Humor Classics

A unique work of wit, humor, and insight about men, women, and the goings-on of life, including memory and more, from the author of Three Men in a Boat and the sequel, Three Men on a Bummel or Wandering.

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.

Морж и Плотник гуляли по берегу. У берега они увидели устриц. Им захотелось полакомиться, но устрицы зарылись в песок и глубоко сидели в воде. Морж, чтобы выманить их из засады, предложил им пойти прогуляться. - Приятная прогулка! Приятный разговор! - соблазнял он простодушных устриц. Те поверили и побежали за ним, как цыплята.

Herman Melville’s novel The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade (1857) is a comedy of masquerades and a blend of allegory, cultural satire, and metaphysics. The book portrays a confidence man who sneaks on board a Mississippi steamboat on April Fool's Day, and sets out to defraud his fellow passengers. He rapidly assumes various guises and the pleasure of trickery seems more important than the monetary gain. Each person is forced to confront that in which they believe.

In compiling this collection of humorous short stories by both well known and more obscure authors, Alexander Jessup applied a broad interpretation of humour; the stories span the period between 1839 and the beginning of the first World War.

This fictitious memoir, detailing the desperately suburban life of an obnoxious prig, was published anonymously in 1924. While it resembles the much better known The Diary of a Nobody, the satire is more far-reaching and devastating, and the main character is one of the most memorable in comic fiction. The actual author was later discovered to be Sir Henry Howarth Bashford (1880-1961), who enjoyed a distinguished career in medicine and served as personal physician to King George VI.

In this special double bill narrated by AudioFile Golden Voice Simon Jones, My Man Jeeves and Right Ho, Jeeves are brought to dazzling new life by an A-list narrator at the top of his game. My Man Jeeves first introduced the literary world to Bertie Wooster and his valet, Jeeves, in 1919. Right Ho, Jeeves was published 15 years later in 1934 and finds Bertie and Jeeves installed in the home of Bertie’s formidable aunt, Dahlia.

P.G. Wodehouse's first full-length Jeeves and Wooster book is a sparkling collection of linked stories, in which Bertie Wooster is harried by his fearsome Aunt Agatha, determined to marry him off; snootered by his anarchic cousins, the twins Claude and Eustace, the curse of the human race; and lugged into every romantic misadventure of his warm-hearted boyhood friend young Bingo Little. But through all his tribulations - give or take the occasional difference over purple socks or Old Etonian spats - the ever-faithful Jeeves stands ready to haul Bertie out of the soup.

Award-winning narrator and AudioFile Golden Voice Simon Jones revives the classic pairing of Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves in this dazzling new recording of Right Ho, Jeeves. Straight from his role in the eagerly anticipated Downton Abbey movie, Simon brings the charming, wacky world of everyone’s favorite bumbling aristocrat, Bertie Wooster, and his brilliant, long-suffering manservant, Jeeves, to sparkling new life.

In this American classic, 17-year-old William is in the throes of first love. Lola Pratt, the object of his affection, is visiting her cousin in William's town for the summer. William finds obstacles at every turn in winning her affections, in the form of other suitors, a pesky little sister, and the necessity of the "perfect outfit". With the pomposity of Frasier Crane and the soul of a poet, William attempts to win Miss Pratt's heart and to be the sole recipient of her charming "baby talk".

A hilarious romp from start to finish, with a lord and his man having a rollicking good time with subtlety of all kinds.

Enjoy My Man Jeeves and Right Ho, Jeeves, two classic stories by the master of 20th-century humorist, P. G. Wodehouse, in one complete set. The perpetually befuddled Bertie Wooster and his knight-in-shining-tuxedo Jeeves have long been hailed as the greatest literary creations of P. G. Wodehouse.

Gappers will get your goat. Literally. If you don't brush them off and return them to the ocean, these bright orange, many-eyed creatures will cover your goats, and the goats will stop giving milk. In a village called Frip, goat's milk was the entire economy. Three families lived there - the Romos, the Ronsens, and a little girl named Capable and her widowed father, who wanted everything to remain the same. It didn't. One day, the Gappers decided for a good reason to concentrate on Capable's goats. Oh, how the Romos and Ronsens turned their backs on the gapper-ridden Capable!

A biting satire that countered the American myth of wholesome small-town life with a depiction of narrow-minded provincialism, it was to some degree based on Lewis's own experience of growing on Sauk Centre, Minnesota. Set in mid-1910s, it depicts the struggles of Carol Kennicott, a city girl, as she tries to adapt to small town life, having left her librarian job and St. Paul, Minnesota to marry Dr. Will Kennicott of Gopher Prairie. Dismayed by the town’s drabness and the conforming, petty inhabitants, Carol optimistically sets out to improve the town.

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.

Master wit Mark Twain selected these 27 stories himself by 15 of his favorite 19th-century authors. The order follows that which Twain placed them in in the original anthology, published in 1888. He indulged his comic fancy rather than making a textbook in which all themes or authors are placed together, saying that "This way you will have to peruse the whole thing before discovering that one of your favorites is not included." Among others, you'll find: Artemus Ward, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Francis Lee Pratt, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Frederick W. Cozzens, and Twain himself.

Satire, Humor and Irony in some cases have been regarded as the most effective source to understand a society, the oldest form of social study. Contents: The Cop and the Anthem by O. Henry; The Ransom of Red Chief by O. Henry; What Stumped the Blue Jays by Mark Twain; The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County by Mark Twain; The Toys of Peace by Saki (H. H. Munro); The Artful Hussar by Johann Peter Hebel; From The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen by Rudolf Erich Raspe; The Golden Honeymoon by Ring Lardner; When I Was a Witch by Charlotte Perkins Gilman; Micromegas: A Philosophical History by Voltaire.

Ultima opera compiuta di Dickens, la storia si snoda lungo il Tamigi, testimone e causa di morti. Ma la storia non è cupa come il suo inizio potrebbe far sembrare; la morale sui danni della cupidigia è evidente, il lieto fine inevitabile. La scrittura è qui più moderna, ironica, graffiante, quando tratta delle ipocrisie e inutilità della "vita di società" della borghesia.

Alcune delle più belle novelle di Pirandello che affrontano il tema della morte e dell'insensatezza dell'esistenza umana: "L'imbecille"; "Sole e ombra"; "La berretta di Padova"; "Sgombero"; "La morte addosso"; "E due"; "Il chiodo"; "La distruzione dell'uomo"; "La trappola"; "La mano del malato povero"; "Mentre il cuore soffriva"; "La levata del sole"; "L'illustre estinto"; "L'uccello impagliato"; "Il viaggio"; "Scialle nero"; "Il no di Anna". La voce di Gaetano Marino ci accompagna tra macabra ironia e feroce non-sense in un viaggio alla scoperta della morte... o poco prima!

Ten classic stories from Mark Twain.