(Stone Eater) | "A Man who Eats and Digests Stones and Flints"

(Stone Eater)

Stone Eater. Wonderful and Extraordinary Phoenomenon [sic] ... at the Great Room, Globe Tavern. [London:] J. Denew, 22 March 1788

Letterpress broadside playbill (224 x 182 mm). Printed in Baskerville type; not examined out of frame, old folds just splitting, old hinge along left margin with some minor soiling. Framed and glazed with Plexiglas. [With] hand-colored engraving by William Dent, The Surprising Stone Eater. [London: W. Moore, 1788]; laid down and matted. 

The Stone Eater's act was entirely comprised of one thing. At every meal, at every performance, he ate stones. As this broadside states: "A Man who Eats and Digests Stones and Flints ... In the Presence of any Spectator he Eats the hardest Flints that may be offered him; Cracks them with his Teeth like Nuts; Gnaws, Crunches, and Reduces them to the smallest Pieces." Accompanied by a caricature of George III as "The Surprising Stone Eater." 

ESTC cites only two other institutional copies

REFERENCE:

EE, pp. 50-51; ESTC T48698