Previous Page 
|
|
Monthly Bundle Sample, Leather or Prunella 10, February 2000, p.1 
AN EARLY AMATEUR CLERIHEW?—NOT!
The clerihew is a form of verse defined by Webster's
Collegiate Dictionary
as "a light verse quatrain rhyming aabb and usually dealing with a
person named in the initial rhyme." The verse form is named for
detective novelist Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875-1956), who is
generally credited with its invention. Bentley's first published
collection of clerihews,
Biography for Beginners,
was originally published by T. Werner Laurie in London in October
1905, in a much-reprinted edition illustrated by G. K. Chesterton.
The collection begins with Bentley's classic clerihew:
You can see that the clerihew has the potential of a lot of
fun—and usually very little malice. While working on Edith
Miniter the other day, I was pleased to notice a poem of hers,
first published in the "Advertisements" column of
The Hub Club Quill
for April 1902, which on first impression strikes one as an example
of this obscure poetic form:
|
