Free summaries
Humour — page 2
265 public-domain humour books, summarised. Page 2 of 6.
The Pirates of Ersatz
Murray Leinster
An ambitious young electronic engineer uses cleverness, stolen tech, and opportunistic piracy to outwit feudal lords and galactic authorities.
The New Book of Nonsense: Contribution to the Great Central Fair in Aid of the Sanitary Commission
Anonymous
The absurdities of the human condition are captured here in a collection of verse that laughs at the eccentric, the vain, and the foolish. These glimpses of Victorian whimsy serve as a mirror for a society navigating the turbulence of a nation divided by war.
Law and Laughter
George A. (George Alexander) Morton
The courtroom is rarely viewed as a theater of comedy, yet beneath the heavy robes and rigid statutes of the law, human absurdity frequently takes center stage. This collection offers a glimpse into that tradition of professional levity.
Cornish Saints & Sinners
J. Henry Harris
Three friends trade the bustle of London for the rugged charm of the Cornish coast, discovering a land where ancient folklore and local character hold more truth than any library.
Wit, Character, Folklore & Customs of the North Riding of Yorkshire: With a Glossary of over 4,000 Words and Idioms Now in Use
Richard Blakeborough
This collection captures the vanishing spirit of the North Riding, preserving the unique vernacular and social rhythms of a people deeply rooted in their landscape. It serves as a comprehensive bridge to a bygone era of rural Yorkshire life.
Behind the Beyond, and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge
Stephen Leacock
This collection of sketches and parodies offers a sharp, witty lens into the absurdities of early 20th-century life, from the pretenses of high-society theater to the frustrations of modern commerce.
The humour of Ireland
Unknown
This collection offers a spirited, sprawling treasury of Irish wit, ranging from the absurdity of folk tales and ballads to the biting satire of nineteenth-century literature. It captures the distinct, resilient character of a nation defined by its language and its laughter.
Imperfectly Proper
Peter Donovan
A witty Canadian essayist skewers the pretensions of the early 20th century.
Further Foolishness
Stephen Leacock
A collection of satirical sketches that mocks the frantic trends, literary clichés, and social pretensions of the early twentieth century. It offers a sharp-witted mirror to a world obsessed with brevity, celebrity, and performative seriousness.
The Book of Noodles: Stories of Simpletons
W. A. (William Alexander) Clouston
Across centuries and continents, these tales of blunderers and simpletons reveal how human absurdity remains a constant, shared language of laughter.
Nature and Human Nature
Thomas Chandler Haliburton
A sharp-witted Yankee clockmaker sails the coast of Nova Scotia, observing the quirks of his fellow travelers and the stubborn realities of human nature. This observant wanderer navigates both the physical waters and the complex currents of the heart with a blend of dry humor and practical wisdom.
The Slim Princess
George Ade
A young woman’s struggle against the stifling traditions of her homeland takes a turn for the absurd when she discovers that the very trait she is mocked for—her slimness—is the key to her ultimate liberation. A spirited comedy of errors, this tale pits the rigid customs of a fictionalized East against the…
Handy Andy: A Tale of Irish Life. Volume 2
Samuel Lover
Mistaken identities, subterranean hideouts, and furious feuds drive this sprawling comedic tale of nineteenth-century Irish society.
A Satire Anthology
Unknown
A razor-sharp edge cuts through centuries of pretension, exposing the timeless absurdities of human vanity, greed, and cultural folly.
Moonbeams from the Larger Lunacy
Stephen Leacock
A gentle satirical lens transforms everyday human absurdities and the overblown conventions of early twentieth-century life into a quiet, enduring delight.
Saunterings in and about London
Max Schlesinger
An observant foreigner strolls through Victorian London, capturing the relentless pulse of its streets, its political grandiosity, and the quirky habits of its people.
Mr. Punch's Railway Book
Unknown
A chaotic iron track stretches across Victorian Britain, binding highborn snobs, nervous commuters, and pugilistic strangers in shared, noisy, and perpetually delayed compartments.
Scotch Wit and Humor
W. H. (Walter Henry) Howe
A dry, sharp humor quieted by earnestness and thrift runs straight through these short sketches, proving that a serious people still hold an abundance of point, playfulness, and shrewd wit.
Sam
E. J. Rath
A wealthy heiress, stranded on an island in the St. Lawrence River, accepts a ride from a questionable local boatman and finds herself drawn into a web of stolen jewels, false identities, and unexpected romance.
King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays
Floyd Dell
The bohemian heart of early twentieth-century New York pulses through these brief, sharp-witted stage experiments, capturing a moment when the boundaries of love and convention were being vigorously redrawn. They are sophisticated, playful, and relentlessly candid meditations on the fragility of human connection.
The Eternal Feminine
Carolyn Wells
A lighthearted collection of satirical sketches, this work captures the frantic, fashion-obsessed, and delightfully scatterbrained social life of early 20th-century American women. It offers a comedic lens on the gendered expectations of the era.
Abroad with the Jimmies
Lilian Bell
This chronicle of a grand tour through Europe and Russia captures the breezy, opinionated spirit of an American woman traveling with her sister and a charming married couple, the "Jimmies." It is a lighthearted travelogue that prioritizes personality over itinerary.
The Monikins
James Fenimore Cooper
A wealthy Englishman journeys to the poles and discovers a hidden society of tail-bearing monkeys whose absurd political habits mirror the vanities, legalisms, and hypocrisies of human civilization.
The Invisible Lodge
Jean Paul
The world is an unfinished romance where every life is merely a knot waiting for a resolution beyond the grave. This sprawling, idiosyncratic novel captures the fragile, shifting architecture of human connection through a lens of profound melancholy and whimsical satire.
The humour of Spain
Unknown
A vast, centuries-spanning collection of wit, this anthology gathers the sharpest voices of the Iberian Peninsula to reveal how a people found laughter in the face of pride, poverty, and the absurd.
The Sin of Monsieur Pettipon, and other humorous tales
Richard Edward Connell
A collection of sharp, rhythmic stories that find the absurdity in ordinary life, where the stakes are rarely life-and-death but always feel like it to the characters involved.
An Alphabet of History
Wilbur D. (Wilbur Dick) Nesbit
A lighthearted collection of satirical verse revisits twenty-six iconic figures, turning grand historical narratives into breezy, light-hearted rhymes that gently mock human ambition.
Great Catherine (Whom Glory Still Adores)
Bernard Shaw
A young English officer stumbles into the Russian imperial court, where a tyrannical, wine-soaked prince and a formidable empress treat geopolitical influence, diplomatic flirtation, and human dignity as mere playthings for their amusement.
'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts
Spokeshave
In blank verse and political satire, a newly appointed administration arrives in Manila to implement self-governance, only to stumble over party patronage, local intrigue, and their own immense vanity.
Fables of John Gay (Somewhat Altered)
John Gay
A playful, instruction-laden niece inspires her uncle to adapt classical fables into a lively collection of verse that skewers human vanity, political corruption, and social pretense through the sharp dialogue of animals and allegorical figures.
Anguish Languish
Howard L. Chace
A masterclass in linguistic play, this collection reimagines classic tales and rhymes through the phonetic equivalent of a funhouse mirror, forcing the reader to hear the familiar with entirely new ears.
Doña Clarines y Mañana de Sol
Serafín Álvarez Quintero
These two plays capture the quiet dramas of Spanish life, finding profound emotional truth in the everyday encounters of ordinary people.
Greybeards at Play: Literature and Art for Old Gentlemen
G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton
This whimsical collection of light verse and nonsense invites readers to abandon the earnest, joyless responsibilities of adulthood and reclaim the simple, imaginative play of childhood. It celebrates the wisdom found in being absurdly, delightfully young at heart.
The Clockmaker
Thomas Chandler Haliburton
A wandering peddler peddles wooden clocks and homespun wisdom, using sharp-tongued satire to provoke his lethargic neighbors into industry and self-improvement.
Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich
Stephen Leacock
This satirical cycle of interconnected stories portrays the absurd, insulated world of the ultra-wealthy, where the pursuit of profit transforms every human endeavor into a business transaction. It serves as a sharp, enduring critique of how concentrated capital shapes the social and moral fabric of a modern city.
The Day of Days: An Extravaganza
Louis Joseph Vance
A daydreaming clerk suddenly finds his humdrum existence upended when a single, extraordinary day propels him into a high-stakes world of romance, violence, and criminal intrigue.
Attention Saint Patrick
Murray Leinster
On the planet Eire, a struggling colony of Irish emigrants survives by employing black snakes to hunt iron-eating miniature dinosaurs. When a powerful inspector from Earth arrives to investigate, the colonists must preserve their secret or face total abandonment.
How to Solve Conundrums: Containing All the Leading Conundrums of the Day, Amusing Riddles, Curious Catches, and Witty Sayings
Anonymous
Riddles serve as the brain’s playground, transforming everyday objects and common words into clever, shifting puzzles that invite the reader to untangle their hidden meanings.
The Hohenzollerns in America: With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and Other Impossibilities
Stephen Leacock
A satirical collection of sketches, this work finds absurdity in the wreckage of the First World War and the pretensions of modern life. It turns global upheaval into a series of pointed, ironic vignettes.
Nights with the Gods
Emil Reich
Ancient Greek gods and philosophers gather on the heights above Florence to analyze the absurdities, industrial specialization, and social hypocrisies of turn-of-the-century English civilization.
The stainless steel rat
Harry Harrison
A master thief finds his perfect match in a brilliant, beautiful, and equally dangerous criminal. Their high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse turns into a complex dance of morality, identity, and unexpected professional partnership.
How to tell the Birds from the Flowers, and other Wood-cuts: A Revised Manual of Flornithology for Beginners
Robert Williams Wood
A playful guide to confusing creatures and plants that uses lighthearted verse and puns to untangle the absurdities of natural history.
Two Thousand Miles on an Automobile: Being a Desultory Narrative of a Trip Through New England, New York, Canada, and the West, By "Chauffeur"
Arthur Jerome Eddy
An early motorist sets off across the rutted, unpaved roads of turn-of-the-century America, discovering that the real adventure lies less in mechanical precision than in unpredictable human encounters.
Nothing to Eat
Alger, Horatio, Jr.
A wealthy New York woman sits down to a lavish multi-course feast and spends the entire two hours complaining that she has nothing to eat.
Castles in the Air
Orczy, Emmuska Orczy, Baroness
An incorrigible rogue recounts his Parisian adventures as a self-styled secret agent, dodging convicts, duping clients, and stumbling into unexpected domestic bliss.
A Little Tour in Ireland
S. Reynolds (Samuel Reynolds) Hole
An English traveler explores mid-nineteenth-century Ireland, turning a summer holiday into a warm, humorous portrait of landscapes, people, and changing times.
Culture's garland
Eugene Field
A satirical pulse beats through this sharp portrait of Gilded Age ambition, where Midwestern pork barons and local intellectuals clash over the true meaning of refinement.
The Ladies Delight
Anonymous
An elaborate eighteenth-century botanical parody uses double entendre to turn sexual anatomy, social scandal, and London night-life into a ribald satirical guide.