What a vile, depraved, offensive, WONDERFUL volume. Gershon Legman was a fascinating and eccentric individual of the 20th century, obsessed with sex but also determined to bring America out of its needlessly repressed ways. (And also apparently a key contributor in bringing the origami fad to the Western world... Go figure.) This book was famously published in France rather than the US when Legman couldn't find a publisher, and because of this, he found himself without any copyright over the volume.

There are many variations on this publication, as a result, but my Panther edition collects 1700 limericks in two volumes. The first volume includes a decent introductory essay on the history of the poetic form, and the second volume contains a short "rhyming dictionary" at the end. Both volumes give extensive (and often dirty) notes on the limericks.

Every possible topic is covered - from incest and coprophilia to necrophilia and prostitution. If you're in any way offended by things, this may not be for you, and truthfully I hope no-one is completely comfortable with all 1700 poems herein! But the importance of Legman's work was just as much to challenge our assumptions, to make us - and particularly Americans - aware that their society's repression wasn't necessarily natural, that the "dirtiness" of 5-line poems was a completely legitimate way of enjoying oneself. Most interestingly in his inroduction, Legman comments that limericks are much more popular amongst the highly-educated. He suggests that the ornate fringes of the poetry, the inter-rhymes, the deceptively innocent opening lines, they all attract people more subtly attuned to the nuances of the joke, while the slight pretention makes them less attractive to people for whom dirty jokes alone are attractive. I think there's also the fact that, because limericks can be so depraved, they require a mind who can enjoy the joke without necessarily endorsing the sentiment in real life. If this cheeky volume is evidence, it's well worth it. ( )

Rated: F ( )

Yes they are x-rated, and yes, yes, yes funny. ( )

I guess that this is the definitive book on limericks. Why you would ever need such a book is a mystery, however, but, for some reason, I just had to get it. The introduction is scattershot and disjointed. Of course, it is also what you'd expect from a folklorist who collects limericks. There is some history in the intro, but since it is written so oddly, it is hard to really get the point. Still, the tidbits thrown out are good enough to let the weirdness slide. But what makes this book awesome to me is that it is annotated, numbered, and cited; there is an index and a rhyming index. This delights my bibliographic soul.

The limericks? Well, of course they are ribald and bawdy and raunchy. And sometimes disgustingly so. But, at least I now own the definitive book on limericks. ( )

From the sea chanty to the folklore of the churn, we have lost all but the most bowdlerized stanzas of our work song. Nobody sings at Desktops. But the loin of the Limerick is hanging in there....with its seven line stanza in spondaic hexameter, alternating with amphibrachs and amphimacers.

Limericks as a fad began in 1863 with a reprint of Edward Lear's 1846 Book of Nonsense, which inspired a serious stretch of publications in humorous magazine, PUNCH.[viii] The form has ancient roots in child nursery-rhyme [xiv], and nonsense song. Irish traditions go back 1000 years, and the form was also used by Thomas Moore, and Shakespeare [Edgar disguised as a beggar in King Lear, chants his spell, III.iv.120; Iago's drinking song in Othello, II.iii.70; Ophilia's mad song in Hamlet, IV.v.190].

Still, it remains, as presented here, a vehicle especially suited to silliness or shock. The scholarly editor has reprinted, in four languages, the Plumber's lament as a Little Romance: "There was a young plumber of Leigh/ Who was plumbing a girl by the sea./ She said, "Stop your plumbing,/ There's somebody coming!/ Said the plumber, still plumbing, 'It's me!'." [#60-#63]