The Stuffed Owl: An Anthology of Bad Verse (New York Review Books) [Paperback]

D.B. Wyndham Lewis (Editor), Charles Lee (Editor), Billy Collins (Introduction)

Book Description

Series: New York Review Books | Publication Date: April 30, 2003

The editors of this legendary and hilarious anthology write: "It would seem at a hasty glance that to make an anthology of Bad Verse is on the whole a simple matter . . . On the contrary . . . Bad Verse has its canons, like Good Verse. There is bad Bad Verse and good Bad Verse. It has been the constant preoccupation of the compilers to include in this book chiefiy good Bad Verse." Here indeed one finds the best of the worst of the greatest poets of the English language, masterpieces of the maladroit by Dryden, Wordsworth, and Keats, among many others, together with an index ("Maiden, feathered, uncontrolled appetites of, 59;. . . Manure, adjudged a fit subject for the Muse, 91") that is itself an inspired work of folly.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

DOMINIC BEVAN WYNDHAM LEWIS (1894–1969) was born in Wales and educated at Oxford. Prior to serving in World War I, he intended to pursue the legal profession; but after, having suffered two bouts of shell shock and one of malaria, he set his sights on journalism. In 1919, he became a columnist for The London Daily Express under the pseudonym "Beach Comber." These pieces and those that he later wrote for The London Daily Mail and The London News Chronicle capture Lewis’s legendary wit and savage, though eloquent, impatience with modern trends and are collected in the volumes At the Green Goose (1923), At the Sign of the Blue Moon (1924), At the Blue Moon Again (1925), and On Straw and Other Conceits (1929). He wrote several literary biographies, acclaimed for both their spirited subjectivity and their attention to historical detail, taking on subjects ranging from Rabelais and Molière to Boswell and Habsburg Emperor Charles V. Mid-career, he also coauthored the story on which Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much was based.

CHARLES LEE (1870–1956) was born in London to an artistic family who, throughout Lee’s life, heartily supported him in his evolution as an intellectual, fiction writer, poet, playwright, composer, and pianist. He received his BA from London University in 1889 and published his first novel, Widow Woman, in 1896. In poor health, he traveled to Cornwall in 1900 for a brief recuperative visit, staying on seven years, and discovering what would prove to be his most enduring subject: Cornish life, its manners, its landscapes, and its dogged resistance to modern times. In this vein, he wrote four other novels—Our Little Town, Paul Carah Cornishman, Dorinda’s Birthday, and Cynthia in the West—as well as a number of short stories (recently collected in Chasing Tales: The Lost Stories of Charles Lee); several plays, journals, and musical scores; and a guide book, The Vale of Lanherne. Later, after relocating to the London environs, he worked as the senior editor for J. M. Dent, where, owing to his talent for pruning and polishing prose, he came to be known as "the man with the green pen."

Product Details

• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: NYRB Classics (April 30, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590170385
• ISBN-13: 978-1590170380
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.7 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #802,312 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 'Criticise as some have done/Hitherto herebefore', September 3, 2003

By 

DAVID BRYSON (Glossop Derbyshire England) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Stuffed Owl: An Anthology of Bad Verse (New York Review Books) (Paperback)

This is not just a collection of any old bad verse. McGonagall for one is not represented. Nor are the forgotten poetasters `...the semi-literate, the nature-loving contributor to the county newspaper...the hearty but ill-equipped patriot, the pudibond but urgent Sapphos...' to take a sample of the disregarded from the anthologists' preface. The main qualifying factor for inclusion in The Stuffed Owl is solemnity. It may be that now and again Wyndham Lewis and Lee deviate slightly from this criterion, and I wonder whether in Boston churches they still sing

`Ye monsters of the bubbling deep/Your Maker's praises shout/Up from the sands, ye codlings, leap/And wag your tails about'

but a fairer sample of the `target' style would be e.g. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's

`Will you oftly/Murmur softly?' or `Our Euripides the human/With his droppings of warm tears'; or Crabbe's `Brother, there dwell, yon northern hill below,/Two favourite maidens, whom `tis good to know,/Young, but experienced'.

The very greatest can be found here at their less-than-greatest. The title of the book is itself a quotation from Wordsworth. Toweringly great poet though he was, he lacked, as everyone knows, any sense of the ridiculous whatsoever. He really did cite

`...the umbrella spread/To weather-fend the Celtic herdsman's head' as an instance of spreading decadence. One inclusion that seems to me marginal is from Resolution and Independence, the celebrated question to the old leech-gatherer, betraying that William had not been listening to a word the old fellow said

`My question eagerly did I renew/How is it that you live, and what is it you do?' Say what you like, I still find nothing absurd in it and I still think this is one of his greatest poems. How this got into The Stuffed Owl is obvious - the whole scenario was more than Lewis Carroll could take, and it inspired him to perhaps the most hilarious parody (along with Housman's Fragment of a Greek Tragedy) I have ever read, the White Knight's tale of the aged aged man a-sitting on a gate.

The funniest things in the book are not so much the poems themselves as the commentaries. These are mainly the work of Wyndham Lewis and Lee, but there is some Olympian demolition by Macaulay of a certain Robert Montgomery (1807-1855) who specialised in obsequious piety. The anthologists themselves contribute a wonderful preface, the captions over the extracts, and, maybe best of all, the index. From this you can easily access, say, `Leeds, poetical aspects of'; or `Oysters, reason why they cannot be crossed in love'; or `Trains, rapture of catching'.

How they must have enjoyed doing it all! It appeals quite inordinately to my sense of humour, and perhaps it will to yours.

20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is indispensable!, August 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Stuffed Owl: An Anthology of Bad Verse (Hardcover)

This collection is much more interesting *and* funny than a more recent anthology of bad poetry, because it draws so heavily on great poets--Wordsworth, Byron, Poe et al. Laughing at semiliterate amateurs is a cheap shot. The wonder is the follies of the talented, and Stuffed Owl displays these. The introductory matter and editorial comments are also brilliantly funny, and the index--yes, the index--is a scream. THIS TITLE SHOULD BE READILY AVAILABLE (publisher please note.)

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beef, death dealing, October 12, 2005

By 

D. T. Boellstorff "t_boellstorff_bofh" - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Stuffed Owl: An Anthology of Bad Verse (New York Review Books) (Paperback)

This book is a gem. It's a little hard to read from cover to cover -- kind of like a box of bitter chocolate, you come back to it again and again. The index is the ultimate scream, though.