Clifford Mortimer Crist

Okay, I've ploughed my way through most of the major limerick anthologies now, and there's a considerable area of overlap among many of them, so a number of the "old classics" are trotted out again here. Like all the others, this one contains a mixture of funny and unfunny; rhythmically sound and unsound; clean and obscene. (Yes, despite expectations of the imprint, there are a few scattered about in here that are entirely SFW, like the man from Calcutta with the unfortunate stutter.)
On the plus side: there are plenty I hadn't seen in any of the other books.
On the minus side, this is one of the few larger limerick books that chooses NOT to split its contents up into thematic chapters: the verses are presented in one continuous list, ordered alphabetically by the first line's rhyme word. (So the first one's about "a matron who favored abstention" and the last one's about "a young fellow from Yuma".) This does mean that potentially related rhymes are not necessarily placed together, and there aren't easy break points for dipping in and out.… (mehr)