Humor Classics

The Ingenious Nobleman Don Quixote of La Mancha is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Don Quixote is considered the most influential work of literature from the Spanish Golden Age and the entire Spanish literary canon. It appears regularly on lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published, such as the Bokklubben World Library collection that cites Don Quixote as the "greatest literary work ever written".

Three short stories by Anton Chekhov including "The First-Class Passenger", "The Harmfulness of Tobacco", and "A Transgression".

The Importance of Being Earnest is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on February 14th 1895 at the St James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personæ to escape burdensome social obligations. Working within the social conventions of late Victorian London, the play's major themes are the triviality with which it treats institutions as serious as marriage, and the resulting satire of Victorian ways. Its high farce and witty dialogue have helped make The Importance of Being Earnest Wilde's most enduringly popular play.

Hard Times is the tenth novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1854. The book surveys English society and satirizes the social and economic conditions of the era. Hard Times is unusual in several ways. It is by far the shortest of Dickens's novels, barely a quarter of the length of those written immediately before and after it. Moreover, it is his only novel not to have scenes set in London. Instead, the story is set in the fictitious Victorian industrial Coketown, a generic Northern English mill-town.

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.

Fitzgerald's tale of Benjamin Button, a man who starts aging backwards with bizarre consequences. This story was the basis for the Oscar-winning Brad Pitt film of the same name.

Eugenia Malmains is one of the richest girls in England and an ardent supporter of Captain Jack and the Union Jackshirts. Noel and Jasper are both in search of an heiress (so much easier than trying to work for the money). Poppy and Marjorie are nursing lovelorn hearts, and the beautiful bourgeois Mrs Lace is on the prowl for someone near Eugenia's fabulous country home at Chalford, and much farce ensues.

The moral cesspool that Rome had become in the first century AD is the subject of The Satyricon by Petronius. The work itself was originally quite a long one, perhaps as long as a thousand pages. The extant portion, however, is only a small fraction of the original. The work contains a mixture of prose and verse, serious and comic elements, and erotic and decadent passages. It possesses a sophisticated humor and a very ironic tone. It is the creation of a Roman gentleman whose insights were keen.

A witty account of three friends' boating adventure along the River Thames. Written in the 19th century, the humour is still accessible to a modern audience. Read by leading celebrated British Actor, Sir Timothy Ackroyd.

The History of England from Henry IV to Charles I, by a partial, prejudiced, and ignorant historian. N.B. There will be very few dates in this History! Jane Austen wrote The History of England in 1791, at the age of just 15, as a satirical parody of 18th-century historical textbooks. It pokes fun at the apparent impartiality of contemporary historians and contains more opinions about the monarchs’ relative characters than any facts or dates. The History of England was not published until 1922, more than a century after Austen’s death.

Thomas wanted a simple, stable existence, but saddled with unemployment, an absentee girlfriend, and the impending unpaid rent, change is hurtling down on him whether he likes it or not. Following the sudden murder of his strange elderly neighbor, he awakens on the wrong side of the Veil transformed into a mountain lion, and thrust into a dangerous world of magic.

The Getting of Wisdom, a wicked and satirical novel on the pain and confusion of growing up, first appeared in 1910. A century later, it has lost none of its bite. One of the most memorable characters in Australian fiction, Laura Rambotham, aged 12, enters the portals of an exclusive girls' school eager to be accepted. But this precocious country girl is snubbed and ridiculed by her fellow students, who are richer, more attractive, and more adept at dealing with life's hypocrisies.

As intricate as a house of mirrors, Nabokov’s last novel is an ironic play on the Janus-like relationship between fiction and reality. It is the autobiography of the eminent Russian-American author Vadim Vadimovich N. (b. 1899), whose life bears an uncanny resemblance to that of Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, though the two are not to be confused (?).

"Gulliver's Travels" (1726, amended 1735), officially "Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World", is a novel by Jonathan Swift that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of the "travellers' tales" literary sub-genre. It is widely considered Swift's magnum opus and is his most celebrated work, as well as one of the indisputable classics of English literature.

Up the Down Staircase is the funny and touching story of a committed, idealistic teacher whose clash with school bureaucracy is a timeless lesson for students, teachers, parents – anyone concerned about public education. Bel Kaufman lets her characters speak for themselves through memos, letters, directives from the principal, comments by students, notes between teachers, and papers from desk drawers and wastebaskets, evoking a vivid picture of teachers fighting the good fight against all that stands in the way of good teaching.

“I’m a virgin. And you need to relieve me of that.” What respectable guy could say no to that? Yeah, she was my best friend. But she was also the hottest chick I’d ever known. I thought it would be simple. I thought we’d have a good time, then pretend like it never happened. It turns out, I was an idiot. Now, she wants nothing to do with me, but I’m determined. I’ve spent the last five years without her, and I refuse to waste another day.

George and Weedon Grossmith were born in London into a theatrical family, and it was natural that they should both take up careers on the stage. Weedon initially studied art but later joined his brother, George, in the theatre.

Says Charles Pooter, "I fail to see - because I do not happen to be a 'somebody' - why my diary should not be interesting." Surprisingly, Mr. Pooter's life is fascinating! The fascination is two-fold: firstly, his astounding arrogance that we should care about his domestic trivia and narcissistic scribblings. Secondly, we can all sympathize with (and wince at!) this ridiculous slave to convention.

Recovering witch Garnet Lacey owns Wisconsin's premier occult bookstore. And a fringe benefit of the job is getting customers like Sebastian Von Traum - piercing brown eyes, a sexy accent, and a killer body. The only thing missing is an aura. Which means he's dead. And that means trouble - something Garnet's a sucker for....

Eighteen of the very best American short stories, each a classic in its own right. Stories include "The Little Frenchman and his Water Lots", by George Pope Morris; "The Angel of the Odd", by Edgar Allan Poe; "The Schoolmasters’s Progress", by Caroline M.S. Kirkland; "The Watkinson Evening", by Eliza Leslie; "Titbottom’s Spectacles", by George William Curtis; "My Double and "How He Undid Me", by Edward Everett Hale; "A Visit to the Asylum for Aged and Decayed Punsters", by Oliver Wendell; and more.