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The Best American Humorous Short Stories,
Edited, with an introductory note, by Robert N. Linscott
Contents:
Swallowing an oyster alive by John S. Robb
How daddy played hoss by George W. Harris
The Shakers by Artemus Ward
Mrs. McWilliams and the lightning by Mark Twain
Journalism in Tennessee by Mark Twain
Brother rabbit takes some exercise by Joel Chandler Harris
How brother rabbit frightened his neighbors by Joel Chandler Harris
How Mr. Rooster lost his dinner by Joel Chandler Harris
Colonel Starbottle for the plaintiff by Bret Harte
A piece of red calico by Frank R. Stockton
Mr. Dooley on the game of football by Finley Peter Dunne
Pigs is pigs by Ellis Parker Butler
The ransom of Red Chief by O. Henry
Little gentleman by Booth Tarkington
Three without doubled by Ring Lardner
Mr. and Mrs. Fix-It by Ring Lardner
Death of red peril by Walter D. Edmonds
Travel is so broadening by Sinclair Lewis
The crazy fool by Donald Ogden Stewart
Mr. and Mrs. Haddock abroad by Donald Ogden Stewart
Benny and the bird-dogs by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
The legislature by James M. Cain
The little hours by Dorothy Parker
But the one on the right by Dorothy Parker
The snatching of Bookie Bob by Damon Runyon
An interesting cure by Frank Sullivan
Gendarmes and the man by Donald Moffat
Carnival days in sunny Las Los by Robert Benchley
The guest by Marc Connelly
Primrose path by Sally Benson
The secret life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber
The night the bed fell by James Thurber
The night the ghost got in by James Thurber
University days by James Thurber
The man who hated Moonbaum by James Thurber
Father and his hard-rocking ship by Clarence Day
The prince by Ruth McKenney
Chocolate for the woodwork by Arthur Kober
The terrible vengeance of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N by Leonard Q. Ross
Hand in nub by St. Clair McKelway
Down with the Restoration by S.J. Perelman
Kitchen bouquet by S.J. Perelman
Dental or mental, I say it's spinach by S.J. Perelman
Contents:
Swallowing an oyster alive by John S. Robb
How daddy played hoss by George W. Harris
The Shakers by Artemus Ward
Mrs. McWilliams and the lightning by Mark Twain
Journalism in Tennessee by Mark Twain
Brother rabbit takes some exercise by Joel Chandler Harris
How brother rabbit frightened his neighbors by Joel Chandler Harris
How Mr. Rooster lost his dinner by Joel Chandler Harris
Colonel Starbottle for the plaintiff by Bret Harte
A piece of red calico by Frank R. Stockton
Mr. Dooley on the game of football by Finley Peter Dunne
Pigs is pigs by Ellis Parker Butler
The ransom of Red Chief by O. Henry
Little gentleman by Booth Tarkington
Three without doubled by Ring Lardner
Mr. and Mrs. Fix-It by Ring Lardner
Death of red peril by Walter D. Edmonds
Travel is so broadening by Sinclair Lewis
The crazy fool by Donald Ogden Stewart
Mr. and Mrs. Haddock abroad by Donald Ogden Stewart
Benny and the bird-dogs by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
The legislature by James M. Cain
The little hours by Dorothy Parker
But the one on the right by Dorothy Parker
The snatching of Bookie Bob by Damon Runyon
An interesting cure by Frank Sullivan
Gendarmes and the man by Donald Moffat
Carnival days in sunny Las Los by Robert Benchley
The guest by Marc Connelly
Primrose path by Sally Benson
The secret life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber
The night the bed fell by James Thurber
The night the ghost got in by James Thurber
University days by James Thurber
The man who hated Moonbaum by James Thurber
Father and his hard-rocking ship by Clarence Day
The prince by Ruth McKenney
Chocolate for the woodwork by Arthur Kober
The terrible vengeance of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N by Leonard Q. Ross
Hand in nub by St. Clair McKelway
Down with the Restoration by S.J. Perelman
Kitchen bouquet by S.J. Perelman
Dental or mental, I say it's spinach by S.J. Perelman
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1945
2 people are currently reading
135 people want to read
About the author
Robert N. Linscott
38 books4 followersRobert Newton Linscott (May 1, 1886 – September 25, 1964) was an American editor. From 1904 to 1944, Linscott was an editor at Houghton-Mifflin. He served as editor for early Truman Capote and Carson McCullers works. From 1944 until his retirement in 1957, Linscott was the senior editor for Random House.
Linscott himself edited a number of collections for both houses, among them Best American Humorous Short Stories (1945), Best Short Stories of Bret Harte (1947), The World's Great Thinkers: A Boston Reader (1948), Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1957), and Letters and Poems of Emily Dickinson (1959).
Linscott himself edited a number of collections for both houses, among them Best American Humorous Short Stories (1945), Best Short Stories of Bret Harte (1947), The World's Great Thinkers: A Boston Reader (1948), Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1957), and Letters and Poems of Emily Dickinson (1959).
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 15, 2014
Vintage Modern Library edition, published in 1945. Great collection of familiar and obscure stories (maybe what is obscure now was better known in 1945, though). Arranged chronologically by authors' birth year, which made reading it like going through a 150-year cross section of American literature. Familiar stories by some of my favorite authors--Mark Twain, Ring Lardner, Dorothy Parker, James Thurber, and S.J. Perelman, plus a few new-to-me stories that are now favorites by Bret Harte, Ruth McKenney, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Frank Sullivan, Sally Benson, Marc Connelly, and Leonard Q. Ross.
May 16, 2012
If you see a copy of this book in a used bookstore, grab it, buy, and place it lovingly in your guest room. You'll hear your jet lagged visitors chuckling into the wee hours. They will thank you, and you won't have to rustle up breakfast for them until noon.
August 7, 2013
This book added quite a bit to my awareness of early-to-mid 20th century humor. Not that I couldn't have thought of most of these authors if I thought about it, but who would have thought about whether Life with Father began life as a book? I ended up skipping a lot of the early stories that were heavy on the dialect, but all in all, this added quite a bit to my to-read list. James Thurber, Sally Benson, and Clarence Day top my list to check out.
Want to read
November 8, 2009I bought this second-hand Modern Library hardcover at the BookExpo XIV (15-25 October) in BKK yesterday (approx. US$ 3.00).
February 17, 2015
Pure cultural archeology. There is very little here for anyone who does not already know that humor is a very perishable writing style, and can appreciate the styles of the past.
Poor Linscott, he foretold the doom of his own book when he noted in the introduction that "[It is]...surprising how quickly most humor goes sour. It is a sobering experience to reread the favorites of yesterday."
Sobering is not what you want from a collection of humorous stories. The fads of the past century and a half are all too evident here: the dialectical humor of the late-19th century, the saccharine child tale of the Glorious 90s, the sneering middle class story of the 1920s, the idiot couple, the inept non-sequitur, the fish out of water (these last three coming into surplus of supply due to the New Yorker)....
The good news is that this makes it easier to see why the classics of humor have lasted. Some are victims of a changing moral sense that made ethnic and race humor more painful to read than interesting (and Chandler Harris is twice doomed because his racist fantasies were played out through the cloying child tale trope). Some simply fail because they are just cruelty dressed as humor, and the insults and kicks aimed at children simply are no longer deemed funny.
Almost certainly by intention this anthology pairs themes, one classic to one or more 'modern' stories. This offers us the opportunity to wonder why O. Henry's "The Ransom of Red Chief" remains funny, while its near copy, "The Snatching of Bookie Bob" by Damon Runyan is such a dated flop. Similarly we can explore why Mark Twain getting shot in a Southern culture farce is still worth a smile, but the shooting of a Nigger (in the original) in the shin in "Benny and the Bird-Dogs" is horrifying. Fortunately the volume closes with a string of stories from James Thurber.
Oddly enough, I have an anthology of humor compiled by Mark Twain MARK TWAINS LIBRARY OF HUMOR CONTAINING COMIC GENIUS OF NYE that actually holds up better, excepting that Twain believed Nye was a comic genius instead of a vicious ass.
Poor Linscott, he foretold the doom of his own book when he noted in the introduction that "[It is]...surprising how quickly most humor goes sour. It is a sobering experience to reread the favorites of yesterday."
Sobering is not what you want from a collection of humorous stories. The fads of the past century and a half are all too evident here: the dialectical humor of the late-19th century, the saccharine child tale of the Glorious 90s, the sneering middle class story of the 1920s, the idiot couple, the inept non-sequitur, the fish out of water (these last three coming into surplus of supply due to the New Yorker)....
The good news is that this makes it easier to see why the classics of humor have lasted. Some are victims of a changing moral sense that made ethnic and race humor more painful to read than interesting (and Chandler Harris is twice doomed because his racist fantasies were played out through the cloying child tale trope). Some simply fail because they are just cruelty dressed as humor, and the insults and kicks aimed at children simply are no longer deemed funny.
Almost certainly by intention this anthology pairs themes, one classic to one or more 'modern' stories. This offers us the opportunity to wonder why O. Henry's "The Ransom of Red Chief" remains funny, while its near copy, "The Snatching of Bookie Bob" by Damon Runyan is such a dated flop. Similarly we can explore why Mark Twain getting shot in a Southern culture farce is still worth a smile, but the shooting of a Nigger (in the original) in the shin in "Benny and the Bird-Dogs" is horrifying. Fortunately the volume closes with a string of stories from James Thurber.
Oddly enough, I have an anthology of humor compiled by Mark Twain MARK TWAINS LIBRARY OF HUMOR CONTAINING COMIC GENIUS OF NYE that actually holds up better, excepting that Twain believed Nye was a comic genius instead of a vicious ass.
May 10, 2008
An amusing collection of short stories. American authors include Twain, Frank Sillivan, James Thurber.
January 15, 2023
At times I found it tricky to read because due to the book being published in 1945 and some of the stories being written in slanged English, several of the stories I was unable to read. However, I would recommend the short story “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.”
September 27, 2014
I'm not much of a Seinfeld fan except for the line, "Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason." The editor of this book observed at the time that he was picking mostly contemporary stories because humor quickly exceeds its shelf life. I wouldn't have thunk it, but...
Turns out there's a reason that this book is difficult to obtain. Nobody particularly wants it, and I wish I hadn't bothered, either. It will put paid to any illusion you might have that the past, even the humor of the past, was somehow superior or redolent of quiet class.
Part of the problem is that the vogue for accents quickly becomes tiresome. I am going to look for a 'translation' of the Brer Rabbit tales from the black-face. Part of the problem is that various forms of misogyny and misanthropy were considered inherently funny at the time. We wouldn't have to say that of our own time, would we?
The Brett Harte story is funny, and topical, since it appears even then sexual harassment was sometimes considered illegal. Though I guess it is intended, again, as a sad commentary on man's vulnerability to the wiles of woman. I am going to look at some of Harte's other stuff. I am also going to see if I can run down some more representative work by Finley Peter Dunne, and maybe something else by Ruth McKinney.
Turns out there's a reason that this book is difficult to obtain. Nobody particularly wants it, and I wish I hadn't bothered, either. It will put paid to any illusion you might have that the past, even the humor of the past, was somehow superior or redolent of quiet class.
Part of the problem is that the vogue for accents quickly becomes tiresome. I am going to look for a 'translation' of the Brer Rabbit tales from the black-face. Part of the problem is that various forms of misogyny and misanthropy were considered inherently funny at the time. We wouldn't have to say that of our own time, would we?
The Brett Harte story is funny, and topical, since it appears even then sexual harassment was sometimes considered illegal. Though I guess it is intended, again, as a sad commentary on man's vulnerability to the wiles of woman. I am going to look at some of Harte's other stuff. I am also going to see if I can run down some more representative work by Finley Peter Dunne, and maybe something else by Ruth McKinney.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews