Smith, Elder & Co., London. 3s. 6d.
“In the political sphere Mr. Seaman is at present without a rival.”––The Globe.
“Taken as a whole, we are much mistaken if any better volume of political verse has made its appearance since the days of the Rolliad and the Anti-Jacobin.”––The World.
“The best of the satirists on the other side is Mr. Owen Seaman, who has touched off some of the weaknesses of the late government with very happy and caustic humour.”––The Spectator.
“Mr. Seaman is own brother to Calverley, and in modern times there has been nothing so good of its sort as ‘Tillers of the Sand.’... Mr. Seaman proves himself so brilliant a jester that it needs must be he takes the jester’s privilege of offending no one.”––The Speaker.
“One of the most accomplished writers of occasional verse to-day.”––Bookman.
“It is all so good that passages are hard to choose.”––Scotsman.
“The author’s rare quality––a capacity for satirizing one’s political opponents with a wit that leaves no wound.”––Mr. James Payn in The Illustrated London News.
“Brilliant and inimitable.”––Chicago Daily News.
In Cap and Bells
Fifth Edition.
Price 3s. 6d. net. Fcap. 8vo. Price $1.25.
“Here is no shouting, no banging of the bauble. The form of phrase, the inflexion of voice, the dancing light of humour, make up the motley which is the true jester’s ‘only wear’; and under his flashes of merriment is a sober, sound philosophy. This, after all, is the only kind of humour that lasts ... it is easy to appreciate, difficult to acquire; and Mr. Owen Seaman, having acquired it with all the felicity of good humour and art, stands practically alone among the humourists of the hour.... His technical quality seems to strengthen with every new volume.”––Mr. Arthur Waugh in The St. James’ Gazette.
“Clean laughter, and scholarly wit; polished metre, and humorous phrase––these are to me the essential characteristics for which I am invariably glad to read Mr. Owen Seaman.”––Mr. Theodore Cook in Literature.
“The brilliant author of ‘Cap and Bells’ assumes, before the eyes of a later generation, the mantle of Crawley, and does the same sort of work more felicitously still.”––The Speaker.
“At the end of the volume Mr. Seaman gives agreeable evidence that, in the domain of memorial and complimentary verse, he has the knack of combining felicity of phrase with a wholesome avoidance alike of adulation and excess. The ‘In Memoriam’ lines to Lewis Carroll, with the graceful reference to Sir John Tenniel, are particularly happy.”––The Spectator.
“Calverley had not, or did not show in his verses, Mr. Seaman’s critical acuteness and depth.... As a critic in the form of parody, Mr. Seaman is without a rival.... Of his serious poems an ode to Queen Wilhelmina is a very graceful accomplishment of a difficult task.”––Mr. G. S. Street in The Pall Mall Magazine.
“Mr. Seaman is what we may call a critic of mannerisms, and a very keen critic to boot. His is a useful, not a merely destructive, function. He is no wanton debaser of the poetic currency. One might rather call him a touchstone of true merit in poetry.”––Daily Chronicle.
“A new volume from the pen of Mr. Owen Seaman must needs be welcome. He is the most accomplished versifier among all our jesters.”––The Globe.
“The parodies in Mr. Seaman’s new volume are wonderful examples of this difficult art; the Stephen Phillips, the Alfred Austin, the Watts-Dunton, and the George Meredith are faultless.”––Academy.
“Mr. Owen Seaman has already made his reputation as, perhaps, the surest modern poet to make you laugh, and the nature of his new collection of copies of verse cannot be better described than by saying that it is well worthy of his hand.... The book is heartsome and delightful all through.”––The Scotsman.
“The present vogue of Mr. Owen Seaman’s delightful parodies is very great.”––Liverpool Courier.
JOHN LANE: The Bodley Head, London & New York.
Transcriber Notes
Typographical inconsistencies have been changed and are highlighted and listed below.
Hyphenation standardized and is also listed below.