|
The Englishman Who Posted Himself and Other Curious Objects
John Tingey
#UD8252
Hardcover, 175 pages; 2010
$24.95
 Members' Price: $21.21
A most unconventional biography, The Englishman Who Posted Himself… tells the story of W. Reginald Bray (1879-1939), an accountant and family man with a peculiar hobby: challenging the ingenuity of the British postal service. After studying the rules and regulations of the postal authorities, Bray mailed tens of thousands of postal curios: strangely addressed missives (written in coded verse, for example, or sent to "all the post offices in the world"); a wide variety of odd, unwrapped objects (a turnip, a bicycle pump, a bowler hat, dog biscuits, and a rabbit's skull); even living things, including his Irish terrier and himself (separately)! Eventually, Bray channeled his meticulous nature into amassing the world's largest autograph collection (via the postal system, of course). With a wealth of reproductions of Bray's most inventive postal-art creations, John Tingey's rollicking portrait of the Edwardian postal prankster will delight anyone who's ever been consumed by a hobby.
(AG)
|
