Maggs Bros.

“The Rattle” was an encore to “Puck”, also known as the “Shanghai Charivari”, an illustrated satirical magazine printed in the 1870s, and it closely followed Puck’s style and format, offering caricatures, verse, essays, news commentary, gossip, letters, and other short pieces. In the late 1890s, The Rattle stopped publishing for a couple years after having “absolutely drained Shanghai of Humour”, before to it revived in November 1900 when the Boxer Rebellion provided new material. Its humour, often at the expense of the Chinese for the benefit of expatriate Westerners, was aimed at the easily amused, those “pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw”, a line from Alexander Pope’s “Essay on Man” in 1734. H. W. G. Hayter supervised the Rattle’s cartoons. Henry William Goodenough Hayter (1862-1915) was born in London. He later became the editor of “The Eastern Sketch”, an illustrated weekly published in the Shanghai’s International Settlement during the early twentieth century. During his residence in the Shanghai International Settlement from 1882-1915, he produced numerous humorous cartoons, primarily for two of Shanghai’s most important illustrated magazines. Hayter was also the most frequently featured local artist in the North China Daily News. “With communities as with individuals, there are times and seasons when the administration of tonics becomes a necessity” (introduction). Following in the footsteps of the ‘Shanghai Punch’ (1867) and the ‘Puck’ (1871) this satirical magazine provides a wealth of historical commentary on one of the most vibrant open ports in China. Full of colonial/ex-patriate humour it is a valuable historical document of the characters and attitudes that were prevalent at the time. Not in Cordier. BM (vol. 1 only); Only 8 copies in OCLC.