The Madman's Library Quotes

“anthropodermic bibliopegy”
― Edward Brooke-Hitching, The Madman's Library: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and Other Literary Curiosities from History

“human leather”
― Edward Brooke-Hitching, The Madman's Library: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and Other Literary Curiosities from History

“Ducks; and How to Make Them Pay (1890) by William Cook”
― Edward Brooke-Hitching, The Madman's Library: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and Other Literary Curiosities from History

“samut khoi, or folding-book manuscript, telling the story of the monk Phra Malai travelling to Hell.”
― Edward Brooke-Hitching, The Madman's Library: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and Other Literary Curiosities from History

“1382 titled Consolatio peccatorum, seu Processus Luciferi contra Jesum Christum, the ‘Consolation of Sinners’, which is also known as the Liber Belial or Book of Belial. The work takes the form of a lawsuit filed by Lucifer and the forces of Hell against Jesus Christ, in which the Devil accuses the Son of God of trespassing into Hell, and is suing for damages. The case is presided over by King Solomon, with Moses defending Jesus Christ and the juridically trained demon Belial appearing for the Devil. At a second trial, Joseph acts as judge, and Aristotle and Isaiah appear on Jesus Christ’s legal team, facing off against the Emperor Augustus and Jeremiah for the Devil. Both verdicts are found in favour”
― Edward Brooke-Hitching, The Madman's Library: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and Other Literary Curiosities from History

“Desenganno dos Peccadores (‘Disillusion of Sinners’, 1724) by the Jesuit priest Alexandre Perier. The book features graphic depictions of the sense-based tortures awaiting sinners in Hell, from demons hammering metal bolts through one’s eye to the sounds of Satanic trumpets and the barking of hellhounds.”
― Edward Brooke-Hitching, The Madman's Library: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and Other Literary Curiosities from History

“Take the ‘Hell-mouth’, a terrifying doorway to Satan’s subterranean kingdom in the form of a giant animal’s maw, from which tortured souls and demons reach out in agony.”
― Edward Brooke-Hitching, The Madman's Library: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and Other Literary Curiosities from History

“Here we learn details of the punishments meted out in the Hell of Excrement, the Hell of Measures, the Hell of the Iron Mortar, the Hell of the Flaming Rooster (presided over by a giant fire-breathing cockerel), the Hell of the Black Sand Cloud, the Hell of Pus and Blood and the Hell of Foxes and Wolves. The”
― Edward Brooke-Hitching, The Madman's Library: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and Other Literary Curiosities from History

“Titivillus, known as ‘the patron demon of scribes’, was said to be sent by Lucifer to torment the tired scribe and trick him into bringing errors into his work,”
― Edward Brooke-Hitching, The Madman's Library: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and Other Literary Curiosities from History

“Devil’s prime minister of Hell, Lucifugé Rofocale.”
― Edward Brooke-Hitching, The Madman's Library: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and Other Literary Curiosities from History

“Francis Grose (1731–91), who once described himself as ‘Too fat to ride a horse and too poor to keep a carriage’,”
― Edward Brooke-Hitching, The Madman's Library: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and Other Literary Curiosities from History

“Persian manticore, described as having ‘a treble rowe of teeth beneath and above . . . his face and eares like unto a mans, his eyes grey, and collour red, his taile like the taile of a Scorpion of the earth . . . his voice like the voice of a small trumpet or pipe’.”
― Edward Brooke-Hitching, The Madman's Library: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and Other Literary Curiosities from History

“Topsell’s is a cartoonish natural world: weasels give birth from their ears, lemmings graze in the clouds, elephants worship the Sun and the Moon, and fall pregnant by chewing on mandrake. Toads have a toadstone in their heads that protects people from poison, and apes are terrified of snails.”
― Edward Brooke-Hitching, The Madman's Library: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and Other Literary Curiosities from History

“Edward Topsell’s heavily illustrated The History of Four-Footed Beasts (1607) and The History of Serpents (1608).”
― Edward Brooke-Hitching, The Madman's Library: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and Other Literary Curiosities from History

“It went all too smoothly. America, you sit there, you plump beauty, still buying neckties from sidewalk sharpies, still guessing which walnut shell contains the pea . . . America, I sometimes worry about you.”
― Edward Brooke-Hitching, The Madman's Library: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and Other Literary Curiosities from History

“Execution pieuse d’un voeu anonyme. Reliure en peau humaine (Femme) 1882.’ (”
― Edward Brooke-Hitching, The Madman's Library: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and Other Literary Curiosities from History

“Hic liber femineo corio convestitus est – ‘This book is bound in a woman’s skin’.”
― Edward Brooke-Hitching, The Madman's Library: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and Other Literary Curiosities from History