Less Eminent Victorians

Here's a curiosity from my chaotic bookshelves which might amuse. Less Eminent Victorians by 'R. D.' (Randolph Davies), published in 1927, pokes fun at the Victorian era in a series of limericks, based around wood engravings from popular periodicals of the time - The Leisure Hour and The Quiver among them., and also from a book called Mary Price: The Memoirs of a Servant Maid.

R. D., who chose his title in mischievous homage to Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians, says in his introductory Note:

'On or two of [the wood engravings] have been selected purely for their badness; but for the most part it is their very excellence as artistic and dramatic illustration that temps one to exploit their Victorian habit and gesture for less serious purposes than those for which they were designed.'

Here are couple to be going on with (click to enlarge). I'll post some more on days when I'm devoid of blogging inspiration*.

*'Blogspiration'?
Hmm, perhaps not - sounds more like an unfortunate side-effect of over-enthusiastic blogging rather than the reverse. An application of Antipostpirant would probably sort it out . . .
Ignore me. It's gone midnight and my brain has turned into a pumpkin.