Verse and Worse

These are poems that never got invited to children's birthday parties. Writing under the pseudonym Col. D. Streamer, Harry Graham assembled what may be the most gleefully vicious collection of verse ever published in Edwardian England. The Baby's Baedeker offers sightseeing guides for infants with morbid suggestions. Perverted Proverbs twists familiar wisdom into something deeply unsettling. Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes celebrates domestic dysfunction with the enthusiasm of a greeting card. This is humor designed to make you laugh, then feel slightly guilty for laughing, then laugh again. Graham understood something essential: the gap between what we pretend to feel and what we actually feel is hilarious, and the only honest way to address it is in verse. These poems have survived over a century because that gap hasn't closed. For readers who appreciate dark comedy, satirical poetry, or simply want to understand what the Victorians and Edwardians got up to when no one was watching.