Humor Barham, Richard H.: The Ingoldsby Legends illus-Rackham. v1. 09 Nov 2017

[GrannyGrump]

THE INGOLDSBY LEGENDS By “Thomas Ingoldsby, Esquire”
PSEUDONYM OF Richard Harris Barham (1788–1845)
Illustrated by Arthur Rackham (1867–1939)
With a memoir of the author by his son, R. H. Dalton Barham (1815–1886)

---------------
Text is in the public domain worldwide because the creators died more than 100 years ago, and it was published before 1923. The illustrations are in the public domain in countries where copyright is “Life+70” or less, and in the USA.

---------------
Richard Harris Barham was a cleric of the Church of England, a novelist, and humorous poet. He was better known by his nom de plume “Thomas Ingoldsby.” The son of a country gentleman, he was born at Canterbury, educated at St. Paul’s School and Oxford, and entered the church where he held various incumbencies. It is not, however, as a churchman that he is remembered, but as the author of a series of comic and serio-comic pieces in verse, sparkling with wit and full of striking and often grotesque turns of expression.

* * *
The Legends, purporting to occur in the fictional Ingoldsby family throughout the centuries, are mostly tales about ghosts, witches, and other supernatural subjects. The stories are generally humorous, but are often based on antiquarian learning, finding their source in medieval folklore and mythology. A rollicking read, fun even for folks who “don’t like poetry.”

---------------
N.B. — The Rev. Mr. Barham seemingly suffered from that belief (common to many writers of the nineteenth century) that all his readers were fluent in French, Latin, and Greek. Alas, Your Editor cannot provide translations for those epigraphs and phrases, but the book is thoroughly enjoyable even without such translations.—granny

*** CAVEAT --- some racially derogatory language and stereotyping.

This book, based on the second edition of the special edition of The Ingoldsby Legends illustrated by Arthur Rackham, has 24 color plates and 78 line drawings. Additionally, some of the first edition illustrations are presented in the Editor’s Appendix in Volume 3.
(The scanned images suffered severely from the dreaded Plaid Pox (that large checkerboard effect in yellow/cyan or magenta/green or orange/blue), so after all my pixel-painting, colors may not be very accurate.)


---------------
The slang is dated, there are many citations and phrases in foreign languages, it's POETRY fer-gosh-sake --- But somehow, the humor of the pieces is quite likely to win your whole-hearted laughter. Enjoy the read!
.

This work is assumed to be in the Life+70 public domain OR the copyright holder has given specific permission for distribution. Copyright laws differ throughout the world, and it may still be under copyright in some countries. Before downloading, please check your country's copyright laws. If the book is under copyright in your country, do not download or redistribute this work.

To report a copyright violation you can contact us here.

[doubleshuffle]

Plaid Pox. Good term, and I deeply admire your tackling images that are infected with it. I always stay away from those. Thanks a lot!

[issybird]

Synchronicity! In the past few days, I read two books in a row that referenced The Ingoldsby Legends and really, what are the odds? But I thought I should probably give it a look and now this!

Thanks, Granny!

[GrannyGrump]

you are both very welcome-- hope you enjoy the mind-bending rhymes!

[radius]

Yowza! I can read modern French and have high school Latin, but this sort of book makes me glad for the Internet haha

[GrannyGrump]

I used the LRO (Lazy Reader's Option):
When I read it, I just took wild guesses going by context and blipped over them to the next line of verse. Of course, the epigraphs were a total washout...