Essay Upon Wind, with Curious Anecdotes of Eminent Peuters

This audacious little treatise purports to be the work of the great British Parliamentarian Charles James Fox, written (if we believe the legend) on a wager between gentlemen. In it, the reader will find a breathtakingly serious taxonomic cataloguing of wind in all its varieties, accompanied by earnest advice on which culinary selections produce which aromatic results, and a collection of curious anecdotes about the notable persons in society who have distinguished themselves in the art of flatulence. Yet the true delight lies not in the subject matter but in the dazzling deadpan: Fox applies all the apparatus of Enlightenment-era essay writing, the learned footnotes, the philosophical digressions, the grave rhetorical structure, to the basest of human functions. It is a specimen of that particular British aristocratic wit that finds nothing funnier than treating something absurd with perfect seriousness. Whether actually by Fox or a brilliant Victorian pastiche, the book endures as a monument to the eternal human pleasure of making gentlemen laugh at vulgarity while maintaining a straight face.