A Blog of Bosh

A HONEY-LOVING grizzly-bear,
In a great bee-tree made his lair;
“There is a law,” he told the bees,
“That honey sha’n’t be kept in trees.
“I’ll take it out for you,” said he.
“Nay, nay, sir,” cries the old queen bee,
“Take yourself off!” and then and there
The stinging bees fell on the bear.
Peter Newell from Harper’s Round Table, vol XVI, [...]

There were three little owl that had slept all day
In their downy nest in a dead tree’s hollow;
Said the first: “It’s time to go out and play,
I hear the good-night of the chimney-swallow!”
“Oh no,” said the second; “the sun is high,
Who wants to be blind as a bat? — not I!”
But the third said: “Rats! [...]

A HOPPERGRASS, one sunny day,
Turning hand-springs amid the hay,
O’erleaped himself, and fell into
A piggin of good apple brew.
“Shame on you, thirsty little one,”
Cried the haymakers in the sun;
The hopper took one draught, and then,
Ere he flew off, addressed the men:
“Good sirs,” quoth he, “although one swallow
Does not make summer, it would follow
That several swallows were [...]

The blog has been quiet for a long time, as I have been very busy and had to keep up with the daily publication of Edward Lear’s diaries. However, I have at last found time to add an article on Peter Newell to the nonsenselit.org bookshelf:

Hearn, Michael Patrick. “Peter Newell, American Comic Illustrator.” American Book [...]

Theodore Roosevelt’s refusal, in 1902, to shoot an imprisoned bear spawned a long series of political cartoons and, since the bound animal was often represented as a cub, and brought to the creation of the Teddy Bear.
Roosevelt’s hunting mania was the subject of a 1909 booklet by Peter Newell, Jungle Jangle, and of one of [...]

My Italian translation of Peter Newell’s Rocket Book, Il libro esplosivo, has been out for some time now. The publisher, orecchio acerbo, have a beautiful book trailer on YouTube:

While you are there, don’t miss the short for Stefano Benni’s first children’s book, Miss Galassia:

After the success of his two Topsy-Turvys, Peter Newell published A Shadow Book (New York: The Century Co., 1896) in which after looking at a picture, e.g. of an Arab leading a camel,

you turn the page and place it in front of a light source, so that the image you now see represents something else, [...]

If you enjoyed my previous posts on Peter Newell’s toy and toy-book patents, you cannot miss these on War Games from the Boer War and War Games from World War II from Steve van Dulken’s Patent Blog at the British Library.
Here, by the way, is another “Educational Toy” patented by Newell in 1921:

This invention relates [...]

I did not know that orecchio acerbo, who published my Italian translation of Peter Newell’s Slant Book last year, had also produced a short booktrailer which you can see on YouTube:

You can also download a pdf of the Italian edition of the whole book from orecchio acerbo’s site.

No. 1
“It seems to me it orter work,”
Said Farmer Hiram Beggs,
“By feeding Hens on Easter dyes
To deckerate their eggs.”
No. 2
And sure enough for several days
The eggs were many-hued
With stranger markings on the shells
Than Beggs had ever viewed.
No. 3
He peddled them about the town
And found a brisk demand.
He sold a dozen lovely ones
To Mrs. Cyrus Bland.
No. [...]