The class quiz
More
Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953) was a British writer and author of humorous verse, such as A Bad Child’s Book of Beasts (1896) and Cautionary Tales for Children (1907). This quote comes from ‘About John’, which appears in Belloc’s New Cautionary Tales (1930). The poem goes on to show how John Vavassour de Quentin Jones, who loved misbehaving by smashing windows with stones, is finally disinherited by his uncle, a ‘fabulously rich’ City gent. It is a quaint satire on the bad behaviour of the youthful rich and privileged, who nowadays would be called Hooray Henrys. Although Belloc’s mother was a strong supporter of women’s suffrage and Belloc himself had once been a member of the Fabian Society, he became increasingly sexist and conservative as time went on.
