Book #66660
Item #66660 A New Guy Fawkes Speech. Broadside, Great Britain, Guy Fawkes Day.

A New Guy Fawkes Speech.

"Kind Folks You See, Our Effigy, Designed for Guy Fawkes; Who With Base Mind, Was Once Inclin'd to Give King James Hard Knocks" [Broadside]. [Guy Fawkes Day]. A New Guy Fawkes Speech. [London]: E. Billing, 186, Bermondsey Street, [c.1840]. 9-3/4" x 7-1/2" broadside. Six-stanza verse text within woodcut typographical border, first four stanzas in two columns, separated by woodcut rules below headline and vignette of a group of people burning Fawkes in effigy. Light toning, otherwise fine. A well-preserved rare item. $650. * A celebratory broadside commemorating Guy Fawkes Day. Also known as Guy Fawkes Night, Bonfire Night or Firework Night, it is an English national holiday commemorating the failed Gunpowder Plot, an attempt by a group of Catholics to assassinate King James I by blowing up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament. The plot was foiled when Fawkes was discovered with a cache of explosives hidden beneath the House of Lords. The date of our broadside is conjectured from a similar broadside by Billing with a contemporary handwritten date of 1829 held by the National Library of Scotland. The verses on that copy end with "God save the King." Ours ends with "God save the Queen," so we assume it was printed in the early years of Queen Victoria's reign, which began in 1837. OCLC locates no copies.

Price: $650.00

Book number 66660

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