[Erotica]. The Fair Maid's Song. [Printed by John Howe, Enfield, Massachusetts, 1830's.]

[EROTICA]

THE FAIR MAID'S SONG, WHEN ALL ALONE. TUNE—WHITE COCKADE. [ENFIELD. MASS.: PRINTED BY JOHN HOWE, 1830S] 

Small broadside (6 3/8 x 6 in.; 163 x 153 mm). Printed in 2 columns divided by type ornament.

A remarkable survival in fine condition. Not in American Imprints or Shipton's "Publications of the Howes of Enfield and Greenwich" in AAS Proceedings, 1950.

This unbelievably bawdy poem was printed in one of the "dead towns" now buried under Quabbin reservoir in central Massachusetts. The six stanzas compare and equate the fair maid's private parts with tradesmen's tools. Printed and possibly written by John Howe (1783–1845), farmer, shopkeeper, shoemaker, printer, bookbinder, and son of Solomon Howe, a noted Baptist preacher and hymn writer.