Jestbooks

Jest-books is the name given to collections of witty sayings and practical jokes, and to collections of facetiae gathered from all sources. Of the first class Tarlton's Jests, The witty and entertaining Exploits of George Buchanan, commonly called the King's Fool, Jests of Scogin, etc., are specimens; hut very few were authentic or original. A Hundred Merg Tales (about 1525) is the oldest English jest-book known, and Taylor's Wit and Mirth is one of the few original works. The best known of English collections of facetiae is Joe Miller's Jestbook, or the Wit's Vade Mccum (1739). In the Stichus of Plautus the parasite talks of consulting his books of witty sayings, so that jest-books were known in Rome early in the 2nd century B.C., if not in Athens still earlier.