Unfortunate book titles

About three years ago I was waiting for 'little monkey' in an opticians, he was having his eyes tested. I was lazily flicking through that mornings telegraph when I happened on an article on this very subject. There was a photograph which featured the covers that is what initially caught my eye. I was laughing so much, that I was asked to wait outside - the book titles in this article are real!!

The bizarre world of bonkers book collecting
Last Updated: 3:08am BST 15/05/2004

Dealers in these tomes are laughing all the way to the bank, writes Sam Leith

"Here's one," says Brian Lake. "Criminal Life: Reminiscences of Forty-Two Years As A Police Officer. By Superintendent Bent." His face creases with mirth.

Anyone who has ever pulled a Christmas cracker and, merry with port and clothed in an inadequate paper hat, provoked a fusillade of groans by reading out the motto, will be familiar with the genre: The Haunted House by Hugo First; Skiving Off by Marcus Absent.

advertisementExcept that this is not a cracker joke. In 1891, the unfortunately named Charles Bent published, in all innocence, his memoir of a crime-fighting life. He can have had no idea of how, more than a century on, his book would be prized among antiquarian booksellers for its frontispiece rather than its contents.

According to the organisers of this year's Antiquarian Book Fair at Olympia, west London, interest among collectors in what have become known as "bizarre books" - the quirkily titled, the inane of subject and the unfortunate of author - is rising fast.

Next month, several dealers will be offering this ephemera alongside the more traditional fare of literary first editions and books about exotic travel.

Mr Lake, 57, the proprietor of Jarndyce Books, opposite the British Museum in London, is a pioneering aficionado of bizarre books.

"The idea started at a book fair in York 10 years ago," he says. "We came up with the idea of dud books. Every bookseller has a book that he's had stuck in stock for years.

"We decided to do an exhibition of all these books that were unsaleable rubbish - but it expanded, because people started to bring along books they thought were funny."

Mr Lake went on to write Bizarre Books, a miscellany of the odder titles, and when he reopened Jarndyce after renovation work three years ago, included a window display of the best from his personal collection. It has become, he says, a local landmark.

Although he specialises in 18th and 19th-century novels, Mr Lake says: "When I'm in a boring bookshop, my mind switches to looking for bizarre books. I was in East Anglia recently, in an absolutely hopeless bookshop. I could feel, I'm not going to buy anything for stock. And then, there was Lost On Brown Willy. Beautiful. £3.50 with discount. Have it!"

Many offer straightforward opportunities for a schoolboy giggle. Drummer Dick's Discharge. The Romance of the Beaver. Flashes From The Welsh Pulpit. Play With Your Own Marbles. The Big Problem With Small Organs. Fine-Weather Dick. Scouts in Bondage. All of these are real publications, and are to be found on or off the shelves of an antiquarian bookseller near you.

But the market for bizarre books is not limited to the double entendre. There are also those whose appeal is their arcane subject matter, a delicious proleptic irony, or, for want of a better expression, sheer bonkers-ness.

There's Fish Who Answer The Telephone. There's Lady Loverley's Chatter. There's Progressive Afghanistan, published in 1933. There's The History of the Concrete Roofing-Tile, a perfect read for a romantic weekend. There's 1934's Correctly English in Hundred Days. ("This book is prepared for the Chinese young man who wishes to served for the foreign firm. It divided nearly 190 pages. It contains full of ordinary speak and write language.")

I ask Brian Lake, tentatively: "Do you ever read them?" He pauses, then laughs. "I try not to," he says. "I did read The Fangs of Suet Pudding once. Second World War thriller. Very weird. It's astonishing what gets published."