[Rarebooks] FS: Fine Press, Flushed Down the Toilet

[Joslin Hall Rare Books]

"The Metamorphosis of Ajax. A New Discourse of a Stale Subject by Sir John
Harington"

By John Harington. Published by in London by the 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
overall in nice condition.  $150

Some pictures ->

<http://www.joslinhall.com/images30/th-30946-cover.jpg>
<http://www.joslinhall.com/images30/th-30946-page.jpg>

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