Genre:

Poetry, Drollery

Relevant illustrations:

wdct.

Illustrators:

T Hood

Subjects:

Gender, Amusement, Reading, Botany, Collecting

    The poem complains about the long hours spent by married men at their clubs. Husbands may suggest that their neglected wives subscribe to a circulating library: 'They'd better recommend at once / Philosophy and tubs,— / A woman need not be a dunce / To feel the wrong of Clubs' (132). The illustration captioned 'A Circulating Library' (facing 132) depicts a man attempting to keep books down on a street stall, while the wind blows them up in the air. The narrator's daughters are determined not to marry men who frequent clubs. 'They say, "without the marriage ties, / They can devote their hours / To catechize, or botanize— / Shells, Sunday Schools, and flow'rs'— / [...] As Wives do since the Clubs"' (133).