Puck on Pegasus / Fourth Edition

A varied collection of witty and occasionally serious poems blending satire, parody, sonnet, and narrative verse. Pieces range from brisk comic sketches and topical lampoons of public controversies to longer occasional poems that evoke travel, mail-coach and racecourse scenes and military allusions. The volume alternates playful and ironic tones—mock-heroic set-pieces, recruiting and social sketches, and metrical experiments—targeting newspaper culture, public foibles, and fashionable life. Illustrations accompany several pieces, and the selection balances lighter verse with more ambitious, extended poems to create a mixed portrait of mid-nineteenth-century public and social preoccupations.