Free summaries
Humour — page 8
522 public-domain humour books, summarised. Page 8 of 11.
Just Irish
Charles Battell Loomis
A cheerful American tourist braves torrential downpours and unexpected rail mishaps, recording the warmth, sharp wit, and changing political landscape of turn-of-the-century Ireland with an affectionate, observational lens.
Look out for paint: A farce comedy in three acts
Cornelius Shea
A bustling, rural farce of mistaken identities and matrimonial schemes, this play captures the frantic comic energy of a country household turned upside down by city boarders and a clever ruse.
The Seaside Sibyl
Anonymous
This collection serves as both a whimsical parlor game and a brazen advertisement for nineteenth-century patent medicines, blending lighthearted fortune-telling verse with the hard-sell tactics of a chemist.
Cinderella Story
Allen Kim Lang
A secretary uncovers a bizarre conspiracy involving earmuffs, counterfeit bills, and a hidden race of alien arachnids beneath a seemingly mundane big-city bank.
Garrity's Annuities
David Mason
A space engineer devises a meticulous, cynical plan to secure his retirement by marrying a different woman on every planet he visits. He does not realize that his first wife has already turned his scheme into an elaborate trap.
In Honour Bound: An Original Play, in One Act.: (Suggested by Scribe's Five Act Comedy, "Une Chaine.")
Sydney Grundy
A high-stakes social comedy of errors, this play examines the suffocating weight of past mistakes and the quiet courage required to start anew.
Lively plays for live people
Thomas S. (Thomas Stewart) Denison
These lighthearted, fast-paced plays offer a window into the popular theatrical tastes of late 19th-century America, where farce and melodrama provided a lively escape for community performers and their audiences.
Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870
Various
This collection serves as a vibrant, satirical time capsule, capturing the restless wit and commercial energy of post-Civil War New York through a mix of burlesque serials, sharp political commentary, and period advertising.
A tin cup trophy
W. C. (Wilbur C.) Tuttle
A trio of hapless Montana cowboys volunteer to guide three urban women on a big-game hunt, only to find themselves ambushed by fake treasure maps, stray livestock, and an unexpected herd of domestic goats.
Con-Fen
James R. Adams
An invisible, bumbling pair of Martians descends upon Chicago for a holiday, blissfully unaware that their presence is only masked by the collective disbelief of the humans around them. Their vacation ends abruptly when they stumble into the middle of a science fiction convention.
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXX, No. 2, February 1847
Various
This collection offers a vibrant, eclectic snapshot of 19th-century American literary culture, blending serialized fiction, poetry, and social commentary into a single, polished monthly package.
Hold Onto Your Body!
Richard O. Lewis
The world is full of fragile vessels, and for those who know how to look, a human life is merely a temporary housing arrangement waiting for a new tenant.
The rogue waveform
R. W. (Ralph Walter) Stockheker
A professional wrestler famous for his villainous persona discovers that the secret to his success is a measurable, repulsive energy—until a meddling scientist accidentally turns him into the most beloved man on Earth. This swift, satirical farce explores the fragility of identity and the thin, vibrating line…
The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces
John Kendrick Bangs
A lighthearted collection of turn-of-the-century comedies, these plays offer a witty, satirical glimpse into the domestic anxieties and social posturing of the American middle class.
The Merry Devil of Edmonton
Unknown
A clever student uses magic and quick thinking to rescue a sweet pair of lovers from their fathers’ greedy marital plots in this lively Elizabethan comedy.
Polite Satires: Containing The Unknown Hand, The Volcanic Island, Square Pegs
Clifford Bax
A light-hearted triquetra of verse comedies, Clifford Bax’s collection plays upon the universal longing for another identity, another era, or a more dramatic version of oneself, only to return its heroines to the present with a smile.
A Hitch in Space
Fritz Leiber
In the lonely reaches of the Shaula system, a technician finds himself trapped outside his own ship while his partner’s deteriorating mind plays a dangerous game. This is a story of silent terror and the fragile architecture of the human psyche.
On Our Selection
Steele Rudd
A family clears a patch of wild Australian bush, building a life out of slab timber, dirt floors, and stubborn resolve.
Punch, or the London Charivari, January 5th, 1895
Various
A gentle satire on fin-de-siècle British life, this issue captures a changing society through playful verse, parliamentary parody, and theatrical critique.
Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 32, November 5, 1870
Various
This nineteenth-century American humor periodical delivers a sharp, theatrical snapshot of Reconstruction-era urban satire, blending parodies of popular literature with barbed commentary on Gilded Age society, politics, and press rivalries.
Two fares east
W. C. (Wilbur C.) Tuttle
The lawless Tumbling River range holds more secrets than its dusty trails suggest, and two drifters arrive just in time to untangle a web of greed and false accusations.
Unborn Tomorrow
Mack Reynolds
A hungover detective takes on a strange client, only to discover that the only thing a man can bring back from the future is an agonizingly compounded hangover.
Climate—disordered
Merwin, Sam, Jr.
A desperate resort promoter attempts to sabotage his town’s rival by weaponizing the weather, only to discover that market forces are far more ruthless than he anticipated. This sharp, ironic tale explores the unintended consequences of human interference in the natural world, presented as a cautionary fable of…
Marty the Martian
Arnold Marmor
A daring mission to capture an alien for a circus turns into a nightmare when human ambition meets an extraterrestrial trap. The hunter becomes the exhibit in this tale of cosmic irony.
Off Course
Mack Reynolds
The arrival of an interstellar visitor triggers a global frenzy of hope and anxiety, only for the world to discover that their savior is nothing more than a lost, bumbling cosmic tourist.
The Dashwoods
Steele Rudd
This lighthearted sequel follows a rural Australian family’s chaotic, eye-opening excursion into the "great metropolis," where their rustic sensibilities collide head-on with urban artifice, social pretension, and the absurdities of city life.
The Donkey, the Elephant, and the Goat at a Public Meeting
Jack Preston
The satire of the American two-party system is captured in this biting, rhyming playlet that strips the Donkey and the Elephant of their dignity, leaving them to bicker in the shadow of a persistent third-party challenger.
Security Plan
Joseph Farrell
A struggling inventor and his wife discover that their erratic time machine is a one-way street for visitors from a future plagued by runaway inflation and weird slang.
Alien
George O. (George Oliver) Smith
A Boston police lieutenant investigates a violent tavern disturbance involving a mysterious man whose head is covered not in hair, but in living feathers.
Do Unto Others
Mark Clifton
This story follows a cynical, observant man and his domineering aunt as they inadvertently trigger an interstellar misunderstanding through a misplaced sense of moral superiority. It explores the absurdity of imposing human values on the truly alien, suggesting that our most cherished virtues, when practiced…
A Court of Inquiry
Grace S. (Grace Smith) Richmond
A close-knit circle of friends navigates the complexities of courtship and character in this quiet, observational study of human connection. It explores how personal integrity shapes the bonds we form with those who matter most.
A Fine Day for Dying
John Martin
A disillusioned man purchases an engineered demise on an orbital space station, unaware his final journey hides a desperate interplanetary conspiracy.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, November 12, 1892
Various
A seaside resort in autumn becomes the backdrop for an awkward dance between a young woman evading her partner and a suitor outclassed by his own vanity.
Cosmic striptease
Harlan Ellison
The sky becomes a global screen when an advanced Martian civilization decides to broadcast their history to Earth, challenging the rigid social mores and clothing-obsessed culture of humanity. A television producer and his sharp-witted secretary find themselves at the center of this cosmic disruption.
Freudian Slip
Franklin Abel
When the physical world vanishes, a psychoanalyst is recruited by celestial bureaucrats to treat the amnesiac deity responsible for the Earth’s existence, leading to a race against a cosmic deadline.
General Bramble
André Maurois
Amid the mud and quiet absurdity of the Western Front, a young French interpreter sits among a staff of British officers who face war with gramophone records, rigid manners, and impenetrable calm.
Contigo Pan y Cebolla
Manuel Eduardo de Gorostiza
Love in a cottage is a romantic ideal, but reality is a different story. This lighthearted prose comedy examines the tension between youthful idealism and the practical burdens of domestic life.
Dumbwaiter
James Stamers
The illicit trade of extraterrestrial oddities hides more than just smuggled goods. A small, invisible creature from Antimony IX brings both wealth and ruin to a couple blinded by their own desires.
Mate in two moves
Winston K. (Winston Kinney) Marks
The world’s sudden descent into a global epidemic of uncontrollable romance leaves even the most rational scientists reeling. When a cold, career-obsessed pathologist discovers the viral cause of the hysteria, he must grapple with the fact that he is not immune to the very thing he seeks to cure.
Over the Plum Pudding
John Kendrick Bangs
A world where spectral visitors, identity mix-ups, and absurd tall tales disrupt the polite surface of turn-of-the-century life with gentle, satirical wit.
Physiology of the Opera
Scrici
The opera house is a mirror reflecting the vanities of high society, where the stage acts as a world unto itself and the audience performs just as much as the singers.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 152, April 4, 1917
Various
This archival edition captures the biting satire and resilient spirit of London during the darkest months of the First World War. It serves as both a historical record and a masterclass in resilient humor.
The Masques of Ottawa
Augustus Bridle
This collection of sketches captures the political theater of post-war Canada, profiling the figures who moved the levers of power in a nation struggling to define its own identity.
Advanced Chemistry
Jack G. Huekels
A scientist discovers an "immortal fluid" capable of reanimating the dead through electrical stimulation. This unsettling short story explores the thin line between scientific breakthrough and absolute catastrophe.
Direct Wire
Clee Garson
The phone rings in a shuttered betting parlor, but the line has been severed for hours. A spectral caller identifies himself as Gabriel, and he has a message for Hitler and Mussolini that demands immediate action.
Cupid's Fair-Weather Booke: Including an Almanack for Any Two Years (True Love Ought to Last That Long)
Oliver Herford
Love is a fickle climate, best navigated with a sense of humor and a reliable forecast. This whimsical guide treats the romantic life as a garden, offering seasonal wisdom for every stage of the heart.
Misrepresentative Women
Harry Graham
A collection of light, satirical verses that playfully lampoons the figures, social conventions, and literary affectations of the Edwardian era with a sharp, irreverent wit.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 109, August 10, 1895
Various
This volume is a quintessential specimen of late-Victorian culture, capturing the peculiar intersection of high-minded political discourse, absurdist wit, and the restless, globe-trotting anxiety of the 1890s.