The Great Panjandrum Himself

The cover of The Great Panjandrum Himself

The Great Panjandrum Himself is one of sixteen picture books created by the illustrator Randolph Caldecott. The book was published in 1885 by Frederick Warne & Co. It was the last book illustrated by Caldecott, who died the following year.

The text for the book, well known during Caldecott's time, was written and published in 1775 by Samuel Foote. It is based on a line of gibberish written by Foote ("And there were present the Picninnies, and the Joblillies, and the Garyulies and the Grand Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at the top."), written to test the memory of the actor Charles Macklin, who had claimed he could repeat any text verbatim after hearing it once.

The term "panjandrum" has since become used to describe a powerful person or a self-important official. The word is used in the 1909 song "I've Got Rings On My Fingers",[1] "...they named him Chief Pan Jan Drum, Nabob of them all..."

During World War II, the British military named an experimental rocket-propelled weapon the Panjandrum. Such a character also appears as a deus ex machina in the Thursday Next series, set in a fictional 'BookWorld' created by the Panjandrum.

In popular culture

• The term "panjandrum" is used in an episode of the 1990's sitcom "Frasier," season 4 episode 11, where the titular character refers to being "the grand panjandrum" of his high school's vocabulary club.

• LBC radio presenter James O'Brien often uses the term "Great Panjandrum" to refer to unnamed figures of political power who provide preferential political and financial access to favoured clients: particularly about awards of UK Government contracts to provide personal protective equipment (PPE) during the early stages of the covid pandemic.

External links

• The Great Panjandrum Himself at Project Gutenberg