The Pursuits of Fashion. A Satirical Poem

Book Description

London: Printed for J. Ebers, 1810. viii, 124pp., 8vo. Cancel half-title and title (the latter adding “The Second Edition”). A fine, entirely untrimmed copy in the original printed drab boards, upper cover with title, lower cover with advertisements for new novels and “Bookbinding and Stationery in all its Branches”; neatly rebacked. “The Second Edition,” but in fact the first edition, second issue, substituting a new half-title/title bifolium for the original, the publisher’s classic ploy for attempting to make a book look more successful than it is. There are some good sections on the types and follies of the day, e.g. “The Coffee-House Cornet,” which includes a long and detailed footnote describing the attributes of a successful gambler. The author’s preface notes that to those “who consider his satire as applying, in any way, to themselves, he can only answer, that it has never, in any one instance, been his intention to be personal, but he submits it to the candid, whether, in describing vice or folly notoriously glaring, it be possible to avoid appearing to hint at those, who are in the daily habit of practising it.”

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