Library of Humor

by Mark Twain, E.W. Kemble (Illustrator), Katherine Martin (Editor)

Beginning with the piece that made Mark Twain famous--"The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County"--and ending with his fanciful "How I Edited an Agricultural Paper," this treasure trove of an anthology, an abridgment of the 1888 original, collects twenty of Twain's own pieces, in addition to tall tales, fables, and satires by forty-three of Twain's contemporaries, including Washington Irving, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ambrose Bierce, William Dean Howells, Joel Chandler Harris, Artemus Ward, and Bret Harte.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Genres: Humor, Fiction, Short Stories, Classics, Comedy

608 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1888

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Faulkner calling him "the father of American literature." His novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), with the latter often called the "Great American Novel." Twain also wrote A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) and Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894), and co-wrote The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) with Charles Dudley Warner.

Reviews

[Cindy B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clean humor and wit, very welcome in these times. And I had a few smiles and a laugh or two. Narrator was not reading, he seemed to be experiencing, with a spirit of fun, enhanced the listening experience.

[Al · Rating 5 out of 5]

The edition with Steve Martin's and Roy Blount's introductions is great. It includes Twain's posthumous assessment of the writers who had by then become obscure as "mere humorists" and his note that humor of the mere quality cannot survive forever which he says he means about 30 years. Also his notion that humor is a sort of fragrance that flavors the preaching he confessed he always was up to, and that it depends on such strange strategms as purposeful misspellings or misapprehensions of words. Note Martin's use of "that damn Helen Mirren" in the academy awards presentation, or the notion of "clothes whores" in Hollywood. "Dame" Alec Baldwin says. "Horses" he says later, to which Martin replies, "Horses isn't the plural of whores." Preaching! At least the last one.

[kazure007 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another book I picked up at a garage sale. I got this one about four years ago and haven't gotten through it all yet. It contains several authors including Mark Twain of course, and Ambrose Bierce, William Alden, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Washington Irving and several other humorists of the time. It's a neat book. I love some of the language used and phraseology. . .it's a riot. Fun and light and entertaining. I just pick it up and read from it when I'm in the mood so haven't read it cover to cover yet.

[Randy · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a mixed bag. Some were actually VERY funny. Some had no point and were obvious beyond possibility (perhaps they have been copied so much since 1888 (!!!) that they have become uninteresting). Some were dated to the point of obscurity. And two were so interesting I listened to them 4-5 times each to discover new nuances and meaning that were completely lost to me the first times.
In summary: this is worth the extremely quick read just to be reminded of the different culture and values in our country 120 years ago.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up a copy of this book because I had never read any of Mark Twain's humor. This volume had several essays written by Twain and then many others of his contemporaries. I did not enjoy the essays as much as I thought I would, at least in part because some of his humor hasn't aged particularly well.

[Shana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is probably my favorite collection of short stories. The various speech patterns used by the contributing authors remind me of the depths, variety and beauty of working class speech.

[Frank Schofield · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great stories by MT and others.. Must read.

[Sylvain · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is an anthology of short stories compiled by Mark Twain. To appreciate this book, you need to immerse yourself into the period as life was wholly different than it is now. Many stories fall flat without the necessary context. As human nature does not change, this book is definitely interesting and worth reading, albeit it may only appeal to a niche audience of readers.

[Mayor McCheese · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title is not entirely accurate. It is a library of sorts, but the humor is lacking. This is a collection of short pieces of contemporaries mainly of Twain. We are told that Twain liked or would have liked these pieces and so on. We are at first exposed to an unfortunate opening from the comedian Steve Martin who himself is humorless and not qualified for the position he claims to hold of editor or reviewer of this collection. There's a reason we remember Twain and not his contemporaries -- because he was a better writer and his humor was mostly funny. A lot of this are just newspaper snippets or the types of things you'd cut & paste from a school newsletter of the Davis County Clipper. It certainly gives you a sense of what people used to think was funny.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Got this while touring the Mark Twain house in Hartford, CT in Sept. Twain is by far the best humor writer (still!) in this collection, though there are great surprises sprinkled throughout. Also has classics like "Rip Van Winkle" and Brer Rabbit stories. I realized that I have no patience for reading the essays written in colloquial style ("...Brer Rabbit wer puttin' on his spurrers, en w'en dey got..."). Twain is awesome, though.

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not understand most of this book, but it was interesting to try to figure out what parts were supposed to be humorous. I liked Lectures on Astronomy by John Phoenix, I wasn't sure what was believed to be fact at the time or if he was just making stuff up...apparently there were 18 planets in the solar system at the time of printing.

[Fleur · Rating 3 out of 5]

Got this book as a present and I must say I enjoy reading passages every now and then. Although some bits are better than other.
My favourite so far: the poem "Nothing to wear". Hilarious!