The Book Shed

lacks endpapers, covers edge worn, scuffed. Original leather binding. Volume 4 only. 16mo - over 5¾" - 6¾" tall. Hard Cover. "Peregrine devotes himself for months at a time to the elaborate and horribly cruel practical jokes in which the eighteenth century delighted. When, for instance, an unfortunate English painter is thrown into the Bastille for some trifling offence and is about to be released, Peregrine and his friends, playing on his ignorance of the language, let him think he has been sentenced to be broken on a wheel. A little later they tell him that his punishment has been commuted to castration. Why are these petty rogueries worth reading about? In the first place because they are funny. Secondly, by simply ruling out "good" motives and showing no respect whatever for human dignity, Smollett often attains a truthfulness that more serious novelists have missed."--George Orwell. Most items ship with tracking numbers and (generally over $15.00) jacket protectors if applicable. Clean recycled packing material will be used when possible.