S8: Lightnin’

At first this Biblio-Mat book looked like a run of the mill biography but it turns out to be much more interesting.

The nickname is a bit of a misnomer. Really.

Title: Lightnin’

The cover itself gives away an air of vintage – not quite antiquarian, but distinctively dated in a charming way. Indeed it was published in 1920, and on thick stock with a photo cover to boot. Written by Frank Bacon, Lightnin’ had more than meets the eye.

$1.75 is steep!

Mmmmm...bacon...

The Biblio-Mat doesn’t give out fiction often, so when it does it’s always interesting. Lightnin’, as it turns out, is a fictional biography based on Lightnin’ Bill Jones, the eponymous character from Bacon and Winchell Smith’s play “Lightnin’”, a crafty old man in the not-so-wild west. 

Reading through the first chapter, it seems to be farcical view on small town life, but really, anything written back then seems like a farcical view of small town life. The best part of this book is the inclusion of photographs from the stage play.

It must've been extremely successful.

See, total misnomer.

Also interesting is back inner flap of the dustjacket. Not only does it have an ad for Harper’s Magazine (only $4.00 a year!) but it also has an unclipped book re-ordering coupon, which I rarely see.  

Tempted to mail it to the publisher.

Perhaps one day I'll end up reading through the whole thing but for the time being, this lightning will stay bottled on the shelf.

S4: Mr. Punch in London Town

Dropped by the Biblio-Mat for a photo op and out came another book that I wish I had gotten a year ago for the blog:

Book: Mr. Punch in London Town

When were jesters ever non-creepy?

Collecting “the cream of national humour contributed to “Punch” by our leading comic draughtsmen and humourous writers from the year 1900 to the present day”, this 240-page book is an anthology of cartoons, poems, and short stories from the legendary Punch magazine.

Once again, I’m blown away that this was inside the Biblio-Mat as Punch has such a rich history behind it. Started in 1841, it was one of the premier humour mags of its time (think of it like an olden day MAD Magazine). It gave us Thackeray’s Vanity Fair (first published in serial form) as well as John McCrae’s ‘In Flanders Field’ poem, which almost every Canadian recites in school on Remembrance Day. Sadly, it folded in 2002.

While this anthology doesn’t have a publish date, it lists itself as the 15^th volume and from the looks of it, I would guess it was from the 1950’s. With 266 cartoons, it is filled to the brim with dad jokes, way before they were considered dad jokes.

Vintage clothbound cover.

The colour-blindness joke is on the only colour illustration in the book.

Oh London...

"You may say I'm a dreamer..."

*facepalm*

*BA DUM TSS*

Moustache stroking should really be in here.

Received an interesting book from the Biblio-Mat? Submit it to submit@therandombookmachine.com