The Rise and Fall of the Mustache, and Other "hawk-eyetems"

This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design. Robert J. Burdette's lively 1877 humor collection turns everyday life into a stage for wit, irony, and affectionate satire. From mock-serious prefaces and newspaper-style sketches to comic essays on family life, writing, and American manners, the volume delights in the absurdities of ordinary experience. Its title piece, "The Rise and Fall of the Mustache," imagines Adam as a bewildered, overworked father, burdened less by Eden than by boys, weeds, sleepless nights, and the endless questions of childhood. Burdette's humor builds from domestic chaos to a broader meditation on the limits of adult wisdom and the strange, stubborn intelligence of boyhood. Other pieces sharpen this comic vision through the unruly adventures of Tom, a high-spirited son whose imagination, appetites, mischief, dreams, and punishments reveal both the disorder and tenderness of family life. Elsewhere, Burdette satirizes the habits of occasional newspaper contributors with mock advice on handwriting and punctuation, while also exposing gullibility in a sharp comic episode about spirit photography. Full of local color, clever turns, and mischievous observations, this spirited collection captures 19th-century American humor at its most conversational and entertaining.