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 humorousshort stories”; there are many other stories equally as good, Isuppose, in much the same vein, scattered through the range ofAmerican literature. I have tried to keep a certain unity of aim andimpression in selecting these stories. In the first place I determinedthat the pieces of brief fiction which I included must first of all benot merely good stories, but good short stories. I put myself in theposition of one who was about to select the best short stories in thewhole range of American literature,[1] but who, just before he startedto do this, was notified that he must refrain from selecting any ofthe best American short stories that did not contain the element ofhumor to a marked degree. But I have kept in mind the wide boundariesof the term humor, and also the fact that the humorous standard shouldbe kept second—although a close second—to the short story standard.
In view of the necessary limitations as to the volume’s size, I couldnot hope to represent all periods of American literature adequately,nor was this necessary in order to give examples of the best that hasbeen done in the short story in a humorous vein in Americanliterature. Probably all types of the short story of humor areincluded here, at any rate. Not only copyright restrictions but in ameasure my own opinion have combined to exclude anything by JoelChandler Harris—Uncle Remus—from the collection. Harris isprimarily—in his best work—a humorist, and only secondarily a shortstory writer. As a humorist he is of the first rank; as a writer ofshort stories his place is hardly so high. His humor is not merefunniness and diversion; he is a humorist in the fundamental and largesense, as are Cervantes, Rabelais, and Mark Twain.
No book is duller than a book of jokes, for what is refreshing insmall doses becomes nauseating when perused in large assignments.Humor in literature is at its best not when served merely by itselfbut when presented along with other ingredients of literary force inorder to give a wide representation of life. Therefore “professionalliterary humorists,” as they may be called, have not been muchconsidered in making up this collection. In the history of Americanhumor there are three names which stand out more prominently than allothers before Mark Twain, who, however, also belongs to a widerclassification: “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 humorthese names rank high; in the field of American literature and theAmerican short story they do not rank so high. I have found nothing oftheirs that was first-class both as humor and as short story. Perhapsjust 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 justlysaid, “Derby, Shaw, Locke and Browne carried to an extreme n