Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1

Cole's Funny Picture Book is not quite like any other book ever made. E.W. Cole, the flamboyant Melbourne bookseller who built the legendary Book Arcade, compiled this bewildering object in the late 19th century: part puzzle book, part joke anthology, part wildly imaginative children's verse, and entirely unclassifiable. Here you'll find invented lands (Girl Land, Laziness Land), a mechanical Whipping Machine, lists of proper names for dolls, and image puzzles that still baffle adults more than children. The tone veers from shrewd observations about language and human nature to sheer absurdist nonsense, often within the same page. What makes Cole's creation endure is its fearless oddity: it refuses to choose between instruction and entertainment, between wisdom and silliness. For over a century, Australian children have returned to its pages the way their parents did, discovering fresh delights in its deliberately strange illustrations and wordplay that feels both ancient and mysteriously modern. This is a book that teaches you to find joy in the inexplicable.