Curiosities of Literature is Isaac Disraeli’s much-loved miscellany of anecdotes, oddities, and out-of-the-way scholarship drawn from the byways of literary history. First published in 1791 and expanded over decades, it gathers stories of authors, books, libraries, hoaxes, and forgotten controversies into short, browsable essays.
Disraeli—father of the future prime minister—writes as a genial antiquarian who delights in the strange margins of learning: the fates of suppressed books, the quarrels of poets, the history of dedications and pseudonyms. This first volume sets the tone for a work that entertained generations of readers and influenced the Victorian taste for literary trivia. It remains an inviting, dip-in-anywhere companion for anyone curious about the human side of books and writers.