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Article: THE NEW FOUNDLING HOSPITAL FOR WIT: FROM HANBURY WILLIAMS TO JOHN WILKES.(Critical Essay)
- Article from:
- Studies in the Literary Imagination
- Article date:
- March 22, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 Georgia State University, Department of English. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Like its forerunner, The Foundling Hospital for Wit (1743-49),(1) The New Foundling Hospital for Wit (1768-74)(2) is one of the great, popular, yet overlooked collections of British humor. Both series provided English readers with jokes, anecdotes and some of the most downright vindictive satire of the eighteenth century. Early readers must have laughed at ministerial lampoons and early manifestations of Monty Python's "Dirty Vicar" sketch or scratched their heads wondering whether a notice advertising an amputation emporium was serious or not. Perhaps one reason why the two series have been paid scant attention since the eighteenth century is due to the time-limited ...