Encyclopedia of American Humorists

Author: Steven H. Gale
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317362276
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 578

Book Description
First published in 1988, this book contains entries on famous American Humorists. Humor has been present in American literature, from the beginning, and has developed characteristics that reflect the American character, both regional and national. Although American literature was, in the past, treated as inferior to British literature, there has always been a large popular audience for the genre, which this book shows. The figures with entries in this encyclopedia not only amuse in their writing, but also aim to enlighten- setting out to expose the foibles and foolishness of society and the individuals who compose it. It is the manner in which these authors try to accomplish this end that determines whether they appear in the volume. Indeed, the book will demonstrate that the best humor has at its base, a ready understanding of human nature.

Country Music Humorists and Comedians

Author: Loyal Jones
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252033698
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 450

Book Description
This volume is an encyclopedia of country music performers who have used comedy as a central component of their presentation. Loyal Jones offers a conversational and informative biographical sketch of each performer, often including a sample of the musician's humor, a recording history, and amusing anecdotal tidbits. In an entertaining style, Jones covers performers throughout the twentieth century, from such early stars of vaudeville and radio barn dances as the Skillet Lickers and the Weaver Brothers and Elviry, to regulars on Hee Haw and the Grand Old Opry, continuing to current comedians such as the Austin Lounge Lizards, Ray Stevens, and Jeff Foxworthy.

American Humorists

Author: Hugh Reginald Haweis
Publisher: London : Chatto and Windus
ISBN:
Category : American wit and humor
Languages : en
Pages : 234

Book Description

Humorists

Author: Paul Johnson
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062024868
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 260

Book Description
“It is Johnson’s gift that he can make his subjects human and fallible enough that we would…recognize them instantly, while also illuminating what made them heroes.” —Washington Post Book World on Heroes “Johnson is a clear, intelligent, forceful writer, and nothing if not thorough.” —Wall Street Journal Paul Johnson, the acclaimed author of Creators, Heroes, and the New York Times bestseller Intellectuals, returns with a captivating collection of biographical portraits of the Western world’s greatest wits and humorists. With chapters dedicated to history’s sharpest tongues and most piercing pens, including Benjamin Franklin, Toulouse-Lautrec, G.K. Chesterton, Damon Runyan, W.C. Fields, the Marx Brothers, and many more, Johnson’s Humorists is an exciting compendium of our most enduring comical and satirical innovators.

The American Press Humorists' Book

Author: Frank Thompson Searight
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : American wit and humor
Languages : en
Pages : 228

Book Description

Our American Humorists

Author: Thomas Lansing Masson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : American wit and humor
Languages : en
Pages : 596

Book Description

Mark Twain, American Humorist

Author: Tracy Wuster
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
ISBN: 0826274110
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 502

Book Description
Mark Twain, American Humorist examines the ways that Mark Twain’s reputation developed at home and abroad in the period between 1865 and 1882, years in which he went from a regional humorist to national and international fame. In the late 1860s, Mark Twain became the exemplar of a school of humor that was thought to be uniquely American. As he moved into more respectable venues in the 1870s, especially through the promotion of William Dean Howells in the Atlantic Monthly, Mark Twain muddied the hierarchical distinctions between class-appropriate leisure and burgeoning forms of mass entertainment, between uplifting humor and debased laughter, and between the literature of high culture and the passing whim of the merely popular.

Humorists

Author: Paul Johnson
Publisher: Harper
ISBN: 9780061825910
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
The author of the masterly volumes Intellectuals, Creators, and Heroes returns with a collection of biographical portraits of the greatest humorists and wits in history. In Intellectuals, Paul Johnson offered a fascinating portrait of the minds that have shaped the modern world. In Creators, he examined a host of outstanding and prolific creative spirits. And in Heroes, he brought together a galaxy of commanding figures from the annals of Western history. Now Johnson turns his impressive intellect and piercing insight to the finest wits of the Western world. His is a selective survey across history and includes a diverse cast of legendary humorists who got a grand kick out of life, including Benjamin Franklin and the Marx Brothers, Charles Dickens and Damon Runyon, W. C. Fields and Samuel Johnson, William Hogarth and James Thurber. Including darkest humor, broad satire, bawdy wit, biting sarcasm, and more, this entertaining and erudite collection showcases some of our sharpest minds reflecting on the human condition's follies, pretensions, and foibles with that greatest of gifts: humor.

101 Damnations

Author: Michael J. Rosen
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1429979917
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 358

Book Description
Dear flappable reader: Do you bristle at a handshake that resembles a limp fish? Do oblivious pedestrians bring you to the brink? What about museum gift shops, superfluous courtesy (do we need a gas pump to show us gratitude?), behemoth SUVS, or inexplicable operating manuals? Have you had it with screeching leaf blowers, beseeching telemarketers, escalating movie-ticket prices, or proliferating celebrity magazines? Is it children's choirs or karaoke singers, waiters bearing pepper grinders or dinner guests blathering on about salt, that drives you to distraction? For anyone who has recognized that this peaceful kingdom of ours has more than a few potholes, 101 Damnations is the perfect companion. It's your ticket to the nine circles of personal hell. Armed with wit, bewilderment, and words to the wise ass, today's leading humorists conduct a brief tour of the trivial and often universal exasperations we all must endure. Among the damning, Henry Alford reveals our wanton desire to affect Britishisms. Sandra Tsing Loh has it in for people who forward "funny" e-mails. Once and for all, Merrill Markoe sets forth cell phone etiquette. And there are many, many others. Ninety-eight to be exact. Make yourself comfortable. Misery loves company.

Encyclopedia of British Humorists

Author: Steven H. Gale
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 9780824059903
Category : English wit and humor
Languages : en
Pages : 690

Book Description
First Published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.