Author: Thomas Hood

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2015-06-25

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781330387900

Excerpt from The Works of Thomas Hood, Vol. 2: In Six Volumes In the present volume are included "Up the Rhine," with all the original illustrations, and a series of "Romances and Extravaganzas." "Up the Rhine" was completed at Ostend in 1839, and was published before Christmas in that year, with such marked success that a large edition was disposed of in less than a fortnight. The second was locked up in a lawsuit, in which Hood was successful, but the book was a sufferer. It is now reproduced, from a copy of the second edition, the preface to which is dated the 23d of January, 1840. "Jane is horrified," Hood wrote about the time of its appearance, "at my sending out 'Up the Rhine'; she says it contains so many quizzes on the Germans. But as you know, I quiz by preference my best friends, and it is in favor of the Germans that they can afford to be quizzed. It may seem a paradox, but only respectable people are quizzable; nobody dreams of quizzing good-for-nothings and blackguards: and 'if age commands respect,' (you remember your copy-book,) so it commands quizzing." The "Romances and Extravaganzas" - excepting a few taken from the later volumes of the Comic Annual - first appeared in the New Monthly and in Hood's Magazine, during the latter years of the author's life. Among the latest is "Mrs. Peck's Pudding, which was published in the Christmas number of the Magazine in 1844, and of which the children of Hood write, in their charming Memorials, that it afforded seasonable amusement at all firesides but its author's. "His own family," they add, "never enjoyed his quaint and humorous fancies, for they were all associated with memories of illness and anxiety. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.