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A Man of Means is a collection of six short stories written in collaboration by P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill. The stories all star Roland Bleke, a nondescript young man to whom financial success comes through a series of lucky chances, the first from a win in a sweepstake he had forgotten entering. Roland, like many a timid young man seeks love and marriage. In this pursuit his wealth is regularly a mixed blessing. The plot of each story follows its predecessor, sometimes directly, and occasionally refer back to past events in Bleke's meteoric career. The writing style is crisp and droll, and shows much of the skill and polish of the later Wodehouse. The disasters that befall the hapless Bleke are entertainingly recounted and his unforeseen rescues surprise and delight. In the character of the butler, Mr Teal, we meet an early draft of the ingenious Jeeves. The stories first appeared in the United Kingdom in The Strand in 1914, and in the United States in Pictorial Review in 1916. They were later published in book form in the UK by Porpoise Books in 1991; the collection was released on Project Gutenberg in 2003. (Summary by Wiki...

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Short stories, Humor

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A pre-eminent legal firm gets far more than it bargained for when it hires the son of its late senior partner, Hopkins Toppleton, Sr., simply to retain the illustrious family name on the company masthead. Knowing Jr. is a loose cannon, their strategy is to pack him off to the UK to head up a European branch of the firm - a branch they have no intention of sending work. The unwitting Hopkins Toppleton, Jr. is, however, determined to make his mark. (Summary by Cathy Barratt)...

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Adventure, Humor, Fiction

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The Bab Ballads are a collection of light verse by W. S. Gilbert, illustrated with his own comic drawings. Gilbert wrote the Ballads before he became famous for his comic opera librettos with Arthur Sullivan. In writing the Bab Ballads, Gilbert developed his unique topsy-turvy style, where the humour was derived by setting up a ridiculous premise and working out its logical consequences, however absurd. The Ballads also reveal Gilbert's cynical and satirical approach to humour. They became famous on their own, as well as being a source for plot elements, characters and songs that Gilbert would recycle in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. The Bab Ballads take their name from Gilbert's childhood nickname, and he later began to sign his illustrations Bab. (summary from wikipedia)

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volunteers bring you 19 recordings of Address to Certain Goldfishes by Hartley Coleridge. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for August 19, 2012. David Hartley Coleridge was an English poet, biographer, essayist, and teacher. He was the eldest son of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Hartley Coleridge's literary reputation chiefly rests on his works of criticism, on his Prometheus, an unfinished lyric drama, and on his sonnets (a form which suited his particular skills)....

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Fantasy, Humor, Nature, Philosophy, Sea stories, Poetry

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Vous n'avez jamais eu le temps de lire Les Misérables ? Eh bien, en voici l'occasion. Ces misérables-ci sont très concis. Here is your chance to listen to the whole story in less than an hour. (by Ezwa)...

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Fiction, Humor, Poetry

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A possibly fictionalised account by the comic novelist Jerome K. Jerome of a trip to Germany that he undertook with a friend in order to see the famous Passion Play at Oberammergau. The journey takes in London, Dover, Ostend, Cologne, Munich, Oberau, Oberammergau and then back to London via Heidelberg. As one might expect from the author of 'Three Men in a Boat', much goes wrong along the way, including seasickness, strange food, stranger beds, misleading guidebooks, bewildering train timetables, and numerous cultural and linguistic misunderstandings. (Summary by Szindbad)...

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Humor, Travel

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volunteers bring you 13 recordings of The Poet's Forge by Helen Hunt Jackson. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for November 20, 2011. Helen Maria Hunt Jackson, born Helen Fiske was a United States writer who became an activist on behalf of improved treatment of Native Americans by the U.S. government. She detailed the adverse effects of government actions in her history A Century of Dishonor (1881). Her novel Ramona dramatized the federal government's mistreatment of Native Americans in Southern California and attracted considerable attention to her cause. Fiske attended Ipswich Female Seminary and the Abbott Institute, a boarding school run by Reverend J.S.C. Abbott in New York City. She was a classmate of the poet Emily Dickinson, also from Amherst. The two corresponded for the rest of their lives, but few of their letters have survived. ( Summary by Wikipedia )...

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Fantasy, Humor, Instruction, Nature, Poetry

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volunteers bring you 14 recordings of Cheese Curd for Bait by James McIntyre. This was the Weekly Poetry project for September 23, 2012. James McIntyre, born in Scotland, came to Canada in 1841. He finally settled in Ingersoll (a town in central Ontario on the banks of the Thames River), the then-heart of Canadian dairy country. He was well loved in the community, from which he often received aid in hard times, due in part to his poesy and oratorical skills — he was called on to speak at every kind of social gathering in Ingersoll. The region seems to have inspired him, and it was in celebration of the proud history of Canada, the natural beauty and industry of the region, and especially its cheese, that the majority of his oeuvre was written. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

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Adventure, Humor, Instruction, Nature, Poetry

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It wasn't Archie's fault really. It's true he went to America and fell in love with Lucille, the daughter of a millionaire hotel proprietor and if he did marry her--well, what else was there to do? From his point of view, the whole thing was a thoroughly good egg; but Mr. Brewster, his father-in-law, thought differently, Archie had neither money nor occupation, which was distasteful in the eyes of the industrious Mr. Brewster; but the real bar was the fact that he had once adversely criticised one of his hotels. Archie does his best to heal the breach; but, being something of an ass, genus priceless, he finds it almost beyond his powers to placate the man-eating fish whom Providence has given him as a father-in-law. (Summary from the Gutenberg text)...

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Fiction, Humor

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Faces and Places is a collection of articles on nineteenth century travel, events and personalities by the British journalist Henry Lucy, who wrote for the Daily News, a London newspaper. His open letter To Those About to Become Journalists rings as true today as when it was written.

The first article, Fred Burnaby, includes a lively account of a balloon trip, while Night and Day on the Cars in Canada and Easter on Les Avants relate Lucy's experiences of rail travel at that time. Other travel tales (A Night on a Mountain, Mosquitoes and Monaco, and Oysters and Arcachon) provide an insight into the Victorian Englishman's attitude to Europe.

Three of the pieces, Peggotty and Ham, A Cinque Port and Christmas Eve at Watts's, concern the county of Kent, where Lucy had a country house. Christmas Eve at Watts's contains an interesting exposé of Dickens' short story The Seven Poor Travellers.

Other articles are of historical interest: A Wreck in the North Sea is an account of the wreck of the ship Deutschland in 1875; A Historic Crowd describes the massive popular interest in the 1871 trial of the Tichborne Claimant; The Battle of ...

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Humor, Essay/Short nonfiction

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A Christmas tale of John Brown's ghastly family (suburban snobs), Captain Bonaventure de Camp and his equally awful brood (a dubious crew), and poor Soavo Spohf, organist of St. Stiff the Martyr, gifted in musical ability but not blessed in looks or love. No-one could call this a great work of literature, but it definitely raises a few chuckles and it also offers a fascinating glimpse into Christmas festivities and social mores in well-to-do households in the mid-19th century. (Introduction by Ruth Golding)...

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Humor, Holiday, History

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volunteers bring you 18 recordings of A Ballade of Suicide by G. K. Chesterton. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for May 20, 2012. Gilbert Keith Chesterton was an English writer. He published works on philosophy, ontology, poetry, plays, journalism, public lectures and debates, literary and art criticism, biography, Christian apologetics, and fiction, including fantasy and detective fiction. Chesterton has been called the prince of paradox. Time magazine, in a review of a biography of Chesterton, observed of his writing style: Whenever possible Chesterton made his points with popular sayings, proverbs, allegories—first carefully turning them inside out. For example, Chesterton wrote Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it. (Summary by Wikipedia )...

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Poetry, Humor, Philosophy

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A collection of ten short nonfiction works in the public domain. The essays, speeches and reports included in this collection were independently selected by the readers, and the topics encompass history, politics, religion, science and humor. Included in this collection are the Oath of Hippocrates and The Funeral Oration of Pericles along with Patrick Henry's The Call to Arms, and Jack London's eyewitness account of the aftermath of the San Francisco earthquake in 1906. On the lighter side, we have Jerome K. Jerome's Should Women Be Beautiful, a short address by Mark Twain to The Author's Club in NYC, and the anonymous Miseries, a lighthearted lament on subjects such as the difficulties of eating a peach gracefully in public and finding a suitable length of twine when you need one. In this collection you will also find A Free Man's Worship by Bertram Russell, Obstacle-Cause from Sophisms of the Protectionists by Frédéric Bastiat, and an essay by T. H. Huxley on the science of palaeontology. (summary by J. M. Smallheer)...

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Essay/Short nonfiction, Humor, Science, Philosophy, Politics, History

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Uneasy Money is a romantic comedy by P.G. Wodehouse, published during the First World War, it offers light escapism. More romantic but only a little less humorous that his mature works, it tells of the vicissitudes of poor Lord Dawlish, who inherits five million dollars, but becomes a serially disappointed groom. When the story opens Bill (Lord Dawlish, a thoroughly pleasant man) is engaged to a demanding actress. His first thought when hearing of his massive legacy from a stranger whose tendency to slice he once cured on a West Country golf course is of the disappointed relatives. His trip to the USA attempting to give back the windfall results in complication after complication, including firearms and burglaries as well as the usual human misunderstandings that accompany any human life. Uneasy Money was first published as a serial in the Saturday Evening Post in the USA from December 1915, and in the UK in Strand Magazine starting December 1916. It first appeared in book form on March 17, 1916 by D. Appleton & Co., New York, and later in the UK (on October 4, 1917) by Methuen & Co., London. A silent, black-and-white film version w...

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Fiction, Humor, Romance

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(Summary by Mike Vendetti) Sinclair Lewis’ George F. Babbitt is a complicated and conflicted character. When you think you have his next move figured out he surprises you. As you begin to like him, he does something to evoke the “what a rat” response. Male menopause wasn’t a pre Great Depression term, but I would say George has all the symptoms. At a pudgy balding forty six he looks at his life, wife, family and business. He sees himself as a pretty successful business man, but when Tanis, the lonely widow has a leaky roof, he sees an opportunity for perhaps a more fulfilling relationship then he has at home. Add to Tanis a foray into radical politics, and we are about to whiteness an emotional and financial train wreck with Babbitt at the throttle. This is a long story, but well worth listening to. Human nature hasn’t changed much in the last ninety years. Enjoy the novel, Mike Vendetti...

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Historical Fiction, Humor, Satire

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volunteers bring you 9 recordings of The Song Against Songs by G. K. Chesterton. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for October 16, 2011. Chesterton was a large man, standing 6 feet 4 inches (1.93 m) and weighing around 21 stone (130 kg; 290 lb). His girth gave rise to a famous anecdote. During World War I a lady in London asked why he was not 'out at the Front'; he replied, 'If you go round to the side, you will see that I am.' On another occasion he remarked to his friend George Bernard Shaw: To look at you, anyone would think a famine had struck England. Shaw retorted, To look at you, anyone would think you have caused it. P. G. Wodehouse once described a very loud crash as a sound like Chesterton falling onto a sheet of tin.( Summary from Wikipedia )...

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Adventure, Humor, Music, Philosophy, Satire, Poetry

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Bennett's essays always provide food for thought and bring a wry smile to the lips. Human nature, it appears, changes little over the ages, and Bennett, as always, stands the test of time, though in the case of some of the essays in this eclectic collection, it is well to remember that they were written at the time of the First World War and the fight for women's suffrage. (Summary by Ruth Golding)...

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Essay/Short nonfiction, Humor, Philosophy, Satire

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Semi-autobiographical series of incidents in the life of an intellectual American family in the late 19th - early 20th Century as seen by favored daughter, Sylvia Marshall. Her father is an economics professor in a Midwestern state university and she is following in his inquisitive footsteps. Canfield writes this in a matter-of-fact manner with Tarkingtonesque good humor. ( Summary by BellonaTimes )...

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Humor, Romance, Teen/Young adult