A Scratch from an Adelaide Cat. In Vindication of Adelaide and its People, in Reply to 'Arcadian Adelaide'
Adelaide, G. Hassell & Son, Printers [for the Author?], 1905.
Octavo, 16 pages with a vignette illustration on the title page (a cat in attack mode) plus a frontispiece portrait of the author ('Specimen of an Adelaide "Cat"') and a portrait of a top-hatted Mr Ellis at the rear ('One of Adelaide's Celluloid-Collared, Narrow-Toe-Booted, Shallow-Brained Fools').
Pictorial wrappers, repeating the full title page details, including the cat, on the front cover (the rear cover - apparently blank - is missing); front cover a little marked, but expertly conserved and reattached; minor signs of use and age; a decent copy.
Thistle Anderson's 'Arcadian Adelaide' (1905) provoked a spate of scathing reviews and apologiae for the city, yet proved extremely popular. Anderson claimed there were ten editions, and another four of its sequel, 'The Arcadians'. The original publication was 'a venomous invective against the self-satisfaction and dullness of Edwardian Adelaide'. These cheaply produced booklets clearly struck a chord, and untold quantities must have been sold. However, despite (or more likely because of) their popularity, copies are rarely seen on the open market. This rebuttal by Ellis is possibly even rarer; this is the first copy we have handled. Trove records a second edition in the same year, but having read it, we are not surprised it then died a natural death. It doesn't lay a glove on the opposition; venomous invective beats earnest pleading hands down. Mrs Ellis comes out punching left and right: 'As everyone well knows there are two sides to every question, and feeling that possibly by reading Thistle Anderson's book, "Arcadian Adelaide", our sisters and brothers in the other States may take her side of the question for granted, and well knowing that most of the contents of her book are - to say the least of it - exaggerated clap-trap, and oh! so horribly overdrawn, I am, in defence mainly of my sex - woman, penning these lines in refutation of what she says about us and our beautiful, clean, and wholesome little city'. Enough already ... Provenance: Alexander John Morison, Town Clerk of Adelaide, 1937-46, with his ownership signature in ink on the front cover.
Item #108944
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