Humorous Stories and Sketches

"Humorous Stories and Sketches," be Mark Twain, brings together 8 comic gems by this giant of American literature. At around 80 pages this Dover edition may be small in size, but it's big in laughs and wit.The 8 pieces are "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," "Journalism in Tennessee," "About Barbers," "A Literary Nightmare," "The Stolen White Elephant," "The Private History of a Campaign that Failed," "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses," and "How to Tell a Story." Twain satirizes gamblers, journalists, police detectives, international diplomacy, the military, and other things.Particularly effective is the Civil War narrative "The Private History"; it's funny and bitingly satirical, but also surprisingly poignant as Twain reflects on the brutality of war. For laugh-out-loud funny, however, the elephant story is my favorite. A perfect book both for literature courses or just for individual pleasure reading.