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First released in 1893, Coffee And Repartee is a collection of breakfast chats at a gentlemans boarding house run by a Mrs. Smithers. Here these fellows repeatedly face questions and proclaimations of an inhabitant they call The Idiot. The discussions sound friendly under pretense, but are really sly battles of ribald wit and cunning charm, as well as rather offensive remarks during a time period considered by many to favour a height of refined etiquette. The Idiot spars well, but will the other residents get the better of him? (Summary by Morlock)...

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Fiction, Humor

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volunteers bring you 14 recordings of Retort by Paul Laurence Dunbar. This was the weekly poetry project for August 23rd, 2009.

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Poetry, Humor

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...Showing Curious ways in which the English Language may be made to convey Ideas or obscure them. A collection of unintentionally humorous uses of the English language. Sections of the work: How she is wrote by the Inaccurate, By Advertisers and on Sign-boards, For Epitaphs, By Correspondents, By the Effusive, How she can be oddly wrote, and By the Untutored. (Summary by TriciaG)...

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Humor, Languages

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A wickedly funny book of advice on women's dress. However old, fat or plain you are, Dorothy Quigley will tell you what not to wear. (Summary by Ruth Golding)...

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Advice, Humor

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This is a collection of 12 short stories of mystery and humor, which are, as the title says, for amusement only. (Summary by Carolin)

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Humor, Mystery

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Albert Bigelow Paine was Samuel Langhorne Clemens' (Mark Twain's) biographer. He lived with Twain, collecting ideas and material for a biography, for a few years before Twain's death in 1910. Six years later Paine published this story of a man who made the world laugh and love him. For those who have read or listened to Mark Twain's works, Paine's work is an invaluable resource to better understand Twain, the stories behind his stories and his life with those he loved and with whom he worked. (Summary by John Greenman)...

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Biography, Humor

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volunteers bring you 17 recordings of The Fiddler of Dooney by William Butler Yeats. This was the Weekly Poetry project for December 4th 2011 William Butler Yeats was a notable Irish poet and playwright. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923. The Fiddler of Dooney first appeared in Yeats' 1899 book of poetry 'The Wind Among the Reeds`. (Summary by Lucy Perry)...

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Fiction, Humor, Music, Religion, Poetry

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volunteers bring you 10 recordings of In these days . . . by Ebenezer Elliott. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for May 23rd, 2010.

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Humor, Satire, Poetry

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The Idiot is anything but, yet his fellow boarders at Mrs. Smithers-Pedagog’s home for single gentlemen see him as such. His brand of creative thought is dismissed as foolishness yet it continues to get under their skin, because when you’re beneath contempt you can say what you please. – This is the first of John Kendrick Bang’s “Idiot” books and was published by Harper and Brothers in 1895. (Summary by Gregg Margarite)...

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Humor, Satire, Comedy

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’s Short Story Collection 043: a collection of 20 short works of fiction in the public domain read by a group of members.

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Short stories, Humor

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The Hunting of the Snark is a long nonsense poem by Lewis Carroll describing the adventures of ten weirdly assorted characters as they pursue an elusive creature known as a snark. (Summary by Shawn Craig Smith)...

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Poetry, Humor

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Bored with his life as a wealthy businessman's only son, Travers Gladwin learns of a plot by a renowned art burglar to rob his house, so rather than thwart the planned burglary, he borrows a police uniform from a friend and decides to confront the robber by posing as an officer. When the burglar arrives at the house, he tries to pass himself off as Travers Gladwin. From there, things only get more complicated, including the arrival of the burglar's girlfriend who believes that her beau is the wealthy man's son. Comical and timely, the book was made into a movie multiple times, each hugely successful. (Summary by Roger Melin)...

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Fiction, Humor, Mystery

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Sigge Strömberg, född som Sigfrid Strömberg 22 december 1885 i Göteborg, död 3 mars 1920, svensk författare och journalist. Strömberg praktiserade på en tidning i Minneapolis 1904-1905. Han återkom till Sverige och var verksam inom landsortspressen. Han arbetade 1910-1913 på den nystartade Vecko-Journalen, och 1914-1920 var han chefredaktör för Allt för Alla. Kort före sin död åtog sig han chefskapet för skämttidningen Kasper. Som författare skrev Strömberg huvudsakligen äventyrsberättelser samt pojkböcker. ”Göteborgsflickor och andra historier” är en samling korta kåserier där de flesta handlar om hur kvinnans list övergår mannens förstånd, eller att girighet sällan lönar sig. (Wikipedia) (Summary by Wikipedia & Lars Rolander)...

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Humor, Short stories

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volunteers bring you 14 recordings of The Flatting-Mill by William Cowper. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for May 1, 2011. William Cowper (pronounced Cooper)was an English poet and hymnodist. One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper changed the direction of 18th century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and scenes of the English countryside. In many ways, he was one of the forerunners of Romantic poetry. Samuel Taylor Coleridge called him the best modern poet, whilst William Wordsworth particularly admired his poem Yardley-Oak. He was a nephew of the poet Judith Madan. (summary from Wikipedia)...

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Advice, Humor, Instruction, Satire, Poetry

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This collection of 63 writings by Mark Twain was published in 1875. Among other sketches, it contains The Jumping Frog in the original English, followed by a French translation (read here by Caroline Mittler) which Twain re-translated into English, showing how the French translation of his work was badly flawed. In many of these sketches, Twain shows his talent for outrageous and hilarious inventiveness, often in reaction to current events. (Summary by John Greenman)...

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Short stories, Humor

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Der Bär ist ein Theaterstück in einem Akt von Anton Tschechow, von ihm selbst als Scherz bezeichnet. Jeléna Iwánowna Popówa ist eine verwitwete Gutsbesitzerin, die noch immer um ihren Mann trauert. Als Grigóri Stepánowitsch Smirnóff in ihrem Hause auftaucht und eine alte Schuld ihres Mannes eintreiben möchte, ergeben sich Spannungen zwischen den beiden, die in einem ungewöhnlichen Finale gipfeln. (Zusammenfassung von Availle)...

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Comedy, Humor, Literature, Play

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Born in 1862 and died in 1910, O. Henry’s birth name is William Sydney Porter; however, he adopted the pen name O. Henry while in prison. He published 10 collections and over 600 short stories during his lifetime. The Trimmed Lamp follows /the-four-million-by-o-henry/ The Four Million and provides another series of short stories that take place in New York City in the early years of the 20th century and are representative of the surprise endings that popularized O. Henry’s work. They also capture his use of coincidence or chance to create humor in the story. O Henry wrote about ordinary people in everyday circumstances. He is quoted as once saying, “There are stories in everything. I’ve got some of my best yarns from park benches, lampposts and newspaper stands.”I hope you enjoy the following readings as much as I enjoyed recording them.(Summary by Marian Brown)...

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Short stories, Humor

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Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb (June 23, 1876–March 11, 1944) was an American author, humorist, and columnist who lived in New York and wrote over 60 books and 300 short stories. Cobb has been described as having a round shape, bushy eyebrows, full lips, and a triple chin. He always had a cigar in his mouth. This book is a hilarious account of Cobb's attempts at weight-loss. (Summary from wikipedia)...

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Humor, Advice

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volunteers bring you 16 recordings of A Ruined Reversolet by C. J. Dennis. This was the Weekly Poetry project for October 28, 2012. Clarence James Dennis was an Australian poet and journalist. In his varied career, he worked as a barman, shearer, solicitor's clerk, newspaper proprietor and (as do many Australians) a civil servant, before settling down in a rural retreat at Toolangi, in the Dandenong Ranges, east of Melbourne. His most famous work is The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke, a verse novel written in an Australian vernacular and first published in 1915. Despite its artless presentation, Dennis' verse is constructed with great skill, and attracted enthusiastic reviews from such august critics as H.G. Wells. E.V. Lucas and Sir John Betjeman. Dennis' significance as a literary figure has been recognized by the establishment of C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry, which is awarded annually as part of the Premier's Literary Awards for the state of Victoria....

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Humor, Poetry, Nature

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This comic novel relates the first-person adventures in New York City of Jefferson Poindexter, personal assistant to Cobb's famous Judge Priest, while the judge is vacationing abroad. (Introduction by Grant Hurlock)...

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Fiction, Humor