1830-7.]. Small 16mo, pp. 16; with numerous woodcuts throughout; advertisements on front and rear inside covers; some light spotting and browning, but otherwise fine; stitched as issued, uncut in the original yellow printed wrappers with small woodcut of an auctioneer on upper cover, covers a little soiled, slight crease to rear cover; a very good copy. A charming Oxfordshire chapbook, containing a series of appealing woodcuts with a rhyming riddle below, and dealing in turn with a sheep, bear, tree, drum, ship, mouse, cat, ass, cow, sun, dog, Noah’s Ark and a miser. The leaf preceding the title-page bears a verse and illustration, with the caption ‘Rusher’s Edition’ on the verso.
Meriton & Dumontel suggest that Peter Puzzlecap is, in fact, a pseudonym used by William Cowper (1731-1800), though I am unsure how they reached this conclusion, although he is known to have contributed riddle’s to The Gentleman’s Magazine. Gumuchian 1576, referring to a collection of Rusher chapbooks notes: ‘It was Rusher who restored the tradition of Giles Gingerbread (of Newbery fame) with the History of a Banbury Cake, and in the childhood of Queen Victoria, his little shop was still famous for toy books’ (Florence V. Barry).