Description Details
Mother Goose for Grownups is a delightfully silly collection of parodies on well-known Mother Goose tales by Guy Wetmore Carryl. (Summary by fink)

Excerpt Details
Humor

Description Details
It has been said that behind every successful man is a good woman. This is certainly true in the case of James Orlebar Cloyster. However, some funny things happened on his road to success. His story is humorously told from the point of view of several parties involved. According to Wikipedia, the book is a humorous, fictionalized account of Wodehouse's early years as a journalist, with Wodehouse being portrayed by the character of Cloyster. (Summary by Debra Lynn)...

Excerpt Details
Humor

Description Details
The Wit and Humor of America is a 10 volume series. In this, the first volume, 53 short stories and poems have been gathered from 44 authors. This volume is sure to delight listeners. (Summary by Linette Geisel)...

Excerpt Details
Humor

Description Details
The necessity of a work on Snobs, demonstrated from History, and proved by felicitous illustrations:—I am the individual destined to write that work—My vocation is announced in terms of great eloquence—I show that the world has been gradually preparing itself for the WORK and the MAN—Snobs are to be studied like other objects of Natural Science, and are a part of the Beautiful (with a large B). They pervade all classes—Affecting instance of Colonel Snobley. (Summary excerpted from Prefatory Remarks from the book by W. M. Thackeray)...

Excerpt Details
Humor

Description Details
This is the third collection of short stories by Saki, following on from “Reginald” and “Reginald in Russia”. Although some of the stories have characters that do not appear elsewhere in the collection, many of them are loosely centred round the young Clovis Sangrail (effectively a reincarnation of Reginald). (Summary by Graham Redman)....

Excerpt Details
Humor

Description Details
Back in 1905 Jerome K. Jerome shared his thoughts on a variety of subjects, including Should Women Be Beautiful?, Should Soldiers Be Polite? and Is The American Husband Made Entirely Of Stained Glass?. Each subject is analysed and commented on in the witty and satirical style we've grown to expect from the author....

Excerpt Details
Humor

Description Details
Philo Gubb, not being content with his job as wallpaper-hanger, has higher aspirations: to become a detective, just like Sherlock Holmes. To that end, he enrolls in a correspondence course, where he gets lessons through the mail as well as the necessary disguises for a detective. Philo Gubb, not being really clever or intuitive, or even looking good in those disguises, gets involved in one case after the other - and sooner or later happens to stumble on and solve the crime..Each of these stories is a complete mystery unto itself so if you read just one, you will know it's beginning and the unorthodox methods by which Philo Gubb, Correspondence-School Detective solves it using his woeful 'deteckative' (as he puts it) skills (Summary by Aville and Phil Chenevert)...

Excerpt Details
Humor

Description Details
volunteers bring you 15 recordings of The Silver Wedding by John Godfrey Saxe. This was the Weekly Poetry project for September 12th, 2010.

Excerpt Details
Comedy, Humor, Romance

Description Details
A collection of reprinted articles on a wide-range of subject, all in the unique style of G. K. Chesterton. Using wit, paradox, and good humor he “defends” a series of seeming harmless things that need no defense, and in so doing he exposes many of the broken assumptions and dogmatic notions of secular humanism and other trends of his age and of ours. (Summary by Ray Clare)...

Excerpt Details
Essay/Short nonfiction, Humor

Description Details
A light-hearted romantic comedy in twelve short scenes, set during a tea party in the home of Mrs. Amy Somers, a widow who is courted by the ingenuous and delightful Mr. Willis Campbell. (Summary by Ruth Golding)...

Excerpt Details
Humor

Description Details
A humorous account of visits to various fortune tellers, card readers, seers, and other witches of New York. Written by Q.K. Philander Doesticks (a.k.a.Mortimer Thomson)....

Excerpt Details
Humor

Description Details
Ten silly stories by Canadian humourist Stephen Leacock. (Summary by Tricia G)

Excerpt Details
Humor

Description Details
Is there a genre called FUN? Yes, and this is it! Insanely humorous geography that will have you rolling on the floor laughing with your sides hurting. (Summary by Neeru Iyer)...

Excerpt Details
Humor

Description Details
This is the fifth collection of short stories by Saki (H.H. Munro), and was published posthumously in 1923. Even so, many of the stories are quite up to the standard of those collected earlier. (Summary by Graham Redman)...

Excerpt Details
Humor

Description Details
A Terrible Thing in the Form of a Literary Torpedo which is Launched for HILARIOUS PURPOSES ONLY Inaccurate in Every Particular Containing Copious Etymological Derivations and Other Useless Things by Noah Lott (an ex-relative of Noah Webster)(Summary from book's cover page)...

Excerpt Details
Humor

Description Details
The reader cannot but smile at some of the phases of life presented in this volume. Yet the smile will, in no case, the author thinks, be at the expense of humanity, good feeling, or virtue. Many of the incidents given, are facts embellished by a few touches of fancy. In all, lessons may be read that some, at least, will do well to lay to heart. (Summary by the author)...

Excerpt Details
Humor

Description Details
The soul of Irish wit is captured in this unique tale of a barstool philosopher, the concluding story from 'Here Are Ladies' by James Stephens. (Introduction by iremonger)...

Excerpt Details
Comedy, Humor

Description Details
The Expedition of Humphry Clinker was the last of the picaresque novels of Tobias Smollett, and is considered by many to be his best and funniest work. Published in London on 17 June 1771, it is an epistolary novel, presented in the form of letters written by six different characters: Matthew Bramble, a Welsh Squire; his sister Tabitha; their niece and nephew, Jery and Lydia Melford; Tabitha's maid Winifred Jenkins; and Lydia's suitor, Wilson. Much of the comedy arises from differences in the descriptions of the same events by different participants. Attributions of motives and descriptions of behavior show wild variation and reveal much about the character of the teller. The setting, amidst the high-society spa towns and seaside resorts of the 18th century provides his characters with many opportunities for satirical observations on English life and manners....

Excerpt Details
Fiction, Humor, Satire

Description Details
The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll follows the adventures of a Drapers Assistant who, having brought an ancient bicycle, sets off on a 2 week tour of the countryside. And his world will never be the same again.(Summary by annise)...

Excerpt Details
Humor

Description Details
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936) has been called the “prince of paradox.” Time magazine observed of his writing style: “Whenever possible Chesterton made his points with popular sayings, proverbs, allegories—first carefully turning them inside out.” His prolific and diverse output included journalism, philosophy, poetry, biography, Christian apologetics, fantasy and detective fiction. The title of Chesteron’s 1910 collection of essays was inspired by a title given to him two years earlier by The Times newspaper, which had asked a number of authors to write on the topic: “What’s wrong with the world?”. Chesterton’s answer at that time was the shortest of those submitted - he simply wrote: “Dear Sirs, I am. Sincerely yours, G.K. Chesterton”. In this collection he gives a fuller treatment of the question, with his characteristic conservative wit. (Summary by Wikipedia and Carl Manchester)...

Excerpt Details
Politics, Humor, Essay/Short nonfiction