Images (PDF) | Transcript (PDF) | Journal Article (Link)
Pixelia Publishing is pleased to announce the discovery of The Flattering Milliner, Or A Modern Half-Hour, a long-lost play by the prolific hack-writer, poet, and satirist William Combe (1742-1823). The play’s whereabouts had been unknown for over a century, and its reappearance sheds new light on a previously obscure chapter of Combe’s literary career. Primary credit for this discovery goes to John Crichton, owner of The Brick Row Book Shop in San Francisco, who spotted the manuscript at an antiquarian books fair in Boston in 2019.
The manuscript now resides at the Department of Special Collections at Stanford University (MSS Codex 1301). In order to make the work more accessible to the public, we offer it here in two forms – as a set of high-definition images, and as a carefully edited transcript (see links above). We thank the Department of Special Collections for their permission to publish the manuscript in this way.
For a more in-depth exploration of William Combe’s background and the importance of The Flattering Milliner, Or A Modern Half-Hour, consult the above linked journal article.
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