NAPOLEONIC HOME-GUARD FARCE: The C[oggesha]ll Volunteer Corps. A Farce. In Two Acts...the Fourth Edition

Unusually complete, with the folding engraved frontispiece, a satirical spoof on small-town politics in the face of the threat of a French invasion of England at the time of the Napoleonic Wars. The play centres around the recruitment of local men to join a 'Home Guard'-type militia to fight the French, based in the Essex town of Coggeshall and printed in nearby Colchester.

Pretty tree calf binding with gilt decoration to boards; some loss to leather at top and tail of spine. Marbled endpapers; original blue printed wrapper bound in, followed by the folding frontispiece and title page inscribed by ‘John G Austin’. Collates complete: A-D4 with vignettes preceding each scene.

In the play a rag-tag militia is formed around Christopher Scroggins who was the subject of a later ‘Biographical’ work which is attributed by Essex University to ‘T Harris’.