteenth Century by G. G. Urwin

Humorists of the Eighteenth Century

Edited by G. G. Urwin

John Murray., 1962, [First Edition], paperback

Very Good Condition, a little edge and shelf wear, a little rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, ex-library with stamp to title page, front endpaper and flyleaf removed, sticker on back endpaper, plastic covered cover with sticker on spine (see photographs)

“A selection of long extracts from authors as diverse as Dean Swift, Henry Fielding, Tobias Smollett, Laurence Sterne, Oliver Goldsmith and Jane Austen.
Most of the comic writing of the 18^th century had a cutting satiric edge aimed at society; so here we have Gulliver reflecting on the strange ways of life in Laputa in the south seas, Jonathan Wild revealing the criminal underworld just below the veneer of polite society, Roderick Random learning lessons in France and England of the importance of money in high society, Tristram Shandy and Uncle Toby indulging their eccentricities at Shandy Hall, The Vicar of Wakefield dealing with problems of genteel poverty and, finally, Jane Austen’s delicious ‘guying’ of the contemporary ‘horror novel’ in Northanger Abbey.”