M. J. Cohen Libri

This anthology includes the best of three collections of comic and curious verse which first appeared with enormous success in the 1950s. It covers the whole tradition of English and American comic verse writing from the masters - Hood, Lear, Carrol -, to anonymous lampoonists of the 18th-century, up to the present day.

There you are, writing a letter or a speech, or even just arguing with your friends, when you think: there must be a succint way of putting this. Surely a single one-liner could do a better job than my own ill-chosen and long-winded words? Thankfully, we have the epigram - that handy, witty saying that closes arguments, sets people thinking and generally makes everyone else think you're much cleverer than you really are. The Penguin Dictionary of Epigrams is arranged thematically, covering everything from birth and death, knowledge and ignorance to marriage and divorce and madness and sanity.