page_title: Humorist
section_title: Britain and Ireland
hierarchical_section_title: Humorist / Notable humorists / Britain and Ireland
caption_attribution_description: English: Three quarter length portrait of Oscar Wilde(en) by Napoleon Sarony(en). 1 photographic print on card mount&#160;: albumen. Français&#160;: Portrait américain d'Oscar Wilde(fr) par Napoleon Sarony(fr). Photographie albumen sur carton.
context_page_description: A humorist or humourist is an intellectual who uses humor in writing or public speaking, but is not an artist who seeks only to elicit laughs. Humorists are distinct from comedians, who are show business entertainers whose business is to make an audience laugh. It is possible to play both roles in the course of a career.
context_section_description: Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) was an Irish poet and playwright known for his biting wit.
  Jerome K. Jerome (1859–1927) was an English writer and humorist, best known for the comic travelogue Three Men in a Boat.
  P. G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) was one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century.
  Alan Coren (1938–2007) could be considered the English equivalent of Bennett Cerf: a writer and satirist who was well known as a regular panelist on the BBC radio quiz The News Quiz and a team captain on BBC television's Call My Bluff. Coren was also a journalist, and for almost a decade was the editor of Punch magazine.
  Tom Sharpe (1928–2013) was a satirical novelist, best known for his Wilt series, as well as Porterhouse Blue and Blott on the Landscape.
  Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) was an author known for comic fantasy, most notably a series of 41 existentialist and political satire novels set in the Discworld universe. He was strongly influenced by Wodehouse, Sharpe, Jerome, Coren, and Twain.
caption: Oscar Wilde
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