Public-domain ebook
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In: Humour·Essays, Letters & Speeches·History - Other
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #68163.
An Outline of Humor presents itself as a sweeping survey of wit from the earliest recorded jokes to the turn of the twentieth century. The opening pages explain the compiler’s uneasy task: to choose, with “conscientious” discernment, which pieces merit inclusion, while acknowledging the inevitable gaps left by scarce translations and the impossibility of a fully chronological history. The work proceeds through sections titled “Ancient Humor,” “Middle Division,” and successive centuries, offering excerpts from a wide range of authors, Mark Twain, Lewis Carroll, and many lesser‑known poets, each selected to illustrate the evolution of the comic impulse. The editor’s prefatory remarks foreground the theoretical backdrop, citing Aristotle, Coleridge and modern scholars, and set the tone for a text that is as much a philosophical essay as a curated anthology.
The voice is scholarly yet conversational, reflecting the early‑1920s era of its publication. It blends academic commentary with the humor of the pieces it cites, creating a tone that is both reflective and lively. Readers who enjoy tracing cultural ideas across time, especially those with an interest in literary criticism, philosophy of laughter, or the history of jokes, will find this outline rewarding. Its blend of theory, historical breadth, and representative excerpts makes it appealing to students of literature, humorists, and anyone curious about how the simple act of laughing has been shaped by societies from antiquity to the modern age.
The opening · free to read
Nor may it include everybody or everything that logically belongs to it.
An Outline is at best an irregular proposition, and the Outliner must follow his irregular path as best he may. But one thing is imperative, the Outliner must be conscientious. He must weigh to the best of his knowledge and belief the claims to inclusion that his opportunities present. He must pick and choose with all the discernment of which he is capable and while following his best principles of taste he must sink his personal preferences in his regard for his Outline as a whole.
Nor can he pick and choose his audience. To one reader,--or critic,--a hackneyed selection is tiresome, while to another it is a novelty and a revelation. And it must be remembered that a hackneyed poem is a favorite one and a favorite is one adjudged best, by a consensus of human opinion, and is therefore a high spot to be touched upon.
While the Outline is generally chronological, it is not a history and dates are not given. Also, when it seemed advisable to desert the chronological path for the topographical one, that was done.
Yet Foreign Literatures cannot be adequately treated in an Outline printed in English. Translations are at best misleading. If the translation is a poor one, the pith and moment of the original is partly, or wholly lost. And if the translation be of great merit, the work may show the merit of the new rendition rather than the original.
And aside from all that, few translations of Humor are to be found.
The translators of foreign tongues choose first the philosophy, the fiction or the serious poetry of the other nations, leaving the humor, if any there be, to hang unplucked on the tree of knowledge.
So the foreign material is scant, but the high spots are touched as far as could be found convenient.
The Outline stops at the year 1900. Humor since then is too close to be viewed in proper perspective.
But the present Outliner mainly hopes to show how, with steady footstep, from the Caveman to the current comics Humor has followed the Flag.
C. W. NEW YORK, April, 1923.
All rights on poems and prose in this volume are reserved by the authorized publisher, the author, or the holder of copyright, with whom special arrangements have been made for including such material in this work. The editor expresses thanks for such permission as indicated below.
D. APPLETON & COMPANY: For “To a Mosquito” by William Cullen Bryant; “Tushmaker’s Tooth-Puller” by G. H. Derby; and for “The Sad End of Brer Wolf” by Joel C. Harris, from Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings.
THE CENTURY CO.: For an extract from the “Chimmie Fadden” stories; and for the poem “What’s in a Name?” by R. K. Munkittrick.
DAVID MCKAY COMPANY: For “Ballad of the Noble Ritter Hugo” by Charles G. Leland.
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY: For “At the Sign of the Cock” by Owen Seaman; “Here Is the Tale” by Anthony C. Deane; and “On a Fan” and “The Rondeau” by Austin Dobson.
FORBES & COMPANY: For “If I Should Die To-Night” and “The Pessimist” by Ben King.
HARPER & BROTHERS: For “Elegy” and “Mavrone” by Arthur Guiterman. With the permission of the Estate of Samuel L. Clemens, the Mark Twain Company, and Harper & Brothers, publishers, with a full reservation of all copyright privileges is included an extract from the “Jumping Frog” by Mark Twain.
HURST & COMPANY: For an extract from “Bill Nye.”
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY: With their permission and by special arrangement with them as authorized publishers of the following authors’ works, are used selections from: Charles E. Carryl, Guy Wetmore Carryl, Ralph Waldo Emerson, James T. Fields, Bret Harte, John Hay, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, John G. Saxe, E. R. Sill, Bayard Taylor.
LITTLE, BROWN & COMPANY: For five limericks and “The Two Old Bachelors” from Nonsense Books.
LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.: For “A Philosopher” by Sam Walter Foss from Dreams in Homespun; also for an extract from “The Partington Papers” by B. P. Shillaber.
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY: For verses from Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll.
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS: For “Two Men” and “Miniver Cheevy” by E. A. Robinson from The Children of the Night and The Town Down the River.
SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY: For an extract from Finley Peter Dunne (Mr. Dooley).
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