Author: [STEVENSON (John Hall)]:
Title: Crazy Tales: To which are prefixed, Macarony fables; Fables for Grown Gentlemen ; Lyrick Epistles; And Several Other Poems; By The Same Author.
Description: Dublin: Thomas Ewing. 1772 FIRST COLLECTED EDITION. 8vo, 181 x107 mms., pp. [vii] ,iv -vi, [7] 8 - 397 [398 - 400 adverts], bound in recent calf, black leather label, new end-papers; a solid copy. The Monthly Review for 1762 said of the first publication of Crazy Tales that it was obscene and indecent, but deigns to give any examples: "we cannot agree to call the very loose and indecent freedoms he has taken, a ludicrous liberty, necessary to any good, or innocent purpose... [and] we must...desire our own word to be implicitly taken, in justification of our censure.... But if it be true that want of decency argues want of sense, and we see no reason in this performance to think the contrary, these airs of superiority and importance are all affectation..... Those of our Readers, who ever may happen to read these abominable Tales, will not be surprized that we have been led to treat the Writer with severity, and his Work with the indignation and contempt it deserves." The poet and satirist John Hall Stevenson (1718–1785) met Laurence Sterne at Cambridge, and they remained friends for life; Sterne used his as the model for Eugenius in both Tristram Shandy and A Sentimental Journey.

Keywords: satire poetry literature


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