Satire
The Poetical Works of John Dryden
The first of two volumes of collected poetry by this revered and highly influential English restoration poet and playwright. The poems, many…
The Wit and Humor of America
The Wit and Humor of America is a delightful collection that showcases the rich tapestry of American wit through a variety of short stories …
Emma
Sherry reads Jane Austen’s sparkling comedy of manners with wit and vivacity, and brings the characters to life. Mr. Woodhouse worries and f…
Imaginotions
This is a collection of short stories by Tudor Jenks. Those stories are all written and composed in the way of a fairy tale, but they are no…
Tono-Bungay
Tono-Bungay is a realist semi-autobiographical novel. It is narrated by George Ponderevo, a science student who is drafted in to help with t…
A Bayard from Bengal
The estimable gentleman, Chunder Bindabun Bhosh, ESQ., B.A., travels from his native India to England, with his impeccable English and manne…
Gargantua and Pantagruel
The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel (in French, La vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel) is a connected series of five novels written in th…
Evelyn; or A Heart Unmasked
Evelyn is a two-volume novel told in an epistolary style – alternating between letters from the point of view of a trusted, unmarried female…
A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder
"A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder" is the most popular of James De Mille's works. It was serialized posthumously in…
The Imaginary Invalid
The Imaginary Invalid is a sharp and humorous three-act comédie-ballet by the renowned French playwright Molière. This satiric…
The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great
This novel is sometimes thought of as [Fielding's] first because he almost certainly began composing it before he wrote Shamela and Joseph A…
Damn! A Book of Calumny
Henry Louis "H. L." Mencken (1880 – 1956) was an American journalist, essayist, magazine editor, satirist, acerbic critic of Ameri…
And Even Now
This is a diverse collection of essays by English writer Max Beerbohm, whose circle included such notables as Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Sh…
Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent.
The Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent. (1824) is a compilation of eight humorous and observational letters written by American writer, Wash…
The Shaving of Shagpat
The Shaving of Shagpat is a whimsical oriental romance that weaves together humor and allegory in a style reminiscent of the Arabian Nights.…
In Brief Authority
Satiric comedy from 1915 about a nouveau riche British family and their nanny who get whisked off to Maerchenland ('the land of Fairy Tales'…
An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting
An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting was a conduct book written by Jane Collier and published in 1753. The Essay was Collier's firs…
The Westminster Alice
Published five years before John Kendrick Bangs had the same idea with Alice in Blunderland, Saki, in his 1902 series of satirical articles,…
Non-Combatants and Others
Through a variety of experiences of the effects of the First World War, an art student is drawn into pacifism. Rose Macaulay's satirical no…
The School for Husbands
In 1661 and 1662 Moliere presented the plays The School for Husbands (this one) and then The School for Wives. "The central situations …