Sign-In
Cart
Forgotten Crimes: Laws So Strange They Still Exist
Paperback
Currently unavailable to order
Please enter your email and a message will be sent to you when this product becomes available on our website.
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Nov 11 2025
Pages: 264
Weight: 0.79
Height: 0.55 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Is it illegal to wear a false mustache that alarms children in a public park? Could you be fined for displaying overtly garish garden gnomes? Could your pet parrot be arrested for having an intimidating demeanor?
The answer, at one point in history, was a resounding yes. Our modern world is haunted by ghost rules -baffling, hilarious, and sometimes chilling laws that, though forgotten, still linger on the books.
Forgotten Crimes is a captivating and witty journey into the most absurd corners of legal history. Author Mark E. Jemy digs through the dust of forgotten legal texts to uncover a secret history of human regulation, where no part of life was too small, too personal, or too strange to escape the law's reach.
Inside this baffling and hilarious collection, you'll discover:
- The Fashion Police: The peculiar sumptuary laws that dictated what color cloak you could wear and even the length of your shoes.
- The Food Gauntlet: Why you could be arrested for forestalling grain and why the U.S. Supreme Court had to legally decide if a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable.
- Regulated Relationships: The strange history of laws governing who you could love, marry, and what constituted a forbidden courtship.
- Bizarre Justice: A shocking look at a time when animals were put on trial for their crimes and corpses could be exhumed and tried for heresy.
- Thought Crimes: The chilling laws that criminalized blasphemy, sedition, and even having overly enthusiastic shouts in public.
This book is for the curious, the bewildered, and everyone who's ever wondered if they're accidentally breaking a law just by existing. It's a key to a secret, hilarious, and baffling history of human regulation.
Also in
Humor
I Can't Believe I Did That: The Game That Gives You Points for Sharing Awkward, Awesome, and Unforgettable Memories: Card Games
Nadelberg, David
Katcher, Neil
Other
The Science Magpie: Fascinating Facts, Stories, Poems, Diagrams and Jokes Plucked from Science
Flynn, Simon
Paperback
Fixing Flamingos: And Other Solutions to the World's Least Pressing Problems
Rea, Brian
Brown, Lucienne
Paperback
How to Be a Cat: (Cat Books for Kids, Cat Gifts for Kids, Cat Picture Book)
Lazar, Ralph
Swerling, Lisa
Hardcover
Peculiar Questions and Practical Answers: A Little Book of Whimsy and Wisdom from the Files of the New York Public Library
New York Public Library
Hardcover
How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay: Tips and Tricks That Kept Me Alive, Happy, and Creative in Spite of Myself
Lawson, Jenny
Hardcover
Bake It Off: An Unofficial Taylor Swift-Inspired Cookbook for Every Era, from Breakfast to Midnights
Smith, Lindsey
Hardcover
Big Fan: Two Friends, 82,490 Miles, and the Wild, Wonderful Sports We Love
Schur, Michael
Posnanski, Joe
Hardcover
We Are the World (Cup): A Personal History of the World's Greatest Sporting Event
Bennett, Roger
Hardcover
Black Out Loud: The Revolutionary History of Black Comedy from Vaudeville to '90s Sitcoms
Bennett, Geoff
Hardcover
How to Grow Up Without Becoming a Grown-Up: Big Lessons from Little Kids
Shapiro-Barnum, Julian
Hardcover
The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Five Novels in One Outrageous Volume
Adams, Douglas
Paperback
There Are Moms Way Worse Than You: Irrefutable Proof That You Are Indeed a Fantastic Parent
Boozan, Glenn
Hardcover
The New Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Expert Advice for Extreme Situations
Borgenicht, David
Piven, Joshua
Hardcover
How to Talk to Your Cat about Gun Safety: And Abstinence, Drugs, Satanism, and Other Dangers That Threaten Their Nine Lives
Auburn, Zachary
Paperback
Pardon My Book: Ten Years of the Best (and Worst) in Sports from Pardon My Take
Big Cat
Commenter, Pft
Hardcover
Nobody Wants Your Sh*t: The Art of Decluttering Before You Die (New York Times Bestseller)
Condo, Messie
Hardcover