Bennett Cerf’s Treasury of Atrocious Puns.

CERF, Bennett.

Item Number: 112938

New York: Harper & Row, 1968.

First edition of Bennett Cerf’s Treasury of Atrocious Puns. Octavo, original cloth. Presentation copy, warmly inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper in the year of publication, “For Marian Andrews with love Ben Cerf November 1, 1968.” With 16 illustrations by Michael K. Frith. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket.

Co-founder of the American publishing firm Random House, Bennett Cerf, gained a reputation for his own compilations of jokes and puns, which are here, in one awe-inspiring volume, compiled for the first time. Few book publishers were more widely known than Cerf, who regularly appeared in the panel game show What's My Line? and was instrumental in publishing the works of James Joyce, John O'Hara and Charles Reich.