The Oxford Book of Humorous Prose: From William Caxton to P.G. Wodehouse
The last piece of subtitle data tells what this hefty book is all about. It is neither a reference book of the "treasury" or "thesaurus" type nor a true anthology. It is, rather, a leisurely stroll through various humorists of various nationalities writing in English: the standard (Dickens, Twain), the expected (Dorothy Parker, Benchley, Shaw), the unexpected (Walter Scott!; George Eliot!), the well-known (Waugh, Leacock, Amis), the unknown (Johnson I. Hooper?; Barry Crump?), the classic (Sterne, Samuel Johnson), and the modern (Erma Bombeck, Garrison Keillor). Selections are generally very short, with bridges, often fairly humorous of themselves, by Muir. The humor ranges from the broad to the subtle and, in fact, in any other way that humor might range; there's something in here for everyone. Buy for browsers.- Robert E. Brown, Onondaga Cty. P.L., Syracuse, N.Y.Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.