SPEED, Robert

by Robert Speed

£2,350 · Offered by Sokol Books

The fifth edition of Robert Speed s genial, burlesque mock-heroic satire; all early editions of which are rare. The work contains two remarkable woodcut illustrations; the first on the title depicts a food fight that takes place in prison, the second shows officers of the watch, with pikes, escorting a tailor to prison. Robert Speed s pamphlet explains how the keeper and several of his minions joined imprisoned rakehells and bawds in a revel that turn d Nighte into day by Drinking, Whoreing, Swearing, Roaring, and Cursing The Counter-Scuffe was often reprinted throughout the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries a new edition was listed as late as 1741 and there were references to it at least until the middle of the nineteenth century. The central plot is a battle between two tradesmen: a country-born man who was pressed into military service and went to war as a captain, and a gold-smith. Besides the normal retinue of prisoners, the fracas also involves a priest and a lawyer, whom the balladeer notes should never have been housed with such ruffians. They represent the church and the law, both helpless to lead common men as they should because through debt each has lowered himself to join them. Prison food for Lent is depicted as meatless but plentiful, with a groaning table of assorted shellfish and other seafood all swimming in that rich delicacy, butter, with the latter s slipperiness being a key component of the burlesque The melee first breaks out with pots and stoo

• Binding: Hardcover

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