The Best American Humorous Short Stories
Various
Edited by Alexander Jessup
This volume does not aim to contain all "the best American humorous short stories"; there are many other stories equally as good, I suppose, in much the same vein, scattered through the range of American literature. I have tried to keep a certain unity of aim and impression in selecting these stories. In the first place I determined that the pieces of brief fiction which I included must first of all be not merely good stories, but good short stories. I put myself in the position of one who was about to select the best short stories in the whole range of American literature, but who, just before he started to do this, was notified that he must refrain from selecting any of the best American short stories that did not contain the element of humor to a marked degree. But I have kept in mind the wide boundaries of the term humor, and also the fact that the humorous standard should be kept second—although a close second—to the short story standard.
In view of the necessary limitations as to the volume's size, I could not hope to represent all periods of American literature adequately, nor was this necessary in order to give examples of the best that has been done in the short story in a humorous vein in American literature. Probably all types of the short story of humor are included here, at any rate. Not only copyright restrictions but in a measure my own opinion have combined to exclude anything by Joel Chandler Harris—Uncle Remus—from the collection. Harris is primarily—in his best work—a humorist, and only secondarily a short story writer. As a humorist he is of the first rank; as a writer of short stories his place is hardly so high. His humor is not mere funniness and diversion; he is a humorist in the fundamental and large sense, as are Cervantes, Rabelais, and Mark Twain.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION Alexander Jessup
THE LITTLE FRENCHMAN AND HIS WATER LOTS (1839) George Pope Morris
THE ANGEL OF THE ODD (1844) Edgar Allan Poe
THE SCHOOLMASTER'S PROGRESS (1844) Caroline M.S. Kirkland
THE WATKINSON EVENING (1846) Eliza Leslie
TITBOTTOM'S SPECTACLES (1854) George William Curtis
MY DOUBLE; AND HOW HE UNDID ME (1859) Edward Everett Hale
A VISIT TO THE ASYLUM FOR AGED AND DECAYED PUNSTERS (1861) Oliver Wendell Holmes
THE CELEBRATED JUMPING FROG OF CALAVERAS COUNTY (1865) Mark Twain
ELDER BROWN'S BACKSLIDE (1885) Harry Stillwell Edwards
THE HOTEL EXPERIENCE OF MR. PINK FLUKER (1886) Richard Malcolm Johnston
THE NICE PEOPLE (1890) Henry Cuyler Bunner
THE BULLER-PODINGTON COMPACT (1897) Frank Richard Stockton
COLONEL STARBOTTLE FOR THE PLAINTIFF (1901) Bret Harte
THE DUPLICITY OF HARGRAVES (1902) O. Henry
BARGAIN DAY AT TUTT HOUSE (1905)
George Randolph Chester
A CALL (1906)
Grace MacGowan Cooke
HOW THE WIDOW WON THE DEACON (1911)
William James Lampton
GIDEON (1914)
Wells Hastings
