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PARLOUR POETRY by Michael--Ed. Turner

PARLOUR POETRY

By

Pub Date: Nov. 4th, 1969
Publisher: Viking

An anthology of the best most awful-wonderful of Victorian sentimental popular poetry, whose declamatory thunders and moral lightning did (and one suspects in a few cases still do) ring out in classrooms, parlors, and over-fifty carousals throughout the land. Mr. Turner has swept up the fallen blossoms with appreciation for the grains of honest poetry and the tawdry charms of the rest. He adds a few ignoble parodies and some savory comments of his own. ""Little Orphant Annie"", ""Come Home, Father,"" ""Against Idleness and Mischief"" (""How doth the little busy bee..."" which Lewis Carroll nipped neatly in the proboscis), begins the ""Little Jim"" collection. Then on to Songs of the Brave, Love, Strange Tales, The Bivouac of Life, Heart of Oak, Poor But Honest (""Lips That Touch Liquor...""), etc. Oh Father dear, I hear some shouts Oh pray what can they be?/ 'Tis only Grandfather intoning The Wreck of the Hesperee. For young American-Victorian revivalists and old Chatauqoa elocutioners to the manner born.