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Articles tagged with: satire

Home » eBooks, Empty Shops Projects
Cummerbundery Volume 1: The Collected Tweets of Brandon Cummerbund by Russ Bravo
Submitted by on March 17, 2010 – 7:18 pm2 Comments

Download A4 | US Letter PDF 320Kb

About : Brandon Cummerbund is an Edwardian wag, gastronome, gargler and semi-retired topiarist whose salutary tales, bizarre friends and chaotic household have entertained those in the Twitterverse for, ooh … more than a year. He can be followed at twitter.com/CummerbundEsq and his tweets are regular herded onto http://russbravo.wordpress.com

Cummerbundery Vol 1: The Collected Tweets of Brandon Cummerbund provides a brief introduction to the considered work, breakfasts and nonsense of this eccentric gent. Enjoy. His agent, the Rt Hon Russ Bravo, may be contacted for speaking engagements at the above blog.

Published March 2010

*** made with bookleteer.com ***

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Home » eBooks, Short Work
Hudson’s Statue by Thomas Carlyle
Submitted by on December 15, 2008 – 8:40 amNo Comment

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Part 1 A4 | US Letter PDF 345Kb
Part 2 A4 | US Letter PDF 395Kb
Part 3 A4 | US Letter PDF 380Kb
Part 4 A4 | US Letter PDF 290Kb

Selected and Introduced for Short Work by Stephen Bury, Head of European and American Collections at the British Library

Thomas Carlyle, ‘Hudson’s Statue’ in Latter-day Pamphlets (1850)
The writer and historian, Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), is an acquired taste – Pursewarden, in Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet (1962), described his work as “haggis of the mind”. Nor have Carlyle’s ideas on democracy endeared him to the 20th and 21st centuries.

‘Hudson’s Statue’, dated 1st July 1850, is the seventh in the series, Latter-day Pamphlets. George Hudson was a railway speculator – the ‘Railway King’ – and Carlyle uses the proposal to make a statue of him as the armature of a pamphlet that explores whom his contemporaries think are heroic, and therefore worthy of worship. As Hudson’s speculative empire burst in 1849, the statue was never built, but this does not stop Carlyle making it into a – literally – obscene reality, and which he remorselessly uses to examine mid-nineteenth century England.

Today, when there are doubts about the USA prescribing one-man one-vote democracy for all cultures, we can begin to see some point in Carlyle’s caustic rant. And at a time we hero-worship minor celebrities or make proposals for the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, ‘Hudson’s Statue’ can be usefully – if not pleasurably – re-read. Are we any less gullible than those Englishmen who subscribed £25,000 to erect a statue in honour of this speculator and scoundrel?

The only reference that the modern reader might struggle with is Daniel Lambert (1770-1809), a Leicestershire man, who became notoriously fat and charged admission for the public to see him.

Stephen Bury
December 2008

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) was an essayist, satirist and historian, perhaps most famous for his book Sartor Resartus.

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Home » eBooks, Short Work
The Rake’s Progress by William Hogarth
Submitted by on April 26, 2008 – 9:27 amNo Comment

Rake\'s Progress by Hogarth

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AboutThe Rake’s Progress follows Tom Rakewell as wealthy merchant’s son in his downward spiral from young man of fashion to gambler, drunk, debtor and lunatic.

William Hogarth (1697-1764) was one of England’s foremost artists working as a painter, printmaker and engraver. His work is probably best known for its social commentary and satiric look on British social and cultural mores on the mid 1700s.

First Published June 1735
Public Domain version sourced from Project Gutenberg

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The Harlot’s Progress by William Hogarth
Submitted by on April 25, 2008 – 9:03 amOne Comment

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About : The Harlot’s Progress describes the path of Moll Hackabout from country innocent newly arrived in London to prostitute, prison inmate, mother and finally victim of venereal disease.

William Hogarth (1697-1764) was one of England’s foremost artists working as a painter, printmaker and engraver. His work is probably best known for its social commentary and satiric look on British social and cultural mores on the mid 1700s. 

First Published April 1732
Public Domain version sourced from Project Gutenberg 

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  • Arrey Mbongaya Ivo
    Hogarth's satire is very relevant today. Poverty has embedded prostitution and propelled prostitutes on an onward march towards destruction…
    Comment posted on 8-17-2008 at 18:21

Home » eBooks, Short Work
Industry and Idleness by William Hogarth
Submitted by on April 24, 2008 – 1:33 pmNo Comment

Hogarth - Industry & Idleness

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About : Industry and Idleness contrasts two apprentices, one who’s hard work leads him to a life of wealth and power; the other whose idleness drives him to criminality and execution.

William Hogarth (1697-1764) was one of England’s foremost artists working as a painter, printmaker and engraver. His work is probably best known for its social commentary and satiric look on British social and cultural mores on the mid 1700s. 

First Published June 1735
Public Domain version sourced from Project Gutenberg 

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Home » Publishing on Demand, Short Work
Short Work
Submitted by on March 12, 2008 – 12:47 pmOne Comment

Short Work consists of public domain texts sourced from Project Gutenberg re-published as Diffusion eBooks. As the title suggests, each is a short work of fiction, poetry or prose intended to be enjoyed in those frequent moments of inbetween-ness that punctuate modern life. The initial selection includes works of satire, experimental writing and poetry chosen for their continuing power to affect the way we see the world.

The eBooks
William Blake – Songs of Innocence & Experience
Saki – Beasts and Super Beasts
Gertrude Stein – Tender Buttons
Jonathan Swift – A Modest Proposal
Samuel Johnson – Three Essays (chosen by Bill Thompson)
William Hogarth – The Rake’s Progress
William Hogarth – The Harlot’s Progress
William Hogarth – Industry & Idleness
Thomas Paine – Common Sense (chosen by Alex Steffen)

Update (13/04/2008) : We’ve invited several friends and collaborators to choose their own public domain texts to re-publish as Diffusion eBooks which we’ll be posting every month or so. Today we’ve added the first of these,  selected and introduced by technology critic and journalist Bill Thompson, who has chosen Three Essays by Samuel Johnson.

Update (05/05/2008) : Alex Steffen, editor of Worldchanging, has selected and introduced Common Sense by Thomas Paine.

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Home » eBooks, Short Work
Beasts and Super Beasts by Saki (H H Munro)
Submitted by on March 12, 2008 – 12:46 pmNo Comment

Saki_eBooks.JPG

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The She-Wolf A4 | US Letter PDF 304Kb
Laura A4 | US Letter PDF 280Kb
The Boar-Pig A4 | US Letter PDF 288Kb
The Brogue A4 | US Letter PDF 276Kb
The Hen A4 | US Letter PDF 288Kb
The Open Window A4 | US Letter PDF 268Kb
The Treasure Ship A4 | US Letter PDF 276Kb
The Cobweb A4 | US Letter PDF 292Kb
The Lull A4 | US Letter PDF 284Kb
The Unkindest Blow A4 | US Letter PDF 280Kb
The Romancers A4 | US Letter PDF 272Kb
The Schartz-Metterklume Method A4 | US Letter PDF 284Kb
The Seventh Pullet A4 | US Letter PDF 304Kb
The Blind Spot A4 | US Letter PDF 272Kb
Dusk A4 | US Letter PDF 272Kb
A Touch of Realism A4 | US Letter PDF 300Kb
Cousin Teresa A4 | US Letter PDF 280Kb
The Yarkand Manner A4 | US Letter PDF 288Kb
The Byzantine Omelette A4 | US Letter PDF 272Kb
The Feast of Nemesis A4 | US Letter PDF 272Kb
The Dreamer A4 | US Letter PDF 272Kb
The Quince Tree A4 | US Letter PDF 272Kb
The Forbidden Buzzards A4 | US Letter PDF 272Kb
The Stake A4 | US Letter PDF 272Kb
Clovis on Parental Responsibilities A4 | US Letter PDF 260Kb
A Holiday Task A4 | US Letter PDF 300Kb
The Stalled Ox A4 | US Letter PDF 284Kb
The Story-Teller A4 | US Letter PDF 292Kb
A Defensive Diamond A4 | US Letter PDF 280Kb
The Elk A4 | US Letter PDF 288Kb
Down Pens A4 | US Letter PDF 272Kb
The Name-Day A4 | US Letter PDF 292Kb
The Lumber Room A4 | US Letter PDF 300Kb
Fur A4 | US Letter PDF 276Kb
The Philanthropist and the Happy Cat A4 | US Letter PDF 276Kb
On Approval A4 | US Letter PDF 300Kb

About : 36 short stories in Saki’s final collection to be published before the First World War and his death. Each story, in one way or another, turns on the presence or role of an animal and its relationship to the humans in the narrative, acutely dissecting their foibles and pretensions.

First Published in 1914 by John Lane, The Bodley Head
Public Domain Text from Project Gutenberg

Saki (Hector Hugh Munro) was born in 1870 and killed by a sniper’s bullet in 1916. His acerbic and macabre short stories lampoon and satirise the mores of upper and middle class Edwardian British society.

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Home » eBooks, Short Work
A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift
Submitted by on March 12, 2008 – 12:44 pmNo Comment

A Modest Proposal

Download A4 | US Letter PDF 341Kb

About : A Modest Proposal For Preventing The Children Of Poor People In Ireland Being A Burden To Their Parents Or Country, And For Making Them Beneficial To The Public – Swift’s biting satire on social inequality and the political expediency of charity and the Poor Laws.

First Published 1729
Public Domain Text from Project Gutenberg

Jonathan Swift (1664-1745) was an Anglican clergyman, satirist, essayist and political pamphleteer most famous for his Gulliver’s Travels.

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