Penn Gazette – Part 3

True to its word, the Pennsylvania Gazette published another article on the Committee for Reunion with England in its November 1975 issue. Entitled “Those Terrible Tories Are Preaching Reunion Again,” the article featured a photograph of John standing in front of a British flag and an extended review of the first issue of The Tory Torch.

The photograph was taken by David Gambill in John’s first apartment in Richmond’s Fan District. Above the British flag was a poster of poet T.S. Eliot, which was one of John’s favorite literary posters and thought to be appropriate since the American-born Eliot had famously become a British citizen in 1927.

Read the full article.

Our favorite paragraph from the Gazette’s article was one that showered praise on the satire in The Tory Torch and joined in the spirit of the humor:

The other departments and stories in the first edition of the “Torch” further apotheosize its editors’ not inconsiderable talents in the areas of political satire, parody, intentional non sequitur, causerie absurde, irony, ignoratio elenchi,¹ rodomontade,² stichomythia,³ orotundity,⁴ manic sesquipedilianism,⁵ rant, bombast, and fustian.⁶

Next: To Tell the Truth

1. irrelevant conclusion ↩︎
2. boastful talk ↩︎
3. A dramatic technique of short back-and-forth dialogue ↩︎
4. pompous, bombastic ↩︎
5. long-windedness; polysyllabic words ↩︎
6. pompous ↩︎