Humor Books
The Importance of Being Earnest
Oscar WildeThe Importance of being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is Oscar Wilde's most popular and successful play. First performed in London in 1895, it ran for eighty-six performances. Wilde's p..
The Innocents Abroad
Mark TwainMark Twain's 1869 book The Innocents Abroad; or, The New Pilgrims' Progress is a humorous travelogue of a voyage Twain undertook two years earlier. He'd sent letters to the newspapers about his steams..
Pygmalion
George Bernard ShawGeorge Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion: A Romance in Five Acts (1912) is one of greatest comic masterpieces of the 20th century. It's hard now to imagine how a play about a phonetics expert who decides to co..
Die Physiologie und Psychologie des Lachens und des Komischen
Ewald HeckerIf I lay the present little book on the Christmas table for you, dear Kahlbaum, I know, of course, that I will not make you unexpected surprise with it; for you knew about the creation of the little w..
Laughter - An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic
Henri BergsonThis work, by Professor Bergson, has been revised in detail by the author himself, and the present translation is the only authorised one. For this ungrudging labour of revision, for the thoroughness ..
Billy Baxter's Letters
William J. Kountz, JrIn presenting this work, we believe that an explanation is due the reader as to why the letters are given in their present form at this time. The first book published, "One Night," was "issued by The ..
The American Credo
H.L. MenckenThe superficial, no doubt, will mistake this little book for a somewhat laborious attempt at jocosity. Because, incidentally to its main purpose, it unveils occasional ideas of so inordinate an errone..