My Wayward Pardner; or, My Trials with Josiah, America, the Widow Bump, and…

Samantha Allen is the most honest woman in America, and she'd never dream of saying anything improper. Luckily for us, her definition of 'improper' is delightfully elastic. In this riotous frontier narrative, our plucky narrator documents her life with that 'wayward pardner' Josiah, a man whose talent for getting into scrapes is matched only by Samantha's talent for getting herself into complications while trying to get him out of them. The Widow Bump looms over proceedings like a thundercloud in a bonnet, and America (Samantha's niece, naturally) provides endless opportunities for both moral instruction and mortifying misadventure. Written in Marietta Holley's gloriously deadpan dialect, this novel lets Samantha comment on marriage, society, and human folly with an innocence that's entirely feigned. She pretends to be a simple country woman puzzled by the world's ways; readers quickly realize she's the sharpest observer in the room. First published in 1886, it remains a marvel of American humor, a book that makes you laugh out loud on public transit and then wonder why more people haven't heard of Marietta Holley.