The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.)

Volume V of this landmark anthology captures American humor at its most irrepressible. Edited by the celebrated humorist Marshall P. Wilder, this collection gathers poems, short comic pieces, and satirical sketches that定義 an era when laughter was a national pastime. Here you'll find the manic energy of "The Marriage of Sir John Smith," the gentle absurdity of "The Spring Beauties," and dozens of other pieces that slice through the pretensions of early 20th-century life with knife-sharp wit. Wilder had an ear for the American voice in all its glory: boisterous, self-deprecating, and perpetually amused by its own eccentricities. This isn't humor that dates poorly it breathes with the same energy that made Mark Twain and O. Henry vital. For anyone who wonders what made Americans laugh before irony became the default mode, these pages offer an answer in verse and prose that still lands.