As a creator of "mail art" (you can see some of my stuff here), I immediately dived upon the book pictured to the right. It tells the life story of W. R. Bray, who invented the concept of messing with the mails, even going so far as to mail a live dog and himself! It's full of Grade-A weirdness, and beautifully illustrated.
I'm reading a Mark Twain book currently, Following the Equator. In it, he mentions a notoriously bad poet, Julia Moore, a name I had not thought of in ages. Moore's fabled lack of talent produced scads of bad poetry. You can read about her career here.
Google has digitized at least one of her books, which you can read here. Be prepared to encounter such excruciating verse as this sample to the right.
Moore is included in The Stuffed Owl, a volume of the world's worst poetry. Wouldn't that make a swell Xmas gift for the literary type in your life?
Category: Outsider Art, Europe, Nineteenth Century, Postal Services