Humor Books
Galusha the Magnificent
Joseph Crosby LincolnMr. Horatio Pulcifer was on his way home. It was half-past five of a foggy, gray afternoon in early October; it had rained the previous day and a part of the day before that and it looked extremely li..
The Fiend's Delight
Dod GrileThe atrocities constituting this “cold collation” of diabolisms are taken mainly from various Californian journals. They are cast in the American language, and liberally enriched with unintelligibilit..
The Hohenzollerns in America
Stephen LeacockThe proper punishment for the Hohenzollerns, and the Hapsburgs, and the Mecklenburgs, and the Muckendorfs, and all such puppets and princelings, is that they should be made to work; and not made to wo..
The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum
Wallace IrwinSo Complained Phineas Fletcher in his Purple Island as long ago as 1633. Three centuries have brought to the development of lyric passion no higher form than that of the sonnet cycle. The sonnet has b..
Barry Lyndon
William Makepeace ThackerayBarry Lyndon—far from the best known, but by some critics acclaimed as the finest, of Thackeray’s works—appeared originally as a serial a few years before VANITY FAIR was written; yet it was not publi..
American Fairy Tales
L. Frank BaumThis collection of fantasy stories was originally serialized in regional newspapers, prior to being published as a complete volume. The stories, as critics have noted, lack the high-fantasy aspect of ..
The Paying Guest
George GissingClarence and Emmeline Mumford are in for a real treat when they take in the young, outspoken Miss Louise Derrick as their guest. Shedding a light on class struggles in the Victorian era, The Paying Gu..
In the Sweet Dry and Dry
Christopher MorleyWritten just before Prohibition to entail the possible troubles that might happen en route. Both sides of the argument, or battle as the case may be, strike out with various over-top methods like legi..