ONE OF 25 COPIES – MARK TWAIN – 1601 – CONVERSATION AS IT WAS BY THE SOCIAL FIRE-SIDE

ONE OF 25 COPIES – MARK TWAIN – 1601 – CONVERSATION AS IT WAS BY THE SOCIAL FIRE-SIDE IN THE TIME OF THE TUDORS FROM YE DIARY OF YE CUPBEARER TO HER MAJESTIE QUEEN ELIZABETH

Done at Ye Puritan Press, 1923. Good to very good, bound in marbled dark brown leather, marbled endpapers, 12 pages of text. Measures about 6 5/8 inches by about 9 1/2 pages. Presentation inscription by the “craftsman who made this piece, Morgan Upton, 21 January 1925 (see image below)

WIKIPEDIA – Conversation, as it was by the Social Fireside, in the Time of the Tudors. or simply 1601 is the title of a short risqué squib by Mark Twain, first published anonymously in 1880, and finally acknowledged by the author in 1906. ^[1] Written as an extract from the diary of one of Queen Elizabeth I’s ladies-in-waiting, the pamphlet purports to record a conversation between Elizabeth and several famous writers of the day. The topics discussed are entirely scatological, notably flatulence, flatulence humor, and sex. 1601 was, according to Edward Wagenknecht, “the most famous piece of pornography in American literature.” However, it was more ribaldry than pornography; its content was more in the nature of irreverent and vulgar comedic shock than obscenity for sexual arousal.