Humor Classics

Le Schtroumpf Costaud ne rêve que de romans de chevalerie. Ah ! S'il était un humain, il se ferait chevalier errant, à la défense de la veuve et de l'orphelin. Mais voilà qu'il rencontre ce qu'il croit être un véritable chevalier. Il le ramène au village, avec des suites dramatiques.

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.

The Brass Bottle is the story of an architect who bought an antique brass bottle to give to a professor dealing in Mideast antiquities. After the purchase, the architect’s curiosity was aroused, and he removed the stopper in the bottle. And when he did, a big cloud of smoke was released, producing a major surprise when a genie emerged. His name was Fakrash el-Aamash, and he turned out to be a fairy-tale-type character who wound up trying to repay the architect, Horace Ventimore, for giving him release from what amounted to a brass prison.

"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.

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.

Who could forget the pranks, the adventures, the sheer fun of Tom Sawyer? It's something every child should experience and every child will love. From Tom's sly trickery with the whitewashed fence - when he cleverly manipulates everyone so they happily do his work for him - to his and Becky Thatcher's calamities in Bat Cave, the enjoyment just never ends.

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.

The infamous Bertie Wooster, rebuffing the assistance of his trusty manservant Jeeves, attempts to help his old chum and newt-fancier Gussie Fink-Nottle win the affections of the goofy but adorable Madeline Bassett. But without Jeeves to lend a hand, chaos ensues, and Bertie finds himself accidentally - and horribly - engaged to Madeline himself.

Set in the 1920s, The Glimpses of the Moon details the romantic misadventures of Nick Lansing and Susy Branch, a couple with the right connections but not much in the way of funds. They devise a shrewd bargain: they'll marry and spend a year or so sponging off their wealthy friends, honeymooning in their mansions and villas.

Entranced by romantic tales of heroism and chivalry, Don Quixote—self-proclaimed knight errant—embarks on a delusional quest for fame and adventure. The eccentric Spanish country gentleman and his companion Sancho encounter an array of unforgettable characters and undertake some of the most famously foolhardy exploits in literature. Listeners will delight in following their chivalrous misadventures to right wrongs and punish evil in this timeless, laugh-out-loud tale.

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.

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...

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.

Our Woman refuses to be sunk by what life is about to serve her. She’s just caught her son Jimmy in the barn with another man. She’s been accosted by Red the Twit, who claims to have done the unmentionable with her husband. And now her son’s gone and joined the only group that will have...

A comic novel about a Midwestern professor who tries to prop up his failing prospects for happiness by setting out on the Journey of a Lifetime. Louie Hake is forty-three and teaches architectural history at a third-rate college in Michigan. His second marriage is collapsing, and he's facing a...

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK ONE OF THE NEW YORKER’S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR Carrying a single suitcase, Kailash arrives in post-Reagan America from India to attend graduate school. As he begins to settle into American existence, Kailash comes under the indelible influence of a charismatic...

A steamy, best-selling tale of Long Island lust, written as a daring literary hoax by Newsday columnist Mike McGrady and two dozen of his colleagues. For talk show host Gillian Blake, the suburbs have long been a paradise. On the radio, she and her husband are Gilly and Billy, local media stars and "New York’s Sweethearts of the Air". At home they’re the envy of their neighbors. Only in the bedroom is their life less than perfect. When Gillian learns that her husband has a mistress, she takes revenge the only way she can. With each lover she takes, her lust multiplies.