BEST AMERICAN HUMOROUS SHORT STORIES
ALEXANDER JESSUP




THE BEST AMERICAN HUMOROUS SHORT STORIES


_Edited by_ ALEXANDER JESSUP, _Editor of "Representative American
Short Stories," "The Book of the Short Story," the "Little French
Masterpieces" Series, etc._


INTRODUCTION

This volume does not aim to contain all "the best American humorous
short stories"; there are many other stories equally as good, I
suppose, in much the same vein, scattered through the range of
American literature. I have tried to keep a certain unity of aim and
impression in selecting these stories. In the first place I determined
that the pieces of brief fiction which I included must first of all be
not merely good stories, but good short stories. I put myself in the
position of one who was about to select the best short stories in the
whole range of American literature,[1] but who, just before he started
to do this, was notified that he must refrain from selecting any of
the best American short stories that did not contain the element of
humor to a marked degree. But I have kept in mind the wide boundaries
of the term humor, and also the fact that the humorous standard should
be kept second--although a close second--to the short story standard.

In view of the necessary limitations as to the volume's size, I could
not hope to represent all periods of American literature adequately,
nor was this necessary in order to give examples of the best that has
been done in the short story in a humorous vein in American
literature. Probably all types of the short story of humor are
included here, at any rate. Not only copyright restrictions but in a
measure my own opinion have combined to exclude anything by Joel
Chandler Harris--_Uncle Remus_--from the collection. Harris is
primarily--in his best work--a humorist, and only secondarily a short
story writer. As a humorist he is of the first rank; as a writer of
short stories his place is hardly so high. His humor is not mere
funniness and diversion; he is a humorist in the fundamental and large
sense, as are Cervantes, Rabelais, and Mark Twain.

No book is duller than a book of jokes, for what is refreshing in
small doses becomes nauseating when perused in large assignments.
Humor in literature is at its best not when served merely by itself
but when presented along with other ingredients of literary force in
order to give a wide representation of life. Therefore "professional
literary humorists," as they may be called, have not been much
considered in making up this collection. In the history of American
humor there are three names which stand out more prominently than all
others before Mark Twain, who, however, also belongs to a wider
classification: "Josh Billings" (Henry Wheeler Shaw, 1815-1885),
"Petroleum V. Nasby" (David Ross Locke, 1833-1888), and "Artemus Ward"
(Charles Farrar Browne, 1834-1867). In the history of American humor
these names rank high; in the field of American literature and the
American short story they do not rank so high. I have found nothing of
theirs that was first-class both as humor and as short story. Perhaps
just below these three should be mentioned George Horatio Derby
(1823-1861), author of _Phoenixiana_ (1855) and the _Squibob Papers_
(1859), who wrote under the name "John Phoenix." As has been justly
said, "Derby, Shaw, Locke and Browne carried to an extreme numerous
tricks already invented by earlier American humorists, particularly
the tricks of gigantic exaggeration and calm-faced mendacity, but they
are plainly in the main channel of American humor, which had its
origin in the first comments of settlers upon the conditions of the
frontier, long drew its principal inspiration from the differences
between that frontier and the more settled and compact regions of the
country, and reached its highest development in Mark Twain, in his
youth a child of the American frontier, admirer and imitator of Derby
and Browne, and eventually a man of the world and one of its greatest
humorists."[2] Nor have such later writers who were essentially
humorists as "Bill Nye" (Edgar Wilson Nye, 1850-1896) been considered,
because their work does not attain the literary standard and the short
story standard as creditably as it does the humorous one. When we come
to the close of the nineteenth century the work of such men as "Mr.
Dooley" (Finley Peter Dunne, 1867- ) and George Ade (1866- ) stands
out. But while these two writers successfully conform to the exacting
critical requirements of good humor and--especially the former--of
good literature, neither--though Ade more so--attains to the greatest
excellence of the short story. Mr. Dooley of the Archey Road is
essentially a wholesome and wide-poised humorous philosopher, and the
author of _Fables in Slang_ is chiefly a satirist, whether in fable,
play or what not.

This volume might well have started with something by Washington
Irving,