Erotic misdemeanors in an Irish bean-field and the recipe for a frog barometer fresh from the French court are included in this collection of the funniest and most bizarre news stories printed in the 18th and 19th centuries A parrot convicted of heresy and burnt at the stake in Spain, and a Dutch stage effect for ejecting a wig (by means of a spring) during Hamlet's ghost scene are just some of the masterpieces of understated journalism collected in this 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 18th and early 19th centuries he accumulated articles on everything from duels to playhouses, and foreign travel to warfare. Simon Murphy has selected the most amusing and bizarre to create an historical miscellany which will intrigue and delight.