Nincompoopiana. George du Maurier Punch 76 (20 December 1879): 282. Click on image to enlarge it.
(Surfeited in excess of “cultchah,” Prigsby and his friends are going in for extreme simplicity.).
Prigsby. “I considah the words of ‘Little Bopeep’ freshah, loveliah, and more subtile than anything Shelly ever wrote!” [Recites them.]
Muffington."Quite so. And schubert nevah composed anything quite so precious as the Tune! [Tries to hum it.]
Chorus. “How Supreme!”
In this and du Maurier's other satirical depictions of the Aesthetes, he drew upon first-hand knowledge, since the illustrator was a long-time friend of the pioneering aesthetic designer and architect, Thomas Jeckyll (1827-1881), and a member of the "'Paris Gang,' as they called themselves, a group of young artists who trained in France in the late 1850s, including Thomas Armstrong, Whistler, Edward J. Poynter, and Jeckyll's future client Alexander 'Alecco' Ionides" (Soros and Arbuthnott, 30). Jeckyll, from whom du Maurier often borrowed money, is perhaps best known as creator of the famous Peacock Room to which Whistler later added his efforts.
Life among the Aesthetes
- An Infelicitious Question
- Aesthetics
- An Antediluvian Survival
- Perils of Aesthetic Culture
- Aesthetic Pride
- The Legend of Camelot (a five-part parody of the Pre-Raphaelites)
- Æesthetic Love in a Cottage
- Refinements of Modern Speech
- Nincompoopiana
Scanned image and text by George P. Landow [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
Punch. Hathi Trust Digital Library online version of a copy in the University of California Library. Web. 4 May 2020.
Last modified 4 May 2020