The Early Writings of George Lippard, 1842-1843

[B] Flib

This section contains an assortment of short pieces involving (and attributed to) the character “Flib,” the eccentric, mischievous, notoriously red-haired newsroom (“sanctum”) hanger-on who has a central role in the following series, “Our Talisman.” In that more extensive series of sketches, Flib possessed a magic ring that rendered him invisible and enabled him to penetrate unobserved into secret social spaces (a bank directors' meeting, for example) where he discovered various forms of financial and moral chicanery. In these less elaborate sketches, which supplemented the “Our Talisman” series, he was given an opportunity to reflect humorously upon newsroom bores, courtroom eloquence, and other social phenomena. In “Feast of Intellect” (B3) he enlisted Toney Blink to help publicize a planned bit of hokum: he would announce himself as a popular lecturer on “phrenology, philosophy, physiology, electro-magnetism, legal jurisprudence, dentistry, and the belles lettres.”