A Manchester Book: The Song of the Cat; A Legend of the Chancery Court Not Contained in Any of the Records: in Three Fits. With Notes and Annotations Collected for the Rolls' Office.

London and Manchester: Simpkin, Marshall & Co., and Kent & Co.;J. Heywood, [1858] Hard cover, 12mo, in red cloth, stamped in blind original publisher's cloth, and gilt design to front board, title in gold to the spine. All edges gilt, 133 pp., First Edition. Frontispiece plus a further five black and white woodblock illustrations by Letherbow and Morton, with tissue-guards. Inscribed by Author. ** CONDITION: Good Plus: Boards have some soiling and there is some edge-wear. Moderate foxing, especially to plates and tissue guards.Bookplate of an Oxford educated scholar to front pastedown.**This satiric poem tells the tale of a lawsuit of one Sir Pie-Crust, a pastry-cook of Manchester, against his aggrieved yet otherwise excellent feline, Tam. The drama of the cat stealing the baker's wares is jauntily written. The extensive "Notes" provide a plethora of classical allusions and bibliographical precedent to further confound or illuminate the reader's imagination. There are tones of Jonathan Swift here, with Latin-speaking owls in powdered wigs standing in as judges at Court. Dickens, whose Bleak House was originally published five years prior, would also have been an influence, as many have interpreted that tale as a call for the reform of Chancery. **Author Henry Green (1801-1873) was an English minister, schoolmaster and author of various sermons, poetry and religious/academic studies, including a number of publications of the Holbein Society, of which he was a founding member.( Enjoy the staff pic.)** . First Edition. Hard Cover. Good plus.