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    Humorous Fiction

     


    05/08/2024
    Monachomachia czyli wojna mnichów cover

    Monachomachia czyli wojna mnichów

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    Monachomachia, czyli Wojna mnichów to poemat heroikomiczny autorstwa Ignacego Krasickiego wydany po raz pierwszy anonimowo w 1778. Jego tematem jest walka pomiędzy mnichami, a przedstawienie sporu mnichów w utworze naznaczone jest groteskowym humorem. Jednocześnie Monachomachia jest ostrą satyrą, krytyką ukrytą pod kostiumem zabawnych postaci. (Źródło: Wikipedia) Monachomachia, the War of the monks (from Gr. Monachos – monk, Machia – the fight) is a mock-heroic poem by Ignatius Krasicki first published anonymously in 1778.     [chương_files]  

    01/08/2024
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    Mirror Of Kong Ho

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    This 1905 tongue-in-cheek book is ostensibly the letters of a dutiful son to his Chinese father describing his encounter with and experience of Western civilization in late nineteenth century London. The author is delightfully humorous. – Summary by david wales     [chương_files]  

    31/07/2024
    Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son cover

    Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son

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    Being the Letters written by John Graham, Head of the House of Graham & Company, Pork-Packers in Chicago, familiarly known on ‘Change as “Old Gorgon Graham,” to his Son, Pierrepont, facetiously known to his intimates as “Piggy.” George Horace Lorimer was an American journalist and author. He is best known as the editor of The Saturday Evening Post.     [chương_files]  

    30/07/2024
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    Lady Susan

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    Jane Austen demonstrated her mastery of the epistolary novel genre in Lady Susan, which she wrote in 1795 but never published. Although the primary focus of this short novel is the selfish behavior of Lady Susan as she engages in affairs and searches for suitable husbands for herself and her young daughter, the actual action shares its importance with Austen’s manipulation of her characters’ behavior by means of their reactions to the letters that they receive. The heroine adds additional interest by altering the tone of her own letters based on the recipient of the letter. Thus, the character of Lady Susan is developed through many branches as Austen suggests complications of identity and the way in which that identity is based on interaction rather than on solitary constructions of personality. Lady Susan’s character is also built by the descriptions of the other letter-writers; but even though their opinions of this heroine coincide with the image that develops from her own letters, Austen demonstrates the subjectivity of the opinions by presenting them – primarily – in the letters of one woman to another, thereby suggesting the established literary motifs of feminine gossip and jealousy. Readers recognize these subjective motifs and examine all of the idiosyncrasies of the characters in order to create their own opinion of Lady Susan – as they would of any real acquaintance. (Summary from Wikipedia) Cast: Lady Susan Vernon – Kristin Hughes Mrs. Vernon – rachelellen Mr. De Courcy – Patrick Beverley Mrs. Johnson – Kirsten […]

    30/07/2024
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    Dere Mable

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    Bill is in training camp, preparing to go off to World War I. This book is a collection of love letters written to his sweetheart, Mable. The letters are humorous, mis-spelled, and have many stories of life in an army camp – all from Bill’s unique perspective. (summary by Rob Kunkel)     [chương_files]  

    08/07/2024
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    Once A Week (Version 2)

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    Once A Week is a collection of short stories and slightly longer vignettes which were written for Milne’s solid British Audience, including regular readers of Punch — between1903, when he graduated from Cambridge and 1906, when he began also to edit Punch, on and through to 1909. They are humorous verses, essays and stories with what he deemed a peculiarly British flavor, focusing on the antics and adventures of a small recurring group of friends and acquaintances. The breadth of Milne’s oeuvre is illustrated by his publication, in the mean time, of 18 plays, 3 novels, collections of children’s poems, screen plays for popular British films, and a (pretty good) detective story. — among other things. (Summary by Kirsten Wever)     [chương_files]  

    07/07/2024
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    Sunny Side (Version 2)

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    A. A. Milne is best known for his creation of the perennially popular Winnie the Pooh, though he was and is highly acclaimed for hundreds of gently humorous essays and poems published in, among other famous venues, Punch Magazine, most of which have been collected and published as books. The Sunny Side is his last collection of articles and verses because, as he wrote in the American Introduction to the volume, “this sort of writing depends largely upon the irresponsibility and high spirits of youth for its success, and I want to stop before …the high spirits become mechanical …” He called this assortment “scrappy, because, “…Odd Verses have crept in on the unanswerable plea that, if they didn’t do it now, they never would; War Sketches protested that I shouldn’t have a book at all if I left them out; an Early Article, omitted from three previous volumes, paraded for the fourth time with such a pathetic ‘I suppose you don’t want me’ in its eye that it could not decently be rejected.” He concludes: “So here they all are.” Summary by Kirsten Wever     [chương_files]  

    07/07/2024
    Not That it Matters (Version 2) cover

    Not That it Matters (Version 2)

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    A. A. MILNE: …was best known for the perennially popular Pooh (Winnie the), arguably one of his lesser contributions to the literature of his day. He was highly acclaimed for dozens of popular plays. Moreover, he was both a contributor to and editor of Britain’s famous Punch Magazine; and for Punch, The Atlantic Monthly and dozens of other internationally acclaimed journals he wrote hundreds of essay, sketches and poems. THE WORLD WARS: Milne argued aggressively against the many enemy atrocities characterizing both World Wars, and also fought in both. All four years of the Great War he spent primarily in the trenches, sustaining the greatest dangers of the new warfare at close range. His war experiences are forcibly captured in some of the poems in this collection and others. INFLUENCE ON THE STYLE OF BRITISH HUMOR: His immense popularity doubtless helped influenced the very basis of British wit and humor: His gentle, often self-deprecatory but always kind style of humor lured readers and publishers away from the more ironic, cynical, and acerbic humorous works of recent decades. – Summary by Kirsten Wever     [chương_files]  

    04/07/2024
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    Bab Ballads

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    The Bab Ballads are a collection of light verse by W. S. Gilbert, illustrated with his own comic drawings. Gilbert wrote the Ballads before he became famous for his comic opera librettos with Arthur Sullivan. In writing the Bab Ballads, Gilbert developed his unique “topsy-turvy” style, where the humour was derived by setting up a ridiculous premise and working out its logical consequences, however absurd. The Ballads also reveal Gilbert’s cynical and satirical approach to humour. They became famous on their own, as well as being a source for plot elements, characters and songs that Gilbert would recycle in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. The Bab Ballads take their name from Gilbert’s childhood nickname, and he later began to sign his illustrations “Bab”. (summary from Wikipedia) e-text with illustrations     [chương_files]  

    03/07/2024
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    Europe and Elsewhere

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    This collection of articles came from Mark Twain’s travels and experiences abroad. While many had been previously published, there also were many that had never before seen the light of day…which one reviewer said had never been Twain’s intent for them, having consigned them to obscurity. With introductory essays by Brander Matthews and Albert Bigelow Paine, the book paints a clear picture of the complexity and wide variety of Samuel L. Clemens’ thinking, where it originated and how it developed.     [chương_files]