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** It must be said, though, that Bulwer-Lytton's ''The Last Days of Pompeii'' is actually quite good, if still a bit florid.
* ''Shadow Zone: Revenge of the Computer Phantoms'', a children's book that does everything wrong. It's a horror novel about a computer game coming to life and invading the real world. It gets [[Did Not Do the Research|many basic facts]] about computers and games wrong and portrays every aspect of computer nerd culture unrealistically. The plot was as stupid as you could possibly get. And yet, it can be enjoyed for its badness if you can get past the plot.
* The <s>great</s> Scottish-Canadian poet [https://web.archive.org/web/20080224063319/http://www.nickpage.co.uk/worstweb/McIntyre/mcintyre.html James McIntyre], 1828-1906, best remembered for the timeless classic, "Ode on the Mammoth Cheese Weighing Over 7,000 Pounds." Sounds so [[Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy|Vogon]]. Maybe a truly epic piece of cheese just does that to peoples' brains.
* The total oeuvre of [http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk/ William Topaz McGonagall], perpetrator of the worst poetry in the English language - though his considerable popularity at the time suggests that both he and his contemporary audience were [[So Bad It's Good|in on the joke.]]
* And Theophilus Marzials's poem, "A Tragedy", which is considered ''the'' worst poem in the English language. [https://web.archive.org/web/20140220055900/http://homepages.wmich.edu/~cooneys/poems/bad/Marzials.Tragedy.html Read it out loud in your most Shakespearean voice.]
** Methinks I sense a bit of the [[Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy|Vogon]] in Mr. Marzials's genes...
* Almost everything by Matthew Reilly.
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* The [http://www.peltorro.com/examples.htm Reverend Lionel Fanthorpe], who wrote about 80% of Badger Books' sci-fi output under so many pseudonyms and with such a rush to churn out nonsense before the deadline that nowadays even he isn't sure which books were his. He was a master of ''deliberately'' writing [[So Bad It's Good]], since the Badger Books methodology made it difficult to write anything ''good'' good. He is associated with pages of blatant [[Padding]], plots based on barely disguised [[Shakespeare]] or [[Chess]] games, more blatant padding, still more padding, a vague relationship to the [[Covers Always Lie|cover picture, back cover synopsis and title]] he had been given (they never seemed related to each other), and yet more padding. Padding in large amounts! Unimaginable quantities of [[Padding]]! (And so on...)
** And the "Flaz Gaz Heat Ray" [http://news.ansible.co.uk/plotdev.html "Perhaps the most outrageous deus ex machina ending in all literature"]:
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* In recent years, there's been a surge of twenty and thirty-somethings rereading their old ''[[Sweet Valley High]]'' books and mining them for all the [[Camp]] glory they're worth.
** Ditto ''[[The Baby Sitters Club]]''.
* This is the basis of ''[[The Eye of Argon]]'''s fame. This [[Conan the Barbarian]] style fantasy story is so horrendously written that it causes hysterical fits of laughter as your brain inevitably fails to reconcile the senseless drivel that constitutes this verbal abomination. Many gaming conventions hold "Eye of Argon" parties where players take turn reading it aloud, trying to see who can read it the longest while holding a straight face.
* ''[[Paladin of Shadows|Ghost]]'', [[Memetic Mutation|better known as]] the "[http://hradzka.livejournal.com/194753.html OH JOHN RINGO NO]" book. It was written by [[John Ringo]] letting his [[wikipedia:Id, ego and super-ego#Id|Id]] run free in order to clear his head of the idea so he could get back to other works whose writing the idea was blocking. Much to his chagrin, a sample posted to the [[Baen Books|Baen's Bar forums]] resulted in an outpouring of support that demanded it be printed. [[Rule of Cool]] fully applies.
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* ''[http://www.amazon.com/ANTIGUA-Land-Fairies-Wizards-Heroes/dp/1425997821/ref=si3_rdr_bb_product ANTIGUA: The Land of Fairies Wizards and Heroes]''. The summary is enough to give you a good idea - "Search Inside" if you dare. The scary part? ''It was written by an adult''.
** ''Sweet Mother of God, the exclamation marks!'' There's ''more of them than full stops'' on the sample page! If [[Discworld|multiple exclamation marks are a sure sign of a diseased mind]], then so's that. ** [[The Big List of Booboos and Blunders|There's no such thing as a "lightening bolt"!]]
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* A significant portion of ''[[Twilight (novel)|Twilight]]'s'' internet fanbase enjoys the books because of the melodramatic plot, [[Thirty-Sue Pileup|unrealistically 'perfect' characters]], and [[Bishie Sparkle|sparkling]].
** And Bella spends so much time dizzy or only partially conscious that it's hard not to wonder whether she was dropped on her head as a baby or just sniffed a lot of powder in Phoenix.
** Browsing through [https://web.archive.org/web/20080701201829/http://community.livejournal.com/sortofbeautiful/tag/why+we+like+j/b+more+than+e/b+take+2740 here] ''alone'' will confirm the 'significant portion' part.
** The books get a lot more humorous if you find funny tidbits around fandom of the ridiculousness of it all. Some of the better ones are [http://oxymoronassoc.livejournal.com/462027.html Edward Cullen as a 40-year-old mother]{{Dead link}} and [http://shinga.deviantart.com/art/Head-Trip-Twilight-Sucks-85504254 Would you just come over and exorcise the thing?]
*** [http://shinga.livejournal.com/478415.html Here] is a summary of the first book by the same person who did the comic. It is [[TV Tropes Made of Win Archive]].
** Proven by Dan Bergstein at Spark Notes. He blogged all 4 books, hilariously mocking every aspect from the characters to the plot holes. He also petitioned for jetpacking werewolves and sword stilts for Emmett so he can "stand and stab" at the same time. [https://web.archive.org/web/20131105184715/http://community.sparknotes.com/index.php/2009/07/16/blogging-twilight-index-page/ Read it].
* The ''[[Star Wars]]'' [[Expanded Universe]] novel ''[[The Glove of Darth Vader]]'' and its sequels are packed with [[Narm]], [[Anvilicious]] [[Green Aesop|Green Aesops]], and [[Written Sound Effect|Written Sound Effects]] (in a ''novel''!); inevitably, many readers enjoy them for it. That the writers in an interview defended the series by pointing to its popularity among students, a demographic notably fond of [[Snark Bait]], suggests that they're in on the joke even if they originally weren't. These books were probably aimed at children, given the number of pictures and the painfully simplistic plots. 10 years later, though, they qualify for this trope.
* ''Knight Moves'', supposedly a romance, but in fact awful erotica. A woman accidentally ends up in the men's room of a Medieval Times-type restaurant, which somehow sends her to the Middle Ages. There, she screws her way through most of England before returning to Philadelphia for a hideously racist Your Momma rap contest with a street gang who speak nothing even resembling street speak. And if that's not enough, the sex scenes veer from [[IKEA Erotica]] to [[Purple Prose]] and back, violently. One of the more work-safe excerpts:
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** Read a review, in all its [[NSFW]] glory, [https://web.archive.org/web/20110114014408/http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2009/03/05/review-knight-moves-by-jamaica-layne/ here].
** Hilariously, the hero of the "Knight Moves" is named Lord Verdigris. [[wikipedia:Verdigris|Verdigris]] is the green stuff that forms on copper, brass or bronze when its been exposed to the air or seawater for too long (think Statue of Liberty).
** Note to Ms. Layne: [[Written Sound Effect|written]] [[Pac-Man Fever|8-bit video game sound effects]] have no place in erotica. [[Rule 34|Usually.]]
** Another of her books is [https://web.archive.org/web/20111203003350/http://www.loveromancepassion.com/review-a-capitol-affair-by-jamaica-layne/ reviewed here] - the [[Fetish Retardant]] is exemplified by the use of the word [[Coupling|"melty"]].
** There is a suggestion out there that Jamaica Layne is not a "her" but a "him", given the specifics of the writing. One might also speculate about the identities (or, as the case may be, ''identity'') of the anonymice who pop up to defend her (or his) works without substantive rebuttals to the criticisms made by the review.
* [[Magnus]] by Matthew Dickens: [[Purple Prose]] galore, but quite entertaining with its comic-book concepts and awesome fight scenes.
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** Then there's his Jason Striker books which have not aged well. It's ''[[Blood Sport]]'' with a middle-aged Judo protagonist and, as usual for Piers Anthony, teenage love interests.
* Dale Courtney's ''Moon People'', a science fiction novel published via vanity press Xlibris, written in a way that makes one wonder whether the author has ever ''seen'' a novel. Just [http://www2.xlibris.com/book_excerpt.asp?bookid=49194&page=1 read the first four pages] and imagine an ''entire novel'' written like this. Oh, and it has [http://bookstore.xlibris.com/Products/SKU-0052314049/Moon-People-2.aspx two] [http://bookstore.xlibris.com/Products/SKU-0066874049/MOON-PEOPLE-3.aspx sequels]!
* ''[[The Shadow God]]''. Oh dear, ''The Shadow God''. Everyone who's run a Google search for 'Worst book ever' has probably heard of this one, as [https://web.archive.org/web/20131101175321/http://www.epinions.com/review/The_Shadow_God_no_author_listed/content_308312051332 this review] justifiably appears on the internet several times. In short, the thing is so overloaded with side-splitting [[Narm]] and gratingly godawful prose that you just can't help but love the author for his delusions of talent. Seriously, whose day isn't made brighter by lines like, "It infiltrated his lungs, filling them with a kind of [[Delusions of Eloquence|innovativeness]] he had never felt before"? [https://web.archive.org/web/20090415131658/http://aaronscryptofgorgothica.com/page5.html Read a sample] and beware of aneurysms.
* [[Amanda McKittrick Ros]]. The Inklings (a literary group that included [[C. S. Lewis|CS Lewis]] and [[J. R. R. Tolkien|JRR Tolkien]]) would have competitions to see who could read her writing for the longest with a straight face. There's her prose:
{{quote|
** And her poetry:
{{quote|
Flesh decayed in every nook!
Some rare bits of brain lie here,
Mortal loads of beef and beer,
Some of whom are turned to dust,
Every one bids lost to lust;
Royal flesh so tinged with 'blue'
Undergoes the same as you. }}
** [[Mark Twain]] himself declared one of her works, ''Irene Iddesleigh'', "one of the greatest unintentionally hilarious novels of all time."
* ''Llandor'', a fantasy novel by Louise Laurance. Features technology-is-evil rants by the main characters, Meat-Eating Is Evil rants by the main characters, a [[Face Heel Turn]] by a technology-loving meat-eater (he came from our world and just couldn't give them up, [[What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous?|the bastard]]), ''weird'' morals ("fat people should expect and accept being be bullied"). Thought hippie elves were created by Paolini? Wrong. Add a plot ripped from [[The Lord of the Rings]] and [[Star Wars]], and you've got an [[So Bad It's Good|entertaining novel]].
* One of the oldest surviving examples is Felicia Hemans' ''[[Casabianca]]'', which is surely the single most parodied poem of all time. The best-known parody (which is also quite an accurate synopsis) being [[Spike Milligan]]'s ''Casabazonka'':
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Whence all but he had fled --
Twit. }}
* ''[[Latawnya the Naughty Horse Learns to Say No to Drugs|Latawnya, the Naughty Horse, Learns To Say No To Drugs]]''. Just plain hilarious. Very poorly written story of a horse who encounters other horses engaging in "drinking games" and "smoking games". The writing is not only bad, but repetitive. The illustrations are downright surreal - you just have to see the horse with a beer bottle in its mouth. Plus, this is probably the only children's book ever in which a horse actually ODs from marijuana! (Complete with illustration!)
** The "about the author" is also hilarious, but probably shouldn't be.
* [[Left Behind]], cheesy [[Airport Fantasy]] gets into a head-on collision with [[Anvilicious]] [[The Moral Substitute|Christian Fundamentalist Propaganda,]] with no survivors.
** [https://web.archive.org/web/20100114090548/http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2007/01/lb_boutros_bout_1.html This part of the first book] is unbelievably [[Narm|Narmy]]. It would be hilarious even ''without'' the blogger making fun of it.
* The works of [[Harry Stephen Keeler]] are like this, with his nonsensical novels maintaining a cult following many decades later.
* The Diamond Brothers books by Anthony Horowitz. Intentionally. It's obvious he had fun writing those...
* The ''[[Maradonia Saga]]'', a self-published book by teenage author Gloria Tesch, is in the running for the worst piece of fantasy literature to ever be offered for sale. Poor editing, terrible formatting, inexcusable grammar and punctuation errors, nonsensical characters and plot, ''plagiarism from the Bible'', all of these things would ordinarily doom a book to [[So Bad
* ''[[The Clique]]''. It's full of [[Product Placement]], [[Most Writers Are Adults]], and [[Family-Unfriendly Aesop|disturbing morals]], every main character is a [[Jerk Sue]], and ''tries its hardest to sex up middle school age girls''. It has a ''huge'' fan base due to [[Bile Fascination]]. But warning, it's a ''MASSIVE'' trigger for bullying victims.
* Tutis Digital Publishing. Not the content of their publications (which are simply prints of public domain material), but [http://causticcovercritic.blogspot.com/2009/08/odd-pod.html their] [http://brianbusby.blogspot.com/2009/08/pod-publishers-alternate-universe.html covers], which are so strange and inept as to be almost dadaist. The ''[[Land of Oz|Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz]]'' cover, for some reason, depicts modern fighter jets flying over Mars.
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* [[George Orwell]] discusses the phenomenon as it applies to literature in his essay "[http://www.george-orwell.org/Good_Bad_Books/0.html Good Bad Books]".
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