Humor Books

PREFACE. Again it come to pass, in the fulness of time, that my companion, Josiah Allen, see me walk up and take my ink stand off of the manteltry piece, and carry it with a calm and majestick gait to the corner of the settin' room table devoted by me to literary pursuits. And he sez to me: "What are you goin' to tackle now, Samantha?" And sez I, with quite a good deal of dignity,... more...

chapter i The way I look at this thing is this way: If something happens to you and by writing about it you can make a bit of money and at the same time be a benefactor to the race, then why not? Does not the philanthropic aspect of the proposition more than balance off the mercenary side? I hold that it does, or at least that it should, in the estimation of all fair-minded persons. It is to this class... more...

(The necessity of a work on Snobs, demonstrated from History, and proved by felicitous illustrations:—I am the individual destined to write that work—My vocation is announced in terms of great eloquence—I show that the world has been gradually preparing itself for the WORK and the MAN—Snobs are to be studied like other objects of Natural Science, and are a part of the Beautiful (with a large... more...

PREFATORY NOTE I “If Winter Comes” placed its author not only as a Best Seller, but as one of the Great Novelists of to-day. Not always are those royalties crowned by those laurels. Tarzan (of, if I remember rightly, the Apes) never won the double event. And I am told by superior people that, intellectually, Miss Ethel M. Dell takes the hindmost. Personally, I found “If Winter Comes” a most... more...

PREFACE. Again it come to pass, in the fulness of time, that my companion, Josiah Allen, see me walk up and take my ink stand off of the manteltry piece, and carry it with a calm and majestick gait to the corner of the settin' room table devoted by me to literary pursuits. And he sez to me: "What are you goin' to tackle now, Samantha?" And sez I, with quite a good deal of dignity,... more...

ENTERPRISING PRO-MOTOR. One of our special correspondents started out to try the effect of taking notes from his motor-car whilst proceeding at top-speed. The experiment took place in June; but we have only just received the following account of the result. "Started away and turned on full head of smell—steam, I mean. Over Southwark Bridge, fizz, kick, bang, rattle! Flew along Old Kent Road;... more...

PREFACE. Again it come to pass, in the fulness of time, that my companion, Josiah Allen, see me walk up and take my ink stand off of the manteltry piece, and carry it with a calm and majestick gait to the corner of the settin' room table devoted by me to literary pursuits. And he sez to me: "What are you goin' to tackle now, Samantha?" And sez I, with quite a good deal of dignity,... more...

October 28, 1914. Reports that Germany is not best pleased with Austria-Hungary are peculiarly persistent just now. There would indeed seem to be good grounds for Germany's displeasure, for a gentleman just returned from Budapest says that the Hungarian Minister of the Interior has actually issued an official circular to the mayors and prefects throughout the land enjoining upon them the duty of... more...

BURLESQUE AUTOBIOGRAPHY. Two or three persons having at different times intimated that if I would write an autobiography they would read it, when they got leisure, I yield at last to this frenzied public demand, and herewith tender my history: Ours is a noble old house, and stretches a long way back into antiquity. The earliest ancestor the Twains have any record of was a friend of the family by the... more...

BERNARD BLACKMANTLE{*} TO THE REVIEWERS. "But now, what Quixote of the age would careTo wage a war with dirt, and fight with air?" Messieurs the Critics, After twelve months of agreeable toil, made easy by unprecedented success, the period has at length arrived when your high mightinesses will be able to indulge your voracious appetites by feeding and fattening on the work of death. Already... more...