The Policeman's Beard is Half-Constructed: Computer Prose and Poetry

The Policeman's Beard Is Half Constructed is a 1984 collection of poems and short prose that was touted as "the first book ever written by a computer."

It is generally agreed that the sophistication claimed for the program was likely exaggerated.

The book's "author," Racter — short for Raconteur — was an artificial intelligence computer program written by William Chamberlain and Thomas Etter that generated English language prose at random.

Illustrations by Joan Hall.