'Catherine Caufield has shown us that eccentrics are fascinating characters ... they add to the gaiety of nations and it would be sad to see them fade away' Patrick Moore, Daily Express'A hilarious compilation ... not to be missed' Good Book Guide'Mad dogs and Englishmen, laid out for public gaze' Fortean TimesUntil he ate a bluebottle, William Buckland had always maintained that the taste of mole was the most repulsive he knew. But that was before he ate the embalmed heart of Louis XVI. William, and a hundred other colourful characters populate the pages of this amusing survey of those strange British people through the ages.