Customer Reviews

Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes and More Ruthless Rhymes (Hilarious Stories)

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The antidote for Barney and Mr Rogers. These are short rhymes from a time when children were not so PC. A delightfully gruesome acceptance of children's fascination with the dark and gory.

The best in mean-spirited doggerel. The poetry's not great, but then again, its not supposed to be. If you like the twisted writings of Edward Gorey, this book will make you laugh out loud, and if you share it with people who do not share your outlook, will make them look at you like you just squished a puppy in front of them.

"Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes and More Ruthless Rhymes," by Harry Graham, is a hilarious collection of humorous poetry that succeeded in making me laugh out loud. A bibliographic note on the copyright page states that the Dover Thrift Edition "is a slightly altered republication of the works originally published in 1899 and 1930 by Edward Arnold, Ltd."

The book contains a series of vicious and macabre rhymes accompanied by entertaining pictures. The poems' topics include death, accidents, cruelty towards the elderly, firearms mishaps, illness, marital discord, and murder of children. A typical poem is "L'Enfant Glace," which begins, "When Baby's cries grew hard to bear, / I popped him in the Frigidaire." A savage mockery of the human condition, "Ruthless Rhymes" is absurd, grotesque, gleefully sadistic--and lots of fun!

Rhymes as one of my first books from my much beloved "veddy English" granny. Granny has been gone a long time & I lost my copy 40 years ago. I never forgot it. I saw it on sale at Amazon & snapped one up. Not a classical book of poetry, maybe not even classy. Doggerel is the easiest type of poetry to remember. It is perverse, clever & cruel. You may even laugh out loud. I have not met a person who has not a least smiled. That may say something about the company I keep. It's the most fun you can have with poetry.

This is a very short book - there aren't many poems. They are very cruel, almost disturbingly so unless you have the sort of sense of humor that embraces Edward Gorey's little alphabet recital ("B is for Basil, devoured by bears"). I do share that sense of humor and so found this book to be entertaining, and a suitable gift for some similarly-minded people on my gift list. It has b/w illustrations.

While doing some research I ran across this type of rhyme and did a quick Amazon search for it. I found this little treasure chock full of them. Being older and wiser in the ways of the world, I may have grown a bit cynical and these rhymes flat out tickled me. Some were shocking, if taken literally, but maybe thoughts that have passed through our minds at times. Many surprising ones too. This is a great collection of rhymes of this type and I was thrilled to find this book. Have added it to my collection and highly recommend this book.