Title: The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table
Publisher: J.M. Dent & Co., London
Publication Date: 1907
Binding: Hardcover
Book Condition: Very Good
Edition: 5th
xxi, 318 printed pages. Frontispiece with tissue guard. Illustrated throughout with a profusion of steel engravings and chapter head and tail pieces. Finely bound in decorative half vellum, green morocco title label and art nouveau floral gilt design to spine, blue cloth boards, marbled endpapers, top edges gilt. The essays take the form of a chiefly one-sided dialogue between the unnamed Author and the other residents of a New England boarding house who are known only by their profession, location at the table or other defining characteristics. The topics discussed range from an essay on the unexpected benefits of old age to the finest place to site a dwelling and comments on the nature of conversation itself. The tone of the book is distinctly Yankee and takes a seriocomic approach to the subject matter. Each essay typically ends with a poem on the theme of the essay. There are also poems ostensibly written by the fictional disputants scattered throughout. Bookseller Inventory # 4193