English Eccentrics and Eccentricities by John Timbs

Why did one of the richest men in England wear rags, walk in the rain to save a coach fare, and go to bed at dusk to spare a candle? Victorian antiquary John Timbs knew — and collected hundreds of such answers. This edition restores his complete, unabridged 1866 text of English Eccentrics and Eccentricities in full: a sprawling, affectionate cabinet of curiosities in which misers hoard fortunes, hermits tend elaborate grottoes, and fops, scholars, and harmless originals stride through a portrait gallery of English individuality drawn from centuries of anecdote. Here the book appears exactly as first published, framed by a new introduction setting Timbs and his world in context and by reader's notes glossing the people, places, and period references a modern reader may miss. Warm, funny, and endlessly browsable. Part of The Founding Texts Library.