The New Book of Nonsense Contribution to the Great Central Fair in Aid of the Sanitary Commission

This lively collection gathers comic limericks written for a Civil War-era charitable fair supporting the Sanitary Commission. Its verses hop from New York dandies and Kentucky loyalists to eccentric figures in Boston, Cork, Quebec, and beyond, turning vanity, fashion, romance, money, and foolishness into quick rhymes and comic reversals.

The poems are short, playful, and often deliberately absurd, with boastful characters, meddlesome children, impractical inventors, and animals that refuse to cooperate. Alongside its nonsense, the collection reflects the period’s politics and social attitudes, including pointed satire of secession, slavery, class pretensions, and regional stereotypes. Listeners can dip in anywhere for a self-contained joke, enjoying the lively rhythm, surprising punch lines, and old-fashioned fairground spirit of a volume created to entertain while raising support for an important wartime cause.