Brewer's Rogues, Villains and Eccentrics is a reference

Reference

Reference is derived from Middle English referren, from Middle French rèférer, from Latin referre, "to carry back", formed from the prefix re- and ferre, "to bear"...

 book first published by Brewer's in 2002 and edited/compiled by William Donaldson

William Donaldson

Charles William Donaldson was an English satirist, writer, playboy and, under the pseudonym of Henry Root, author of The Henry Root Letters.-Life and career:...

.

The book is an esoteric look at some of the wilder characters emanating from the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 (and, while it was part of the United Kingdom, what is now the Republic of Ireland

Republic of Ireland

Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...

) and has been described as "a work of maniacal genius"http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/referenceandlanguages/0,,872286,00.html. It featured entries on eccentrics and rogues famous, infamous and little-known, including Beauchamp Bagenal

Beauchamp Bagenal

Beauchamp Bagenal was an Irish rake, buck, duellist and politician.He was born in County Carlow in 1741 and inherited the family estates aged 11. Bagenal gained a reputation as a hell raiser and serial heartbreaker, and was reportedly described as the handsomest man in Ireland...

, Lord Berners, John Aspinall

John Aspinall

John Aspinall may refer to:* John Aspinall , zoo owner and gambler* John Aspinall , engineer* John Thomas Walshman Aspinall , English Conservative Party politician, Member of Parliament for Clitheroe 1853...

 and John Wilkes

John Wilkes

John Wilkes was an English radical, journalist and politician.He was first elected Member of Parliament in 1757. In the Middlesex election dispute, he fought for the right of voters—rather than the House of Commons—to determine their representatives...

. Some entries, such as that on George Best

George Best

George Best was a professional footballer from Northern Ireland, who played for Manchester United and the Northern Ireland national team. He was a winger whose game combined pace, acceleration, balance, two-footedness, goalscoring and the ability to beat defenders...

, reflect a certain cynicism about media-created rogues.

An example entry

Harry Meadows - Pensioner and accidental killer.

In 1961, 87-year-old Harry Meadows, a resident at the Haslemere home for the elderly in Great Yarmouth, England, achieved late-in-life notoriety when he accidentally killed another 3 residents of his care home by dressing up as the grim reaper and peering through the residents' lounge window whilst holding a scythe.

The year before Harry's performance, another resident of the same home, the then 81 year old Gladys Elton, for reasons best known to herself, had conceived the idea of performing a striptease for her fellow residents of the home; unfortunately such was the effect of Elton's performance that it caused the death of one resident by way of a cardiac arrest and the treatment for shock of five other residents.

The home was forced to shut as a result of these two incidents.