Frontice piece, The Diverting History of John Gilpin, 1878 (litho)

The Diverting History of John Gilpin Shewing how he went Farther than he intended, and came safe Home again is a comic ballad by William Cowper written in 1782. The ballad concerns a draper called John Gilpin who rides a runaway horse. Cowper heard the story from Lady Anna Austen at a time of severe depression, and it cheered him up so much that he put it into verse. The poem was published anonymously in the Public Advertiser in 1782, and then published with The Task in 1785; The poem was republished in 1878, illustrated by Randolph Caldecott and printed by Edmund Evans;