In 1891, an anonymous book was published called "How To Boil Water In A Paper Bag." As I imagine this is now out of print. How do I boil water in a paper bag?

Oh, you're becoming devious, gmack. As best I can tell (and I did check several sites), no one knows who wrote this. But, evidently, one actually can boil water in a paper bag:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/05/02/survival-tip-the-cool-way-you-can-boil-water-in-a-paper-cup/

And that must be a yay Frankie. The fireless cookery item clearly suggests packing the space between container and bag with insulating material and heating the water from within. I wonder what on the earth sort of material the book was padded with.

I did this as a scout in my teens. It's pretty simple... just devise a way of holding the bag (I think we had a look through our camping store, found a metal hoop, fitted that inside the opening of the bag and used string to clamp the bag to the hoop; the hoop also allowed us to fix a handle we could hang the bag from) Then we just put the bag over an open altar fire and boiled the water! It works because the water prevents the paper from catching fire.