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Broadside entitled 'Missing From the Neighbourhood of the High Street' |
CommentaryThis satirical notice continues: 'About the 33rd of Next Month, / A TALL=COMPLEXIONED / Young Man / Five Feet Six Inches of Age, and / Height 27 Years'. It was published by L. MacArtney of the Poet's Box, 184 Overgate, Dundee. Here young scholars and poets could have their work published quickly and cheaply, but also often anonymously, as with this example. This text, however, perhaps contradicts the idea that surreal and slapstick humour only became popular after World War II. It is not clear what the connection between the different Poet?s Boxes were. They almost certainly sold each other?s sheets. It is known that John Sanderson in Edinburgh often wrote to the Leitches in Glasgow for songs and that later his brother Charles obtained copies of songs from the Dundee Poet?s Box. There was also a Poet?s Box in Belfast from 1846 to 1856 at the address of the printer James Moore, and one at Paisley in the early 1850s, owned by William Anderson. Broadsides are single sheets of paper, printed on one side, to be read unfolded. They carried public information such as proclamations as well as ballads and news of the day. Cheaply available, they were sold on the streets by pedlars and chapmen. Broadsides offer a valuable insight into many aspects of the society they were published in, and the National Library of Scotland holds over 250,000 of them.
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Probable date of publication:
1906 shelfmark: RB.m.143(115)
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