Historical Humor

Imagine if Sherlock Holmes was a bear! Alternative universe mysteries for adult animal lovers that relate the exploits of super-sleuth Octavius Bear and his cohorts. Just for fun, this series swaps anthropomorphic animals for humans in a world very similar to our own 21st century. Earth minus homo sapiens.

In this humorous re-imagining of Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet's pet cat causes an unfortunate accident to befall the haughty Mr. Darcy, forcing the injured gentleman to reluctantly take up residence at Longbourn - more specifically, in the parlor of Longbourn! In pain, forbidden to leave by his doctors, Mr. Darcy cannot escape the ridiculous antics of the Bennet clan. And when Georgiana Darcy, Colonel Fitzwilliam, and Lady Catherine de Bourgh arrive to visit the invalid, chaos, confusion, and hilarity ensue!

When the eldest daughter of a whaling family in New South Wales sets out to write about the particularly difficult season of 1908, the story she tells reveals itself to be far larger than she ever expected. As her family struggles to survive, and as she attempts to navigate sibling rivalries and all-consuming first love, 19-year-old Mary will soon discover a shocking side to these men who hunt the seas and the truth of her own place among them.

On the eve of Vermont's Great Flood of 1927, rain falls on northern Lake Champlain. Otter's father has been missing since World War I, and then a letter arrives with surprising news. Royal St. Onge may be alive! Otter and Granddad load a canoe with Missisquoi Moonbeam and paddle across Goose Bay to rendezvous at the family camp, but Otter's father is nowhere to be found, and bullet holes scar the cabin walls.

Der junge Pandolfo hat einen Schlag auf den Kopf erhalten: Er weiß nicht mehr, wer er ist. Der schwerreiche Seidenhändler Bernadino Bellapianta findet ihn verletzt in einem Misthaufen liegend, nimmt ihn mit sich und pflegt ihn gesund. Wieder genesen erweist sich Pandolfos Geschick fürs Zeichnen und er wird als Musterzeichner für luxuriöse Webstoffe eingestellt. Aber er macht sich auch auf die Suche nach seiner Vergangenheit.

Do you enjoy Monty Python, PG Wodehouse, and Rowan Atkinson's Blackadder? If so, then you might just enjoy Context Clues, an irreverent new novel from James C. Ferguson that combines both humor and history as it chronicles the fictional exploits of history's worst spy. Set during Sir Francis Walsingham's reign as chief secretary to Queen Elizabeth I, Context Clues follows the adventures of Basil Coventry, an "information gatherer" employed by the Crown.

Banking, Beer & Robert The Bruce is a fictional novel depicting two slowly entwining families from Irish/Scottish and English descent in a humorous and real-life way. Mixing bawdy British humor and American-style action-adventure, this is good old fashioned story-telling at its best.

The hilarious, bawdy and touching story of a good man who loved too well and dared challenge the absolute power of the Sun King himself.

In 1938, Hitler visits Italy. An expatriate Irish art historian is obliged to guide Mussolini and his guest around the galleries. Half fascinated, half repelled, he watches the tyrants, wrestling with the uneasy conviction that he ought to use the opportunity to "do something" about them yet lacking the zeal that might transform misgivings into action. Thirty years later, his daughter comes across a compromising clipping showing her father with the dictators.

Una narrazione disincantata e ironica denuncia il vuoto di valori che seguì la disfatta napoleonica. La cittadella descritta da Stendhal è in realtà molto diversa dalla vera cittadella di Parma e, invece, molto simile a Castel Sant'Angelo, dalla cui cella fuggì (calandosi con delle corde), nel Cinquecento, Alessandro Farnese, rinchiuso per aver rapito e sedotto una nobildonna romana. In seguito diviene cardinale e, poi, papa.

The Alehouse at the End of the World is an epic comedy set in the 16th century, where bawdy Shakespearean love triangles play out with shapeshifting avian demigods and a fertility goddess, drunken revelry, bio-dynamic gardening, and a narcissistic, bullying crow, who may have colluded with a foreign power.

George Sperryhawke, the bombastic rogue and forgotten founding father, chronicles life in 18th-century America as he clambers and swindles his way up the social ladder. After running away from home and being expelled from the seminary, Sperryhawke went to sea and would go on to become one of the wealthiest men in the colonies by the age of 25, and a pivotal figure in the founding of the Republic. A thoroughly unreliable and mostly unlikable figure, the discovery of the Sperryhawke manuscripts has given students of American history great cause for rejoicing.

When a leftwing activist from the Nixon era morphs into a conservative writer of political incorrectness, can she ever escape the evil eye of the establishment? Political winds may shift but some things never change. If you pull on the dragon's tail, you'd best be ready to take some heat. Kate is no stranger to a jail cell, but she thought she got past that four decades ago. Then again, in a world run amuck with knife brandishing jihadists spilling from their sharia zones, maybe a jail cell is the safest place to be.

1870s, Sicily. Much to the displeasure of Vigàta's stubborn populace, the town has just been unified under the Kingdom of Italy. They're now in the hands of a new government they don't understand and definitely don't like. Eugenio Bortuzzi has been named prefect for Vigàta, a regional representative from the Italian government to oversee the town. But the rowdy and unruly Sicilians don't care much for this rather pompous mainlander nor the mediocre opera he's hell-bent on producing in their new municipal theater.

In 1902, a radical vegetarian and nudist from Nuremberg named August Engelhardt set sail for what was then called the Bismarck Archipelago. His destination: the island Kabakon. His goal: to found a colony based on worship of the sun and coconuts. His malnourished body was found on the beach on Kabakon in 1919; he was 43 years old. Christian Kracht's Imperium uses the outlandish details of Engelhardt's life to craft a fable about the allure of extremism and its fundamental foolishness.

It's 1883 - only a few months after Molly Pepper; her mother, Cassandra; and her friend, Emmett, saved New York from an attack by the megalomaniacal Ambrose Rector while managing to preserve the reputations of Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison, whose technology was manipulated in Rector’s scheme. Their selfless heroism will finally earn them a place in the Inventors’ Guild, alongside the greatest minds of their generation. Unless, of course, no one knows that they did any of that.

Written in a hospital tent to the sound of gunfire and shells falling, Cicely Hamilton drew on her experiences working in France during WW1 to tell the story of William Tully and his new bride Griselda, who are wrenched away from their all-consuming interests – socialism and votes for women – and plunged into the almost dream-like horror of war. As brutal tragedy strikes, their attitude to both pacifism and patriotism is altered and their lives are changed forever.

It was a hot, still Thursday afternoon in 1949 soon after I arrived in California to begin my undergraduate studies at Stanford. Thursday was ice-cream day at the Monterey Home for the Elderly and Indigent in Salinas. As I opened the door, I saw a group of residents encircling a small, wiry man standing on a chair with a hand resting on my Uncle Dans shoulder for support. He held their attention as he animatedly and with a twinkling eye, related a tale which had then all engrossed. Having spotted my uncle Dan in the group, I sidled up to him so I too could hear the story.

La debutante lady Serena Bailey hace algo impensable en una joven aristócrata: proponer al mayor crápula de Inglaterra, el marqués de Cheriton, que arruine el compromiso matrimonial de su hermana gemela, Calista, sin explicar la razón. Cheriton acepta por aburrimiento y porque lady Serena le parece de lo más apetecible.

Zombies vs. the KKK: The darkest hour in undead civil rights history. Allied Zombies for Peace covers the violent 42-minute time period that took place on November 11th, 1968, known as the Veterans Day Parade Massacre. This report outlines, according to eyewitnesses, the events that mark that day as a black stain on undead civil rights history. Violence explodes when a shot is fired during the 1968 Veterans Day Parade in Columbus, Ohio.