Humor Classics

In 1920s America, a plague is spreading fast. From New Orleans to Chicago to New York, the "Jes Grew" epidemic makes people desperate to dance, overturning social norms in the process. Anyone is vulnerable and when they catch it, they'll bump and grind into a frenzy. Working to combat the Jes Grew infection are the puritanical Atonists, a group bent on cultivating a "Talking Android", an African American who will infiltrate the unruly black communities and help crush the outbreak.

Anatole France (1844-1924) was a French poet, journalist, and novelist who wrote several best sellers. The Revolt of the Angels is a mischievous take on the theology of modern society; it chronicles the thoughts of Arcade, a lowly guardian angel, as he discovers the ugly truths of his divine master in the library of his human charge As Maurice, the young man abandoned by Arcade, struggles to get his guardian back, one gets a view of a wide variety of the author’s artistic personalities, most of whom are fallen angels.

Charged with gross incompetence, Satan is fired from his job as prince of Hell and exiled to that most terrible of places: English suburbia. Forced to live as a human under the name of Jeremy Clovenhoof, the dark lord not only has to contend with the fact that no one recognizes him or gives him the credit he deserves but also has to put up with the bookish war-gamer next door and the voracious man-eater upstairs.

Tobias Smollett, in his creation of the Scot Roderick Random, exposes the sheer incompetence and injustice of the Royal Navy, as well as the snobbery and hypocrisy prevalent in English middle-class society at the time. Set in the mid-18th century, this picaresque novel follows the life and adventures of Roderick, the eponymous hero who has been shunned by his gentleman father's family on the basis of the lowliness of his mother's family.

Once a city of enormous wealth and culture, Prague was home to emperors, alchemists, astronomers, and, as it’s whispered, hell portals. When music student Sarah Weston lands a summer job at Prague Castle cataloging Beethoven’s manuscripts, she has no idea how dangerous her life is about to become. Prague is a threshold, Sarah is warned, and it is steeped in blood. Soon after Sarah arrives, strange things begin to happen.

The Diary of Nobody (1892) created a cultural icon, an English archetype. Anxious, accident-prone, occasionally waspish, Charles Pooter has come to epitomize English suburban life. His diary chronicles encounters with difficult tradesmen, the delights of home improvements, small parties, minor embarrassments, and problems with his troublesome son. The suburban world he inhabits is hilariously and painfully familiar in its small-mindedness and its essential decency.

These are the adventures of a naughty wooden puppet who, through many misadventures, learns what it takes to become a real boy.

Waldo Rabbit is back! Waldo and Alice continue on their quest, now accompanied by the ogre Gronk. They are headed to Norwich, where they hope to find the third monster that will be Waldo's last familiar. But things are never as simple as they seem. An archlich, White Mage, and murderous rabbits all stand in the way. Yes, that's right, the murderous flesh eating rabbits make their appearance! Waldo is both the hunter and the hunted.

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...

Flatlandia fu scritto nel 1888 da Edwin Abbott Abbott. Il racconto, fantastico, racconta la vita di un abitante di un ipotetico universo bidimensionale che entra in contatto con l'abitante di un universo tridimensionale. È un racconto che affronta da un punto di vista della matematica e della geometria il tema della multidimensionalità dell'universo.

Eighteen of the very best American short stories, each a classic in its own right. Stories include "The Little Frenchman and his Water Lots", by George Pope Morris; "The Angel of the Odd", by Edgar Allan Poe; "The Schoolmasters’s Progress", by Caroline M.S. Kirkland; "The Watkinson Evening", by Eliza Leslie; "Titbottom’s Spectacles", by George William Curtis; "My Double and "How He Undid Me", by Edward Everett Hale; "A Visit to the Asylum for Aged and Decayed Punsters", by Oliver Wendell; and more.

"Gulliver's Travels" (1726, amended 1735), officially "Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World", is a novel by Jonathan Swift that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of the "travellers' tales" literary sub-genre. It is widely considered Swift's magnum opus and is his most celebrated work, as well as one of the indisputable classics of English literature.

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.

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.

Mr Chipping is a quiet, unassuming teacher at Brookfield Grammar School. Wholly conventional, he never veers from his established routines. Until, that is, he meets Katherine, who charms him and his students and teaches Mr Chipping that education is about more than just the hours spent in the schoolroom. As his love for Katherine blooms, Mr Chipping develops a sense of humour and a broad view of his role as a teacher and a friend to his students, becoming the beloved 'Mr Chips' to generations of schoolboys.

Orphaned cousins Jane and Lucilla, both 19, receive the exciting news that their guardian is at last allowing them to leave boarding school. But their rosy future is thwarted when they find he has made some bad investments and fled, leaving them with a cottage in the English countryside and a modest bank account.

When Jennings and Darbishire discover a hibernating hedgehog they are instantly intrigued. Then, when Venables tells him that foxes eat hedgehogs, Jennings decides to rescue it. But things rarely go as planned for Jennings, and after a series of mishaps involving Miss Thorpes puppy and a bottle of 'Ants Anti-Escaping Fluid', Jennings is left wondering whether Old Sleepy will make it through the winter. Clueless clodpoll! The Jennings Report is one of a series of 25 books by Anthony Buckeridge.

This famous satire of life on Main Street, Gopher Prairie, mirrors with devastating honesty life on Main Streets from Albany to San Diego.

One of Faulkner's comic masterpieces, The Reivers is a picaresque story that tells of three unlikely car thieves from rural Mississippi. Eleven-year-old Lucas Priest is persuaded by Boon Hogganbeck, one of his family's retainers, to steal his grandfather's car and make a trip to Memphis. The priests' black coachman, Ned McCaslin, stows away, and the three of them are off on a heroic odyssey.

Witness the epic battle of the cyclops! Visit the endangered dragon preserve! Please, no slaying. Solve the mystery of The Mystery Cottage, if you dare! Buy some knickknacks from The Fates! They might come in handy later. On a road trip across an enchanted America, Helen and Troy will discover all this and more. If the curse placed upon them by an ancient god doesn't kill them or the pack of reluctant orc assassins don't catch up to them, Helen and Troy might reach the end their journey in one piece, where they might just end up destroying the world.