“Highly readable . . . Otto has painstakingly assembled an array of stories that illustrate, and complicate, [the] delicate psychological prerequisites for humor. . . It is the jests themselves that make Otto’s book so enjoyable.”

Andrew Stark | Times Literary Supplement

“Otto’s lively survey is crammed with amusing, colorful (and occasionally off-color) anecdotes about jesters and their jests. . . . A pleasure to read, this book was clearly a labor of love: engagingly written, assiduously documented, finely illustrated, and handsomely designed.”

Merle Rubin | Christian Science Monitor

“A most learned study of the role of the court jester in world history. . . . [Otto] manages to cover an astonishing range of cultural references without the narrative losing momentum.”

David Profumo | Literary Review

“No other book has the breadth of this one, especially in its coverage of China. . . . Despite the book’s impressive scholarship, it is never pedantic. Otto writes with a contagious enthusiasm, and tells dozens of ancient stories with the wit of a comedian. The book could easily be made into a documentary on the History Channel, or even a Broadway play.”

John Morreall | Humor

"Our understanding of the jester wwill never be the same after Beatrice Otto’s valuable book, which so fruitfully sounds the resonances between the European, the Chinese, the Egyptian and the Indian traditions."

Simon Callow | Saturday Guardian

"Through anecdotes, historical details, analyses, and commentary, Otto brilliantly delineates the court jester, and quotations and illustrations do much to enhance this eminently readable text . . . well worth a look by avid readers with an eye for an informative yet uncommon title.”

Library Journal