Transcriber’s Notes
This e-text is based on The Works of Thomas Hood, Vol. I,published in 1882. Inconsistent and uncommon spelling and hyphenationhave been retained; punctuation and typographical errors have beencorrected. Footnotes have been moved to the end of the sections inwhich their respective footnote anchors are situated.
COMIC AND SERIOUS, IN PROSE AND VERSE, WITH ALLTHE ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS.
EDITED, WITH NOTES,
BY HIS SON AND DAUGHTER.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
WARD, LOCK, & CO., WARWICK HOUSE,
SALISBURY SQUARE, E.C.
NEW YORK: 10 BOND STREET.
IT is now many years ago, nay, more than half a century, since ThomasHood first began to wield the pen which was to do such good serviceto literature. The first scrap of his boyish versifying that can nowbe traced, consists of a sort of rhyming description of Dundee, afterthe manner of Anstey’s Bath Guide, and this is dated 1815.[1] That hewas prematurely cut off by disease, accelerated by overwork while inthe very prime of his mental powers, is now well known. The Works heleft behind have gradually but steadily risen in popular esteem andcirculation ever since his death,—in other countries besides his own,and on both sides of the Atlantic,—so that there are now few writersof this century better appreciated and becoming more widely known thanThomas Hood.
I believe that one part at least of the secret of this great andincreasing value for his writings, lies in the fact, that like ourgreat Shakespeare, and even another deep writer and thinker of our owntime,—Thackeray,—he wrote such pure, vigorous, intelligible English.He speaks in his works to the great mass of the people in a tongue theycan understand and thoroughly feel. However far his abundant fancy andversatile humour may lead him from the track, there is no obscurityto puzzle as well as dazzle. And this almost severe plainness ofexpression serves him well in such poems, for instance, as the “Songof the Shirt,” where[Pg iv] the repetition of the homeliest phrases make theintensity of the suffering stand out in a more appalling reality.
It is with a view to meeting the wants of all classes of readers andspreading the knowledge of Thomas Hood’s Works still farther, that thepresent edition has been planned, in a cheap form that will place itwithin everybody’s reach. The publishers have already issued editionsof all the Works, either complete, or in separate volumes, to suitevery taste.
The present edition embraces the complete Works with the originalillustrations, and also includes some hitherto unpublished dramaticfragments. It will be issued in a convenient periodical form, to beobtained at the option of the purchaser either in Monthly Parts, orQuarterly Volumes. The last generation will no doubt welcome in the oldfamiliar form the Author’s quaint wood-cut illustrations, as well asthe humorous illustrations of George Cruickshank to the “Epping Hunt,”with those by Harvey to “Eugene Aram;” and the present generation arestill too recently mourning the loss of John Leech’s graceful pencil,to pass carelessly by his admirable drawings