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Lead book review

Written in blood or bound in human skin: the world’s weirdest books

Dennis Duncan enjoys some of the world’s most bizarre books

3 October 2020

9:00 AM

3 October 2020

9:00 AM

The Madman’s Library: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and Other Literary Curiosities from History Edward Brooke-Hitching

Simon & Schuster, pp.256, 25

In 1791, Isaac D’Israeli — father of prime minister Benjamin — published his most famous work, the Curiosities of Literature, a collection of freewheeling mini-essays on whatever literary topics happened to tickle their author’s fancy: ‘Titles of Books’, ‘Noblemen Turned Critics’, ‘On the Custom of Saluting after Sneezing’, ‘Cicero’s Puns’.

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