[Rarebooks] FS: A Poetic Book on Privies

[Joslin Hall Rare Books, ABAA]

    "Harrington is no great poet
     but I defy any great poet to
     write a better book on privies
     than this"

Harington, John.  "THE METAMORPHOSIS OF AJAX. A New Discourse of a Stale
Subject by Sir John Harington"

London Fanfrolico Press: 1927. Printed for subscribers in an edition of
450 numbered copies.

A reprinting of the 1596 edition of this satirical Elizabethan book about
constructing sanitary plumbing, edited, and with a new introduction by,
Peter Warlock and Jack Lindsay.

Sir John Harington [1561-1612] was a figure at Court and Elizabeth's
godson, a relationship that did not prevent his slipping in and out of
favor. This satirical work about the construction of a revolutionary
flushing privy contained a potshot at Leicester, which got him into
temporary trouble, but also included some good, common sense sanitary
design that was ignored by householders for another 200 years. In fact,
Harington is given credit by some historians as being the inventor of the
flush toilet (more or less) and apparently actually built one of the
contraptions he described in this book for the Queen. "Ajax" was a play on
words, the Elizabethan slang for privy being a "jake".

Harington was not a first-rank writer, but he was entertaining and had his
moments. As Lindsay says of this work in his Preface- "It lacks the epic
prodigality of Rabelais (but) it is more precise and neat as becomes a man
who essays not to cleans the earth's bad morality with lyric laughter, but
its bad smells with carefully devised carpentry. ... Harrington is no
great poet but I defy any great poet to write a better book on privies
than this".

That about says it all.

Hardcover. 6.5"x10", xxix + 144 pages portrait frontispiece and several
line illustrations in the text decorated covers. Some toning along the top
margin of the cover, spine darkened, a little internal soil, but a nice
copy.  $200.00

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