Best American Humorous Short Stories

Description

Although every literary tradition has its own rich vein of humor writing, there's something about American humor that sets it apart from the pack in terms of accessibility and lack of pretension. This volume includes writings from such luminaries of the genre as Mark Twain, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Edgar Allen Poe, and the brevity of most of the collected pieces makes it easy to take a short reading break whenever you could use a good laugh.

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781877527647
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE BEST AMERICAN HUMOROUS SHORT STORIES
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Edited by
ALEXANDER JESSUP
 
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The Best American Humorous Short Stories From a 1922 edition.
ISBN 978-1-877527-64-7
© 2009 THE FLOATING PRESS.
While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike.
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Contents
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Introduction Acknowledgments The Little Frenchman and His Water Lots The Angel of the Odd The Schoolmaster's Progress The Watkinson Evening Titbottom's Spectacles My Double; And How He Undid Me A Visit to the Asylum for Aged and Decayed Punsters The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County Elder Brown's Backslide The Hotel Experience of Mr. Pink Fluker The Nice People The Buller-Podington Compact Colonel Starbottle for the Plaintiff The Duplicity of Hargraves Bargain Day at Tutt House A Call How the Widow Won the Deacon Gideon Endnotes
Introduction
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This volume does not aim to contain all "the best American humorousshort stories"; there are many other stories equally as good, Isuppose, in much the same vein, scattered through the range ofAmerican literature. I have tried to keep a certain unity of aim andimpression in selecting these stories. In the first place I determinedthat the pieces of brief fiction which I included must first of all benot merely good stories, but good short stories. I put myself in theposition of one who was about to select the best short stories in thewhole range of American literature, [1] but who, just before he startedto do this, was notified that he must refrain from selecting any ofthe best American short stories that did not contain the element ofhumor to a marked degree. But I have kept in mind the wide boundariesof the term humor, and also the fact that the humorous standard shouldbe kept second—although a close second—to the short story standard.
In view of the necessary limitations as to the volume's size, I couldnot hope to represent all periods of American literature adequately,nor was this necessary in order to give examples of the best that hasbeen done in the short story in a humorous vein in Americanliterature. Probably all types of the short story of humor areincluded here, at any rate. Not only copyright restrictions but in ameasure my own opinion have combined to exclude anything by JoelChandler Harris— Uncle Remus —from the collection. Harris isprimarily—in his best work—a humorist, and only secondarily a shortstory writer. As a humorist he is of the first rank; as a writer ofshort stories his place is hardly so high. His humor is not merefunniness and diversion; he is a humorist in the fundamental and largesense, as are Cervantes, Rabelais, and Mark Twain.
No book is duller than a book of jokes, for what is refreshing insmall doses becomes nauseating when perused in large assignments.Humor in literature is at its best not when served merely by itselfbut when presented along with other ingredients of literary force inorder to give a wide representation of life. Therefore "professionalliterary humorists," as they may be called, have not been muchconsidered in making up this collection. In the history of Americanhumor there are three names which stand out more prominently than allothers before Mark Twain, who, however, also belongs to a widerclassification: "Josh Billings" (Henry Wheeler Shaw, 1815-1885),"Petroleum V. Nasby" (David Ross Locke, 1833-1888), and "Artemus Ward"(Charles Farrar Browne, 1834-1867). In the history of American humorthese names rank high; in the field of American literature and theAmerican short story they do not rank so high. I have found nothing oftheirs that was first-class both as humor and as short story. Perhapsjust below these three should be mentioned George Horatio Derby(1823-1861), author of Phoenixiana (1855) and the Squibob Papers (1859), who wrote under the name "John Phoenix." As has been justlysaid, "Derby, Shaw, Locke and Browne carried to an extreme numeroustricks already invented by earlier American humorists, particularlythe tricks of gigantic exaggeration and calm-faced mendacity, but theyare plainly in the main channel of American humor, which had itsorigin in the first comments of settlers upon the conditions of thefrontier, long drew its principal inspiration from the differencesbetween that frontier and the more settled and compact regions of thecountry, and reached its highest development in Mark Twain, in hisyouth a child of the American frontier, admirer and imitator of Derbyand Browne, and eventually a man of the world and one of its greatesthumorists." [2] Nor have such later writers who were essentiallyhumorists as "Bill Nye" (Edgar Wilson Nye, 1850-1896) been considered,because their work does not attain the literary standard and the shortstory standard as creditably as it does the humorous one. When we cometo the close of the nineteenth century the work of such men as "Mr.Dooley" (Finley Peter Dunne, 1867- ) and George Ade (1866- ) standsout. But while these two writers successfully conform to the exactingcritical requirements of good humor and—especially the former—ofgood literature, neither—though Ade more so—attains to the greatestexcellence of the short story. Mr. Dooley of the Archey Road isessentially a wholesome and wide-poised humorous philosopher, and theauthor of Fables in Slang is chiefly a satirist, whether in fable,play or what not.
This volume might well have started with something by WashingtonIrving, I suppose many critics would say. It does not seem to me,however, that Irving's best short stories, such as The Legend ofSleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle , are essentially humorous stories,although they are o'erspread with the genial light of reminiscence. Itis the armchair geniality of the eighteenth century essayists, aconstituent of the author rather than of his material and product.Irving's best humorous creations, indeed, are scarcely short storiesat all, but rather essaylike sketches, or sketchlike essays. JamesLawson (1799-1880) in his Tales and Sketches: by a Cosmopolite (1830), notably in The Dapper Gentleman's Story , is also plainly afollower of Irving. We come to a different vein in the work of suchwriters as William Tappan Thompson (1812-1882), author of the amusingstories in letter form, Major Jones's Courtship (1840); JohnsonJones Hooper (1815-1862), author of Widow Rugby's Husband, and OtherTales of Alabama (1851); Joseph G. Baldwin (1815-1864), who wrote The Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi (1853); and AugustusBaldwin Longstreet (1790-1870), whose Georgia Scenes (1835) are asimportant in "local color" as they are racy in humor. Yet none ofthese writers yield the excellent short story which is also a goodpiece of humorous literature. But they opened the way for the work oflater writers who did attain these combined excellences.
The sentimental vein of the midcentury is seen in the work of SebaSmith (1792-1868), Eliza Leslie (1787-1858), Frances Miriam Whitcher("Widow Bedott," 1811-1852), Mary W. Janvrin (1830-1870), and AliceBradley Haven Neal (1828-1863). The well-known work of Joseph ClayNeal (1807-1847) is so all pervaded with caricature and humor that itbelongs with the work of the professional humorist school rather thanwith the short story writers. To mention his Charcoal Sketches, orScenes in a Metropolis (1837-1849) must suffice. The work of SebaSmith is sufficiently expressed in his title, Way Down East, orPortraitures of Yankee Life (1854), although his Letters of MajorJack Downing (1833) is better known. Of his single stories may bementioned The General Court and Jane Andrews' Firkin of Butter (October, 1847, Graham's Magazine ). The work of Frances MiriamWhitcher ("Widow Bedott") is of somewhat finer grain, both as humorand in other literary qualities. Her stories or sketches, such as Aunt Magwire's Account of Parson Scrantum's Donation Party (March,1848, Godey's Lady's Book ) and Aunt Magwire's Account of theMission to Muffletegawmy (July, 1859, Godey's ), were afterwardscollected in The Widow Bedott Papers (1855-56-80). The scope of thework of Mary B. Haven is sufficiently suggested by her story, Mrs.Bowen's Parlor and Spare Bedroom (February, 1860, Godey's ), whilethe best stories of Mary W. Janvrin include The Foreign Count; or,High Art in Tattletown (October, 1860, Godey's ) and CityRelations; or, the Newmans' Summer at Clovernook (November, 1861, Godey's ). The work of Alice Bradley Haven Neal is of somewhatsimilar texture. Her book, The Gossips of Rivertown, with Sketches inProse and Verse (1850) indicates her field, as does the single title, The Third-Class Hotel (December, 1861, Godey's ). Perhaps the mostrepresentative figure of this school is Eliza Leslie (1787-1858), whoas "Miss Leslie" was one of the most frequent contributors to themagazines of the 1830's, 1840's and 1850's. One of her best stories is The Watkinson Evening (December, 1846, Godey's Lady's Book ),included in the present volume; others are The Batson Cottage (November, 1846, Godey's Lady's Book ) and Juliet Irwin; or, theCarriage People (June, 1847, Godey's Lady's Book ). One of her chiefcollections of stories is Pencil Sketches (1833-1837). "MissLeslie," wrote Edgar Allan Poe, "is celebrated for the homelynaturalness of her stories and for the broad satire of her comicstyle." She was the editor of The Gift one of the best annuals ofthe time, and in that position perhaps exerted her chief influence onAmerican literature When one has read three or four representativestories by these seven authors one can grasp them all. Their titles asa rule stri