The Collected Poems and Verse of the Austen Family, edited by David Selwyn (Carcanet, £7.95 in UK)

"Oh! Mr Best, you're very bad/And all the world shall know it,/Your bass behaviour shall be sung/By me, a tuneful Poet These and other delightful ditties were the sort of thing families used to pen to each other for amusement in the days before television soap operas - or, at least, the Austen family did. Verses were often written as part of a game, with various family members making their own contribution, according to editor David Selwyn, to a bout of boutrimes. Well, well. I'm most impressed by the scribblings of Mrs Austen, whose recipe for bread-pudding can effortlessly be committed to memory: "first take two pounds of Bread,/By the crumb only weigh'd,/For crust the good house-wife refuses;/The proportion you'll guess,/May be made more or less,/To the size that each family chuses . . .