Gathered together here - in one volume - is the best of bad behavior: more than 700 of the most irate, emphatic, amusing condemnations of impropriety, called from nearly 200 etiquette books, ranging from the fourteenth century to the present.

If you thought that books of decorum contained only dull, dry rules of good behavior, think again. The business of etiquette has as much to do with the wrong as with the right. Now a procession of characters - from etiquette's grande dames to its flustered beginners teetering on the brink of misbehavior - has been brought to rollicking life in thirty-five drawings by one of the great artistic wits of our century, Ronald Searle.

Etiquette authors did not confine their advice solely to decorum. They digressed into all manner of self-improvement, making etiquette manuals the self-help books of the past and The Hatless Man as topical today as when its rules were written. The Hatless Man is not just for lovers of propriety, but for people in all situations in which confusions of behavior may arise.

It supplies nuggets of advice for almost everybody: dieters, gluttons, waiters, wallflowers, psychiatrists, dogs, spouses, athletes, musicians, lawyers, commuters, tourists, or simply for lovers of time travel who want to spend some moments luxuriating in the lost era of carriage rides and shooting parties. It is the perfect gift for Christmas, for weddings, for anniversaries - a gift for all occasions that will last for years to come.