In the original dustsheet. Tan cloth binding with gilt title on the spine.

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‘The funniest book of the year, and quite possibly of all time’, Francis Wheen, Mail on Sunday.

Everyone loves a rogue. Take Louis de Rougemont, pearl diver, alligator hunter and King of the Cannibals, who was allegedly shipwrecked off the coast of New Guinea and survived by clinging to the tail of the ship’s dog. Or Archbishop Lancelot Blackburne, who tired of waiting for heavenly rewards and became a swashbuckling pirate, rumoured to have employed Dick Turpin as his butler.

Review: This book has become my favourite browsing book. Entries are alphabetical but in addition features what the author describes as “an innovative system of cross-referencing”. Thus under “Drunks, convivial. See Kean, Edmund: Newton, Robert” you will find the following story: Wilfrid Lawson and Robert Newton were two drunken actors. They were appearing in Richard II on tour. Newton staggered on as John of Gaunt. “If you think I’m pissed” he told the audience “wait till you see the Duke of York”. My favourite entry is an account of the Dutch first night of the musical “Hair” where the producer had found himself in difficulty, as one backer, a Soho gangster called Raymond Nash, had sat down in the arrivals lounge at Tokyo airport and the chair had collapsed under the weight of the gold secured about his person. The show was mounted in a circus tent. Guests of honour were the Dutch royal family. When the national anthem was played, everyone stood up except for the royals, who were sent sprawling on account of the seesaw effect of the rickety circus seating. When the audience sat down, the royals were fired into the air for the same reason. Finally, Dutch creditors arrived to repossess the set. Read this book and find out, under the entry for Daniel Farson, why it is the first rule of music hall never to put the seals on first.