A very small part of a large collection that I purchased of the Library of Congress some years ago (the "Pamphlet Collection", about 90,000 odd, interesting and almost entirely unrelated in their categorization items) was re-connected by me into a subclass of sweet/odd minor history. The titles needed to start something like The Story of _____, have an interesting cover illustration, and have the subject material be not-common.
I discovered that it was easier and more interesting to arrange this ephemeral material according to categories that would make the items interesting in a group, where the whole was greater and more interesting than the sum of its parts. And so a popular and slightly terrible Sponges, a Swell Story springs to life as a Duchampian illustration, far more interesting than it could possibly be as a solemn and bad history of sponges told in 32 cramped pages. 
Some other iconoclastic categories in this vein includes pamphlets whose covers have only a printed "!" or "?" on them, with the sub-category of mercilessly bizarre and entertaining printed titles with exclamations or questions (like "Better than Dead?" and "Fury! Money!").
And so I share a few of these The Story of pamphlets--there's really not too much to say about them beyond offering up their cover images, so I'll let it go at that.
Comments