Cox's Fragmenta II (Further Folios from History)

A presumptuous bear who surprised a group of ladies in a coach, an accident involving an actor pretending to be an orangutan, and an aristocrat mistakenly pronounced dead in a newspaper are just some of the masterpieces of understated journalism collected by Francis Cox and contained in his Fragmenta. At 97 volumes, Cox’s scrapbook has to be one of the largest collections of journalistic ephemera ever. For 60 years during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, he accumulated articles on everything from duels to playhouses, and foreign travel to warfare. Following on from the success of the first volume selected from this treasure trove, Simon Murphy has selected more amusing and bizarre stories to create another historical miscellany which will intrigue and delight.