Humour

The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol

William John Locke

The work is an episodic adventure narrated by an unnamed English traveler who recounts his chance encounter…

The Devil's Dictionary

Ambrose Bierce

The Devil’s Dictionary is a satirical lexicon that lampoons the very act of definition.

The Young Visiters or, Mr. Salteena's Plan

Daisy Ashford

The Young Visiters or, Mr. Salteena’s Plan is a whimsical, self‑conscious novel that proudly advertises its…

Acadia or, A Month with the Blue Noses

Frederic S. Cozzens

Frederic S. Cozzens presents a hybrid of travelogue, historical sketch and personal memoir, centered on Nova…

Struwwelpeter: Merry Stories and Funny Pictures

Heinrich Hoffmann

Heinrich Hoffmann’s Struwwelpeter is a collection of cautionary verses that open with a parade of misbehaving…

Anderson Crow, Detective

George Barr McCutcheon

Anderson Crow, Detective thrusts the reader straight into a chaotic night in the small Midwestern town of…

"Wee Tim'rous Beasties": Studies of Animal life and Character

Douglas English

Douglas English’s “Wee Tim’rous Beasties” is a whimsical naturalist’s study that treats the lives of rodents…

The Peterkin Papers

Lucretia P. Hale

The Peterkin Papers is a collection of light‑hearted family sketches that began as a simple postal‑card idea.

The Magic Pudding

Norman Lindsay

The Magic Pudding is a whimsical Australian fantasy that opens with a playful portrait of Bunyip Bluegum, a…

Parodies of the works of English & American authors, vol. VI

The volume is a scholarly anthology of literary parodies that were originally composed in the late nineteenth…

Prudence Says So

Ethel Hueston

Prudence Says So is a juvenile‑fiction tale set in a Methodist parsonage, where the daily rituals of dress,…

The Twelfth Hour

Ada Leverson

Ada Leverson’s The Twelfth Hour opens in a lavishly described drawing‑room where the young, strikingly…

Shorty McCabe on the Job

Sewell Ford

Shorty McCabe on the Job is a bustling urban caper set in early‑twentieth‑century New York, presented as a…

New Treasure Seekers; Or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune

E. Nesbit

The story opens with the Bastable children recounting a bustling summer holiday at the Moat House, where an…

The Innocents Abroad

Mark Twain

Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad is a sprawling travel narrative that blends observation, satire, and…

Priscilla's Spies

George A. Birmingham

The novel opens with a triumphal school‑yard celebration, where Frank Mannix, a prefect at Haileybury, is…

The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton

Wardon Allan Curtis

The work is a comic series of loosely linked episodes that follow the well‑meaning but haplessly adventurous…

The Girl on the Boat

P. G. Wodehouse

The novel is a light‑hearted romp that mixes romance, sport and a touch of social satire.

My Friend the Chauffeur

Williamson, C. N. (Charles Norris); Williamson, A. M.

The novel opens with a tongue‑in‑cheek advertisement for an “amateur automobilist” who will ferry ladies,…

Odd Numbers Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe

Sewell Ford

Odd Numbers Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe is a comic slice of early‑20th‑century New York life,…

Happy-Thought Hall

F. C. Burnand

The work is a comic sketch of a group of acquaintances wrestling with the absurdities of planning a grand…

Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6

Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Volume V, is a seventeenth‑century anthology of ballads, songs,…

The Talking Horse, and Other Tales

F. Anstey

The volume is a collection of short stories by F. Anstey, a 19th‑century English humorist, and it opens with…

Old Ebenezer

Opie Percival Read

Old Ebenezer is a turn‑of‑the‑century American novel that follows Sam Lyman, a restless New Englander who…