Satire
The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson
In one of his later novels, the master storyteller spins a tale of two children switched at infancy. A slave takes on the identity of master…
Aesop's Fables
Dating back to the 6th century BC, Aesop's Fables tell universal truths through the use of simple allegories that are easily understood. Tho…
Lucia in London
In the third book in the Mapp and Lucia series, provincial snob and social climber Mrs. Emmeline Lucas, known to her friends as Lucia, and h…
Castle Rackrent
"One of the most inspired chronicles written in English" was the verdict of William Butler Yeats on the novel Castle Rackrent by M…
The Inspector-General
The Governor and Officials of a small provincial town in Russia are worried. They have received word that a Government Inspector is on his w…
Yollop
Mr. Crittenden Yollop makes friends with the man who came to burglarize his home and sets out to help him return to where he really wants to…
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
The work was composed between 1790 and 1793, in the period of radical foment and political conflict immediately after the French Revolution.…
Turns About Town
Robert Cortes Holliday was an early 20th century essayist, editor, and librarian. Writer Christopher Morley said that he "has the genu…
Rameau's Nephew
Rameau's Nephew is a thought-provoking philosophical dialogue by Denis Diderot that delves into the complexities of human nature and society…
The Flying Inn
The Flying Inn is a novel first published in 1914 by G.K. Chesterton. It is set in a future England where a bizarre form of "Progressiv…
The Relentless City
A satiric novel of manners written in Benson's classic style of gently poking fun at class structures and the people who fill them. This tim…
Still Untouched by Human Hands
Long before Douglas Adams, Robert Sheckley pioneered the sub-genre of satirical science fiction. When space operas ruled, Robert Sheckley sa…
Mansfield Park
Mansfield Park features Austen’s frailest and perhaps most scrupulous heroine, Fannie Price. As the eldest daughter in a poor family, Fannie…
The Unbearable Bassington
The Unbearable Bassington was the first novel written by Saki (H. H. Munro). It also contains much of the elegant wit found in his short sto…
A Common Story
Alexander Fedoritch Adouev is the naïve, pampered son of Anna Pavlovna, a provincial landowner. He decides to go off to Saint Petersbur…
The Gentle Grafter
If Jefferson "Parleyvoo" Pickens had appeared in print just a few years later, he might have been the "Gentle Grifter" i…
The Importance of Being Earnest
In this most popular of all Oscar Wilde’s plays, two fashionable bachelors, Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff, discover that each has bee…
The Pickwick Papers
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, better known as The Pickwick Papers, is the first novel by Charles Dickens. Written for publicat…
Aesop's Fables
Dating back to the 6th century BC, Aesop's Fables tell universal truths through the use of simple allegories that are easily understood. Tho…
Aphorisms
In Aphorisms, Oscar Wilde presents a collection of sharp, insightful observations that blend humor with profound wisdom. Originally publishe…