Pocket pick
Jul 9th, 2008 by houghtonmodern
This ballad, titled “The Chapter on Pockets,” focuses on an essential item that many of us probably take for granted - the portable, convenient, and discreet pocket.
Crudely printed, rife with spelling errors, and displaying a woodcut of a young woman walking in the countryside, the ballad references such disparate figures as Eve and Lawrence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy (who mentions the necessity for a chapter on pockets, but in keeping with much of his story, never actually writes one).
This version of the ballad, attributed to George Colman (the Younger, 1762-1836), was printed in London around 1819. Printed on cheap paper, the ballad has remained in remarkably good condition.
Click on the image to enlarge it, or click here to read a clearer text of the poem on Google Books. For an illustration of the ballad’s popularity, click here to see an 1819 playbill for a performance of the ballad in Edinburgh, from the National Library of Scotland’s Playbills of the Theatre Royal Edinburgh collection.
*2007-841. Purchased with the Amy Lowell fund. Image may not be reproduced without permission.
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