The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum

This First Edition copy of The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum, by Wallace Irwin, With an Introduction by Gelett Burgess (Showing how Vanity is still on Deck, & humble Virtue gets it in the Neck!) was published by Paul Elder & Co. of San Francisco and New York in 1901 and printed by The Tomoye Press. The booklet contains 32 pages, in stiff brown paper covers, that measures approximately 5 ¼ x 7 inches. The pages of the book are slightly tanned, but the text is clear and easily read. The overall condition of the booklet is very good.

The book's contents include the 5-page Introduction by Gelett Burgess, two "preview" sonnets titled "An Inside Con to Refined Guys" and "Prologue", 22 numbered "love sonnets", and an "Epilogue" sonnet.

The illustrations accompanying this description show the cover of the booklet, the title page, the first page of the Gelett Burgess introduction, and a 2-page spread showing two of the author's sonnets.

Wallace Irwin (March 15, 1875 – February 14, 1959) was an American writer. Over the course of his long career, Irwin wrote humorous sketches, light verse, screenplays, short stories, novels, nautical plays, aphorisms, journalism, political satire, lyrics for Broadway musicals, and the libretto for an opera. With the encouragement of Gelett Burgess, Irwin branched into poetry with The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum (1901), followed by Nautical Lays of a Landsman (1904), Ballads of Chinatown (1906), and The Love Sonnets of a Car Conductor (1908). [Wikipedia]

Frank Gelett Burgess (January 30, 1866 – September 18, 1951) was an artist, art critic, poet, author and humorist. An important figure in the San Francisco Bay Area literary renaissance of the 1890s, particularly through his iconoclastic little magazine, The Lark, he is best known as a writer of nonsense verse. He was the author of the popular Goops books, and he invented the blurb. [Wikipedia]