"Bright Young Things" 1928
$250
Drawings from "Punch" by Lewis Baumer
[87] pp.
1928
12 1/2" x 10"
Methuen & Co. Ltd
w/ three plates in colour
Mitchell's Book Store Buenos Aires (bookstore stamp)
VG
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A wonderfully evocative collection of 1920s caricatures created by the illustrator Lewis Baumer for Punch magazine. The antics of the Bright Young People were widely reported in the papers, with an equal measure of horror and relish. Baumer's drawings, depicting flappers and fops in marvellous costumes, accompanied by the artist's droll captions, were a staple feature in Punch during the Twenties.
Enough about the philosophical implications of a tree falling in a forest. A more interesting question is where would the Bright Young Things of 1920s London be without Lewis Baumer to paradoxically lampoon and glorify the mayhem they created? Baumer had been a caricaturist at Punch for over twenty years when the decadent twenties gave him the best gift of his career. This book, published a year before the flapper era came to an abrupt end, is a collection his cartoons that first appeared in Punch.
Flapper. ‘I say Smithers, have you got an alarm clock?’
Butler. ‘I have, Miss Joan.’
Flapper. ‘Well, just bring it here and set it to cocktail time, will you?’
--Bright Young Things, A Book of Drawings