Author: PRATT, Ellis
Biography:
PRATT, Ellis (fl 1770)
Pseudonym E. P. Philocosm.
No other publication is associated with this name and in fact this one known publication, The Art of Dressing the Hair, gives only initials on the title-page and at the end of the dedication, so the attribution to “Ellis Pratt” or to “Ellis Pratt, M.D.” in catalogues may be merely traditional, based if anything on the place of publication, Bath in Somerset. There was an Ellis Pratt who wrote an introduction to surgery and a book about the healing properties of the Bath waters, but those works appeared almost a century before this mock-heroic tribute to the art of the gentleman’s hairdresser, which is playfully dedicated to the “Secretary to the Society of MACARONI,” a certain **** ***** Esq. According to Antonia Forster’s Index to Book Reviews in England, 1749-1774 (1990), five periodicals reviewed the poem. MR was probably typical in expressing pleasant surprise at the supposed work of a hairdresser: “his poem is more spirited, correct, and harmonious than most pamphlets of this kind.” No public records have been found that might make it possible to identify the author. (MR 43 [1770], 243) HJ