Edward Brooke-Hitching is an English author, and a writer and researcher for the BBC panel show QI, as a member of the team known as the "QI Elves". He is the son of the rare book dealer Franklin Brooke-Hitching and a descendant of the printer and bibliographer

William Blades William Blades (5 December 182427 April 1890), English printer and bibliographer, was born at Clapham, London. Career In 1840 he was apprenticed to his father's printing business in London, being subsequently taken into partnership. The ...

, who wrote the history of book preservation ''

The Enemies of Books ''The Enemies of Books'' is a book on biblioclasts and book preservation by the 19th-century bibliophile and book collector William Blades. The book was first published in 1880 and has been republished in different editions in 1881, 1888, 1896, ...

''. His ''Fox Tossing, Octopus Wrestling and Other Forgotten Sports'' described 90 obsolete pastimes and ''

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world. It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''The ...

s reviewer said "A book like this, the result of enormously diligent library ferreting, doesn't have any pressing reason to exist, but I am glad it does. Its pointlessness is its pleasure." It described sports including

fox tossing Fox tossing (german: Fuchsprellen) was a competitive blood sport popular in parts of Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. It involved throwing live foxes and other animals high into the air. It was practiced by members of the aristocracy in an e ...

octopus wrestling Octopus wrestling involves a diver grappling with a large octopus in shallow water and dragging it to the surface.Norman, M.D. (2000). Octopus Wrestling. In: ''Cephalopods: A World Guide''. ConchBooks, pp. 217-218. Although it was called "wres ...

and

ski ballet Ski ballet is a form of ballet performed on skis. It is very similar to figure skating, combining spins, jumps, and flips in a two-minute routine choreographed to music. It was part of the professional freestyle skiing tours of the 1970s and 1980 ...

. His ''The Phantom Atlas'' describes places which appear on maps but do not exist: the ''Times'' reviewer says that it "shows how places that aren’t there can endure, sometimes for centuries, once a map-maker has inked them in". ''The Sky Atlas'' was shortlisted for the 2019

Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards The Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards celebrate the best travel writing and travel writers in the world. The awards include the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year and the Edward Stanford Award for Outstanding Contribution to Travel Writing ...

in the "Illustrated travel book" category and picked as one of the 50 Christmas books of the year by '' The Herald''. In 2007 he directed a short documentary about the Edinburgh-based '' Really Terrible Orchestra''. He appeared on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

's ''

The Museum of Curiosity ''The Museum of Curiosity'' is a comedy talk show on BBC Radio 4 that was first broadcast on 20 February 2008. It is hosted by John Lloyd (Professor of Ignorance at the University of Buckingham, and later at Solent University). He acts as the ...

'' in October 2019. His hypothetical donation to this imaginary museum was "A land grant for 60 acres of land in Poyais", being a document produced by 1820s fraudster

Gregor MacGregor General Gregor MacGregor (24 December 1786 – 4 December 1845) was a Scottish soldier, adventurer, and confidence trickster who attempted from 1821 to 1837 to draw British and French investors and settlers to "Poyais", a fictional Central Am ...

Selected publications

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References

External links

* * English book and manuscript collectors Year of birth missing (living people) English non-fiction writers Living people {{UK-writer-stub