Sunday, 16 November 2014

[G W M Reynolds], A Sequel To Don Juan (1843)



Reynolds' name is in square brackets, in the title to this blogpost, because it's suspected but hasn't, I think, been proven he's the author. It is what it says it is: an (unauthorised, of course) sequel to Byron's Don Juan, five cantos with a further eleven promised if the work prove popular. We assume it didn't.





I've owned this for many years, although now I am selling it -- it's on ebay, although I'll do a discount for readers of this blog. *grins* (Lord knows how painful it is for me to part with any of my books, but needs must when the devil of financial squeezing drives, and a bunch of books have gone into the e-marketplace. *sigh*) You can get a sense of the versification easily enough:



Never a good sign when an author feels he has to explain his jokes. So: in keeping with the through-line of the poem (viz., the redemption of Juan into polite society), the volume is illustrated throughout with contemporary society beauties posing as characters in the poem. Frontispiece:



And the rest:







I don't want to give the impression it's all well-bred politesse. For an 1843 publication it gets pretty racy, although in the soft-focus rather dishonest mode of 1970s porn rather than the honest obscenity of Byron's original:


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