Grobianus, de incultis moribus, et inurbanis gestibus

Book Description

Halae-Saxonum: Petrus Faber, 1624. [110]pp., sm. 8vo. Title printed within a border of type-ornaments (old repair at lower corner just touching the border). Printed on poor paper, but a very good copy in nineteenth century half calf, from the Crewe library, with engraved bookplate. A late edition, cheaply produced and very rare, testifying to the enormous popularity of this neo-Latin verse satire, celebrating the boorishness, gluttony, and drunkenness of the anti-hero ‘Grobianus’ - “dwelling,” as Arthur Freeman puts it, “so closely on the particular offences as to constitute a kind of ironic primer of disgraceful behaviour for young louts.” Dr. Freeman also points out the book’s influence on the English Renaissance: “Grobianus was gleefully translated as The Schoole of Slovenrie: or, Cato Turnd Wrong Side Outward (1605), and served as the principal source for Thomas Dekker’s immensely readable Jacobean formulary of crass conduct at home and abroad, The Gull’s Hornbook (1609).” No copy of this edition in OCLC, and COPAC records only one, at the Bodleian.

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