Humor Classics

Лауреат Букеровской премии Джулиан Барнс — один из самых ярких и оригинальных прозаиков современной Британии, автор таких международных бестселлеров, как "Одна история", "Шум времени", "Предчувствие конца", "Артур и Джордж", "История мира в 10½ главах", "Попугай Флобера" и многих других. Возможно, основной его талант — умение легко и естественно играть стилями и направлениями. Тонкая стилизация и едкая ирония, утонченный лиризм и доходящий чуть ли не до цинизма сарказм, агрессивная жесткость и веселое озорство — Барнсу подвластно все это и многое другое.

A most unusual request for insurance was made to Lloyds of London. It was outre enough to bring on what can best be described as something of “improbable dimensions.” The request was made by a young Brirtish Lord. He was engaged to an American heiress and was worried she might back out. An added part of the story is a guarantee there would be a sizeable payout if the ceremony stalls. The story of same can easily be called a delightful romantic comedy and it wouldn’t be surprising if you laugh out loud, or at least chuckle frequently.

Mit dem Humor ist es ja so eine Sache. Jeder meint, ihn zu besitzen und beweist oft kläglich das Gegenteil...

Bertie’s friends are stepping it up. In order to de-sticky their wickets, they are asking him to impersonate themselves to country relatives, adopt a wayward infant, and even steal a marginally libelous manuscript. And to top it all off, Jeeves himself details his surreptitious plans for the young master to make an impromptu speech at a girl’s school. What’s a spirited cove to do?

In this collection, P.G. Wodehouse - the master of 20th-century humor - presents 10 of his most celebrated stories about the perpetually befuddled Bertie Wooster and his knight-in-shining-tuxedo Jeeves. Wodehouse's Jeeves stories have long been hailed as the most entertaining and hilarious short fiction ever written and Wodehouse holds a special place in literary history as history's premier English humorist. In this collection, Bertie pinballs from crisis to crisis but, as always, his faithful manservant Jeeves is there to bail him out.

Three Men in a Boat is one of the most popular and enduring comic novels of any age, and remains as fresh and witty as ever: Narrator "J", and friends George and Harris, diagnose themselves to be suffering from "overwork", and resolve that they, along with J's anarchistic fox terrier, Montmorency, will take a boating holiday up the River Thames, from Kingston-upon-Thames to Oxford. The story describes the incidents of their river journey, along with a multitude of humorous digressions and anecdotes, and musings upon the historical associations of passing towns and landmarks.

E se in una tiepida notte di luna piena vi capitasse di incontrare Satana? È questo quello che accade a due esimi letterati moscoviti e purtroppo per loro, l'incontro significherà dolore e morte. Non saranno gli unici ad avere a che fare con il signore del male e il suo seguito di demoni. Lo strano e pericolosissimo gruppetto si fermerà infatti alcuni giorni a Mosca, provocando catastrofi e sconvolgimenti a tutte le persone che avranno la sventura di incontrarli, ma darà vita anche a situazioni esilaranti al limite dell'assurdo, descritte con una straordinaria comicità.

From World Fantasy Award-winning author K.J. Parker comes a devilishly clever tale of murder, intrigue, and existential crisis. ​Not even the Church of the Invincible Sun is invincible – and somebody has to do its dirty work. Enter Sister Svangerd and her accompanying priest, both first-rate...

The disastrous banjo-playing of Bertram "Bertie" Wooster has driven the otherwise steadfast gentleman's gentleman Jeeves to give notice—because even butlers have limits. In anger, Bertie disappears to the country with his new valet Brinkley as a guest of Lord “Chuffy” Chuffnell, who has employed the services of the recently resigned Jeeves. Bertie soon finds himself in no shortage of trouble as he encounters his ex-fiancée Pauline, her formidable father, and the eminent looney-doctor Sir Roderick Glossop.

She’s going to write her own happy ending. English professor Athena Murphy is an authority on the novels of the Brontë sisters. But as they say in academia, publish or perish. To save her job, Athena decides to write a biography of C.L. Garland, the author heating up bestseller lists with...

Die Handlung der Novelle spielt in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts in Deutschland. Der Ich-Erzähler, wohl Hauffs Alter Ego, verpflichtet sich, die Memoiren Satans herauszugeben, damit seine Seele verschont werde. Wo und in welcher Gesellschaft sich Gottes Ewiger Widersacher in Deutschland tummelt, soll hier nicht ausführlich verraten werden, aber seine bissige Sicht auf den akademischen Betrieb deutscher Universitäten, die nationalistische Geheimbündelei der Burschenschaften, des Militärs und der Philister wären auch heute noch ein Leckerbissen für jeden scharfzüngigen Satiriker.

The electrifying, "cutting-edge" (USA Today) debut work of fiction from Ron Currie, author of the forethcoming novel The One-Eyed Man (March 2017) Ron Currie’s gutsy, funny book is instantly gripping: If God takes human form and dies, what would become of life as we know it? Effortlessly...

The classic international sensation is back! Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and its sequel But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes are Anita Loos' witty comedies of manners, following the misadventures of Lorelei Lee, a charmingly naïve blonde who turns male admiration into jewels, and her clever brunette friend, Dorothy Shaw.

A PEOPLE BEST NEW BOOK An outlandish comedy of morals and manners about a highborn British family of outrageous characters, by the acclaimed author of The Improbability of Love and House of Trelawney “A joy to read.”—Vogue “High Time delves once again into the aristocratic...

Born in 1623 as the youngest child of a wealthy Essex family, Margaret Cavendish became a Maid of Honour to Queen Henrietta Maria before going on to marry the widowed William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle. She was a prolific writer whose work encompassed a range of genres. The Blazing World is part fiction and part feminist text in which a lady is shipwrecked and seeks to ensure that the Blazing World in which she finds herself is transformed into a Utopia - free of war, sexual discrimination, and religious discord.

A Brazilian masterpiece, now in English for the first time: a playfully profound chronicle of an urban sophisticate’s misadventures in the Amazon A Penguin Classic “My life’s done a somersault,” wrote Mário de Andrade in a letter, on the verge of taking a leap. After years of dreaming...

The perhaps greatest and extensive collection of humor ever published.

Sam Pulsifer, the hapless hero of this incendiary novel, has come to the end of a very long and unusual journey, and for the second time in his life he has the time to think about all the things that have and have not come to pass. The truth is, a lot of remarkable things have happened in...

"This is a history and not a glorification of Mr. Polly, and I tell of things as they were with him.” So writes H.G Wells toward the end of his story of Mr. Polly, and indeed, the narrator’s voice throughout the book leaves us altogether ambivalent about his protagonist. The diminutive Everyman of the story is neither fully hero nor villain.

Aged merchant Mahmoud relates to his young nephews the story of his rise to fabulous riches. From being kicked out (literally) from the family home by his exasperated father, with only the barest patrimony to sustain him, the young wastrel goes from rags to riches, and back again, aided only by "providence" - and his very inventive wits.