Out of Print
On his seventieth birthday A. P.H. publishes his seventieth work and celebrates fifty years of writing for Punch. And for this cheerful occasion he presents, not the Definitive Collection of Herbert's Miscellaneous Works, but 'a sort of birthday jumble book', the highlights of fifty years of cam¬paigning, satirising, surprising and entertaining.
Dozens of the pieces we know well; dozens we may not have met before. Opening with a farewell verse to his 'teens that appeared in Punch in 1910, Sir Alan skips merrily through the years and gathers poems written in the Dardanelles, some adventures of Topsy (who wears her years very well) and Mr Mafferty, songs from his musical comedies, a few Misleading Cases, some vigorous extracts from Hansard, war verses, defiant and gay, of' 39 to '45, letters to The Times, poems 'From the Chinese' ... all examples of his versatility, impishness and sound common-sense.
So here it is: the gayest Festschrift ever, the cream of A.P.H.
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