Humor Classics

Up the Down Staircase is the funny and touching story of a committed, idealistic teacher whose clash with school bureaucracy is a timeless lesson for students, teachers, parents – anyone concerned about public education. Bel Kaufman lets her characters speak for themselves through memos, letters, directives from the principal, comments by students, notes between teachers, and papers from desk drawers and wastebaskets, evoking a vivid picture of teachers fighting the good fight against all that stands in the way of good teaching.

An early 20th century American story written in the Theodore Dreiser style of each word and chapter building on the previous ones, telling the saga of evangelical religion & people with irony throughout.

A bewitchingly brilliant collection of never-before-published letters from the renowned author of “The Lottery” and The Haunting of Hill House i must stop writing letters and get to writing a novel. Shirley Jackson is one of the most important American authors of the last hundred years and...

A modern retelling of the legendary Arthurian tales from one of the twentieth century?s greatest writers Morte d?Arthur was one of the first books that John Steinbeck enjoyed reading as a child, and it became a favorite story to read to his own children. Here now is Steinbeck?s only work of...

William Collins Books and Decca Records are proud to present ARGO Classics, a historic catalogue of classic prose and verse read by some of the world’s most renowned voices. Originally released as vinyl records, these expertly remastered stories are now available to download for the first time...

From one of the most original voices in fantasy comes a heroic tale of honor, friendship, and battlefield salvage. It’s important to look after your crew when you’re in the battlefield salvage business. It’s stressful work at the best of times, and although your employees are unlikely to...

It takes a lot of effort for Jimmy Crocker to become Piccadilly Jim – nights on the town roistering, headlines in the gossip columns, a string of broken hearts and breaches of promise. Eventually he becomes rather good at it and manages to go to pieces with his eyes open. But no sooner has Jimmy cut a wild swathe through fashionable London than his terrifying Aunt Nesta decides he must mend his ways. He then falls in love with the girl he has hurt most of all, and after that things get complicated. In a dizzying plot, impersonations pile on impersonations....

The wizard Margle the Horrendous takes special pride in never killing his enemies. Instead, he transforms them into various accursed forms and locks them away in his castle. It's Nessy's duty to tend this castle. Its a lot of work, but she manages, taking pride in housekeeping talents that keep the castle from collapsing into chaos. But when Margle suddenly dies, everything begins to unravel.

Pretty, impecunious Sally Nicholas never dreamed a fortune could prove a disadvantage, until she became an heiress and watched in bewilderment as her orderly existence went haywire. Coping first with her brother's wild theatrical ambitions, then with the defection of her fiancé and his immediate replacement by a much more appropriate but strangely unattractive suitor, Sally finds that life in New York is becoming altogether too complicated, and a trip to England only makes the whole situation worse.

Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (1881 1975), a native of Guildford, England, was probably the greatest writer of comedy in the 20th century. With each passing year, his work continues to grow in popularity. Jeeves, the omniscient, highly competent valet, and Bertie Wooster, the upper-class, feather-brained gadabout, are his two most famous creations. His stories are generally characterized by intricate plots dealing with human foibles and complex, romantic entanglements.

“John Updike is the great genial sorcerer of American letters [and] The Witches of Eastwick [is one of his] most ambitious works. . . . [A] comedy of the blackest sort.”—The New York Times Book Review Toward the end of the Vietnam era, in a snug little Rhode Island seacoast town, wonderful...

In Xanth, everyone has a talent. But that doesn't mean everyone loves his talent, and no one understands that better than Hapless. Endowed with the ability to conjure any instrument he wants, Hapless could be an extraordinary musician if only he could play a tune that didn't fall ear-piercingly flat. His one desire is to find an instrument he can play. When the Good Magician hears about Hapless's desperate desire, he sends the young man on a quest to find the elusive Isis Orb, a magical talisman that could fulfill his wish.

Are there bears on Hemlock Mountain? One boy is about to find out in this classic tale. People have always told Jonathan that there are no bears on Hemlock Mountain, no bears at all. So he isn’t afraid to set out alone over the mountain. But as Jonathan discovers one cold winter night, people...

The story opens in the country parsonage of Dr. Primrose, a kindly man who has a good heart, a good family, and a good income. Suddenly, his idyllic life is cruelly devastated by a series of misfortunes, and he ends up in prison. Yet, despite all this calamity and injustice, the vicar never loses sight of Christian morality, a conviction which lends him genuine nobility and, in the end, also brings justice and the restoration of his family and fortune.

The definitive biography of Edward Gorey, the eccentric master of macabre nonsense. From The Gashlycrumb Tinies to The Doubtful Guest, Edward Gorey's wickedly funny and deliciously sinister little books have influenced our culture in innumerable ways, from the works of Tim Burton and Neil Gaiman...

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions is a satirical novella by the English schoolmaster Edwin Abbott Abbott, first published in 1884 by Seeley & Co. of London. Written pseudonymously by "A Square", the book used the fictional two-dimensional world of Flatland to comment on the hierarchy of Victorian culture, but the novella's more enduring contribution is its examination of dimensions.

From one of the most original voices in fantasy comes a heart-warming tale of peace, love, and battlefield salvage. If you’re going to get ahead in the battlefield salvage business, you have to regard death as a means to an end. In other words, when the blood flows, so will the cash...

Meet Psmith, with a silent 'P' as in psychic. A gallant, charming individual, Psmith has a gift for getting into awful scrapes, and when he takes over a gentile journal known as Cosy Moments with the aid of Billy Windsor, its sub-editor, he turns it into a radical publication...with alarming and hilarious results.

P.G. Wodehouse, the master of British humor, produced dozens of books and hundreds of short stories in his long and prolific career. But none of his creations has quite captured the world's imagination as much as his bumbling, empty-headed man-about-town Bertie Wooster and Bertie's faithful knight-in-shining tuxedo Jeeves. Collected here are three of Wodehouse's most beloved Jeeves and Wooster tales—including 10 short stories from the anthology Carry On, Jeeves, as well as the complete novels The Inimitable Jeeves and Right Ho, Jeeves.

Candide, is a French satire written in 1759 by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment. One of the finest satires ever written, this lively tale follows the absurdly melodramatic adventures of the youthful Candide, who is forced into the army, flogged, shipwrecked, betrayed, robbed, separated from his beloved Cunégonde, and tortured by the Inquisition. As Candide witnesses calamity upon calamity, he becomes disillusioned and discovers that all is not always for the best....