THE BIG BUMPER BOOK OF DeBURGH
( or DeBurgh-ery ??)

  The Society was first founded by Oliver St.John Grogan (the well-known typing error) in 1921, and again in 1922 as he had forgotten where he had left the first one. Following this, in 1923, in pairs with two other people, they secured the service of one B. Svertlovitch, the foremost authority on DeBurgh (according to himself - and one cannot argue with direct evidence). The Patron Saint of The Society is St Edward Lear of Gromboolia. (just in case you wanted to know...)

  In 1956, Professor Sir Hubert Ramakrishna Mukerjee of the Bengal Mukerjees, in reponse to an apparent conflict in the provenances of several of DeBurghs�s poems, offered his services in the form of a lecture elucidating his further development of the famous Cartesian principle �Cogito Ergo Sum�. This became known as the Extended Descartes Principle (EDP) , a veritable cornerstone of the Society�s existence.

  Prof. Mukerjee, in the EDP, resolved all the apparent conflicts inherent in the wide variety of locations, dates, and times which are subscribed to each of the Works. And his dissertation makes for very interesting reading! (see the full transcript of his Lecture - well, as far as he got with it !)

  Since those heady days the Society has lain dormant, a dormancy interrupted only by the periodical spasms of acid hatred that have erupted between Svertlovitch who prides himself on being the Foremost Authority, as mentioned above, and his arch-enemy Smegwich, who reckons Svertlovitch is a total prick. However, as Smegwich was, at last report, still confined in the Slovotkin Institute where he was helping the doctors with their electro-convulsive experiments (in conjunction with unknown substances), while Svertlovitch currently is a National Hero, for his work with the poetry starved children in Vladivostok, one must say �Well..there but for the grace of God�.etc�

  The Society enjoyed some popularity during the late 1920�s and early 1930�s but became somewhat dormant due to the eclipsing rise of other Poets, and it remained dormant until, like many of the actual Works, it was re-discovered in an earthenware jar bought by a Miss Evadne Sprockett of Dulwich Village, at a flea market in the Sultan Ahmet district of Istanbul, while on a package tour in 1996.
   The tour also included side visits to Cyprus, Athens, Rhodes, and Dubrovnik, with meals included in Istanbul, and Cyprus, but not in the other places. A guided tour was included in Dubrovnik, but be that as it may.

  Miss Sprockett, who died of a mysterious STD in 1997, left instructions with her Solicitors that the Robert James DeBurgh (Poet) Appreciation Society was to be re-established, and that if it were not she would come and haunt us.
Well, reasonable risks and all that.......

  So, as the popular song goes, "here we are again", still seeking the discovery of more �Works� of the great R.J.DeB, wherever they have lain for however long, and in whatever state they may be.

As an aside, The Society attempted to contact Miss Sprockets Solicitors, (Throckmorton Fudgepacker and Twinkle), regarding the early days of the Reformation of The Society, only to find that they had soon after, sold the firm in order to enter a Monastary of Trappist Monks high in the Andes, and are sadly no longer available for comment.