Satire
The Glugs of Gosh
First published in 1917, The Glugs of Gosh satirizes Australian life at the start of the twentieth century - but the absurdities it catalogs…
The Litigants
This play, which is neither a comedy or a farce but has elements in common with each, was first performed in 1668 at Paris, and afterwards a…
God's fool
At the age of nine, Elias Lossell becomes deaf and blind from an accident. Communication with him becomes difficult, and mentally, he never …
The Shaving of Shagpat
The Shaving of Shagpat is a whimsical oriental romance that weaves together humor and allegory in a style reminiscent of the Arabian Nights.…
The Miser
The Miser is a comedy of manners about a rich moneylender named Harpagon. His feisty children long to escape from his penny-pinching househo…
The Follies of a Day
This is Thomas Holcroft's English translation, obtained by attending Pierre Beaumarchais' French play nine times in Paris during its origina…
Mary Broome
Before Downton Abbey, there was Mary Broome. In Allan Monkhouse's 1911 satire, when the son of a middle-class household gets their housemaid…
A Traveller from Altruria
Set in the early 1890s, at a fashionable summer resort somewhere on the East Coast of the United States, this book tells the story of Mr. T…
The Misses Mallett
The arrival of the eligible Francis Sales disturbs the calm existence of the four Misses Mallett in this social satire. Three women love him…
Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent.
The Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent. (1824) is a compilation of eight humorous and observational letters written by American writer, Wash…
Nightmare Abbey
Deep in the fens of the British coast sits the gloomy mansion that goes by the name Nightmare Abbey. It is inhabited by persons of very low …
Lesley Castle
Lesley Castle is a melodramatic epistolary novelette written by Jane Austen when she was sixteen years old. Although the novels Austen becam…
Gargantua and Pantagruel
The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel (in French, La vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel) is a connected series of five novels written in th…
Conversation, as it was by the Social Fireside
Please note: this recording contains strong language."1601," wrote Mark Twain, "is a supposititious conversation which takes …
John Donne's Satires
Donne’s StyleIn John Donne’s day, a satire was such a poem as a satyr might compose. Satyrs were rough, savage creatures in Greek mythology…
The Judgment of Eve
May Sinclair was a prolific author, literary critic, and feminist activist, famous in Britain and the US in the 1910’s and 20’s. The Judgmen…
A Bayard from Bengal
The estimable gentleman, Chunder Bindabun Bhosh, ESQ., B.A., travels from his native India to England, with his impeccable English and manne…
The House with the Green Shutters
The House with the Green Shutters is a novel by the Scottish writer George Douglas Brown, first published in 1901 by John MacQueen. Set in m…
You Never Can Tell
In this witty comedy of errors, the Clandon siblings, Gloria and the twins, Dolly and Philip attempt to uncover the identity of their long l…
The Vegetable
"Any man who doesn’t want to get on in the world, to make a million dollars, and maybe even park his toothbrush in the White House, has…