The Oxford Book of Comic Verse

by John Gross

From limericks to social satire, The Oxford Book of Comic Verse offers a remarkable collection of outstanding light poetry. John Gross has brought together the finest writers in the history of the English language - from Chaucer and Skelton to Shakespeare and Swift, Lord Byron to Robert Browning, Emily Dickinson to John Updike, as well as witty song lyrics from such artists as Irving Berlin and Cole Porter - offering delightful examples of their comic verse. Drawing on many different types of verse, including epigrams, street ballads, advertising jingles, clerihew, music-hall lyrics, and the doubledactyl of the calypso, this highly entertaining collection offers an exceptionally wide range of comic pleasures. The poems are by turns subtle, down-to-earth, macabre, ingenious, acerbic, ribald, and cheerful. Written to amuse, they call forth laughter and delight in equal measure. Compiled by one of our finest critics and anthologists, this reissue boasts a stylish new design and a
fresh contemporary feel.

Genres: Poetry, Humor, Reference

548 pages, Paperback

First published May 16, 1994

About the author

John Gross was the editor of The Times Literary Supplement in London, a senior book editor and book critic on the staff of The New York Times in New York, and theatre critic for The Sunday Telegraph. He was also literary editor of The New Statesman and Spectator magazines.

Reviews

[D.M. · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's only taken me 20 years to read this book, and it was probably never meant to be read straight through, but now I have and wish I hadn't.
I should be forgiven for expecting to find this book even a little amusing, given the light tone of the jacket, the title with its goofy font and the back-jacket blurbs. And perhaps it's just that I'm an old crank and can't find humour when it's laid on a slab in front of me. But this is one painfully unfunny book.
Having said that, John Gross clearly knows his verse, and this seems to be a pretty comprehensive overview of light (if not comic) verse since around the 14th century. Unfortunately, most of the older, more strictly poetic pieces are too referential to contemporary works or people, and the looser, less structured modern stuff is just embarrassing to witness.
If you need a book of verse in a lighter vein, I suppose this would do nicely. If you're looking for something funny in rhyme, though, you'd probably do better to just write it yourself.
This edition adds Notes and sources, Acknowledgements, Index of First Lines and Index of Authors sections in the back.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not likely to have you rolling in the aisles, but an amazing banquet of amusing poetry. The good surprises include squibs by people we think of as always very serious, like Keats or not as poets, like Conan Doyle. Malcolm Lowry's epitaph for himself is here, not under the volcano. A generous helping of famous light-verse writers like Gilbert, Lear, Carroll (well, he's not so light but is funny), Ogden Nash.
Burma-Shave road signs. Limericks a-plenty. Speaking of which,
special note to Gavin Ewart's Semantic Limericks (in prose) about the young man of St. John's p 373.
A terrific browse. My son David gave me this a few years ago.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not the edition I have, but it's an absolutely wonderful collection.

[Lindsay · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't think these poems were funny.

[Gareth Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious laugh out loud funny in parts. Not very comprehensive though