Witty Books of the 1920s - 1970s

One of the illustrations...

And another...

"From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor: Front Line Dispatches from the Advertising War" (1969)

Screamingly funny book by ad legend Jerry Della Femina all about the high-flying insanity and crazed personalities he encountered in NY advertising in the 60s. A must read.

WITH MALICE TOWARD SOME (1938)

by Margaret Halsey (nonfiction, as are both books above)

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons (1932)

A paean to the sensible

^Yes.

Of course, P.G. Wodehouse. I've only read a few of his Jeeves series, but would like to read more of his other work. Any suggestions on particular books?

RIGHT HO, JEEVES (1934)

(fiction)

Camp recs are most welcome as well!

BARBARA CARTLAND'S BOOK OF ETIQUETTE (1950)

I feel like our British DLers will have some gems.

How 'bout it, Brits?

NOBLESSE OBLIGE: AN ENQUIRY INTO THE IDENTIFIABLE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ENGLISH ARISTOCRACY (1956)

by Nancy Mitford

Hilarious!

Bored of the rings. One of the funniest books ever. Doug Kenny and Henry beard really bring out the humor they latter made famous in national lampoon. Second choice. The decline and fall of practically everybody by will cuppy. Amazing writer who nobody remembers. Such a shame. Hummm third choice. Why not Myra Breckinridge. Gore Vidal had some talent besides the essays.

Cleveland Amory -- The Proper Bostonians

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis.

Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit Of Love & Love In A Cold Climate are classics for good reason.

Most "funny" novels leave me stone cold. I like smart acidic bitchiness, and most writers who think they can pull it off aren't smart enough or vicious enough.

That what makes Doug Guinans 'California Screaming' such a fucking hilarious read: gay chancer meets billionaire. Holleran delivers it with reflective depth.

R10 - I love THE DECLINE AND FALL OF PRACTICALLY EVERYBODY (1950)

Fantastic recommendations!

The Para Handy books by Neil Munro. I picked one up at a library book sale and loved it. They're about the eponymous Para Handy, the conniving skipper of a steamboat plying it's trade delivering coal and mail up the west coast of Scotland in the 1920s.

I would also keep r4 company in nominating Cold Comfort Farm.

Florence King's Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady

THE ASCENT OF RUM DOODLE (1956)

I haven't read this yet, but it's supposed to be a clever parody of mountaineering expeditions in the Himalayas.

Anything by Damon Runyon (Guys and Dolls):

"Runyon made us familiar with dames and speakeasies, croakers (doctors), dolls who might be 'classy', but more often are ladies of negotiable affection, suckers like Waldo Winchester (a play on reporter Walter Winchell), mugs, lobs and wise guys who are out to make scratch, with or without firearms or shivs."

HINDOO HOLIDAY (1932, revised and expanded 1952)

by gay writer J. R. Ackerley

From Wiki "Ackerley spent about five months in India, which was still under British rule, as secretary to an Indian Maharaja in the city of Chhatarpur. Ackerley's comic memoir Hindoo Holiday explores some of his experiences. The Maharaja was homosexual, and His Majesty's obsessions and dalliances, along with Ackerley's observations about Anglo-Indians, account for much of the humor of the work.

Early Professor Kate Fansler mysteries by Amanda Cross, up to 'Sweet Death Kind Death' [1984].

Then it turned too shrill and programmatic. A sad casualty of Feminism.

R11 - I must read "The Proper Bostonians" (1947)

Great recommendation - one of the printings is adorned with a DL Dowager Cuntessa!

The Lucia novels by E.F. Benson.

^^^YES!

Shut Up, He Explained

Excellent compendium of the totally forgotten Ring Lardner.

What R23 said, with a cover -- funniest novels ever written.

I love the covers of these great old books.

"Muddling Through;: Or, Britain in a Nutshell" (1936)

(A companion volume to "Foreigners")

by Theodora Benson and Betty Askwith, illustrated by Nicholas Bentley.

From a bookseller description - "Wonderful tongue-in-cheek satirical and very funny look at the quirkiness of the British... the section on 'Ideals' sums it up by the names of its sections: "Humour; Muddling Through; Conventionality; Unconventionality; Sportsmanship".

County by county and district by district, town by town, institution by institution, even personalities, Art and Sport, the Armed Forces, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, are all gently poked fun at as only the English can do."

Queens, how could you forget...

Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis.

The Art of Coarse Acting by Michael Green

My Way of Life by Joan Crawford

Or better, R20: Dennis's LITTLE ME (1961)

I can't believe there are two other posters here who recommended Will Cuppy's The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody. Only on DL!

I've adored that book ever since I was a wee child and discovered it in my (much) older brother's leftovers in the late 1950s. It's a series of short and hilarious profiles of notorious kings, queens, czars, pharaohs and others through the ages from Cheops and Hatshepsut (It Seems There Were 2 Egyptians) on down to Miles Standish (can't remember his chapter heading). Each profile is accompanied by a cute drawing or two.

it's where I first learned about Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, Catherine the Great and Lady Godiva, among others. My first exposure to gay ironic humor. Fortunately, I still have my copy somewhere. I must dig it out tonight and reread. Thanks for reminding me.

If you can find it anywhere, buy it!

"Is Sex Necessary?" By James Thurber and E.B. White forward by John Updike

The Stories of John Cheever

Little Me by Patrick Dennis

YES! Another vote for Lucia books! We can never get enough of those.

For cat lovers, "The Silent Miaow" (translated from the feline by Paul Gallico) is a real treasure. It's a manual for domestic cats, i.e., how to find the best home, move in, take over, and manage your new staff.

I've mentioned these elsewhere but, as they're relevant to this thread, I'll again recommend Betty MacDonald's four semi-autobiographical memoirs: "The Egg and I," "The Plague and I," "Anybody Can Do Anything" and "Onions in the Stew." They still have quite a following 60 to 70 years after their original publication. In fact, all four books were released in EPUB and Kindle formats on November 1.

Naked Came the Stranger - "Penelope Ashe"

These are all fantastic.

For those interested in PG Wodehouse, try Uncle Fred in the Springtime.

Anyone remember the episode of Maude, where I think Rue McClanahan's character reads a marriage guide and does all of the odd advice within to make herself a sexy and submissive 70s wife?

Well! It was a parody of the camp classic THE TOTAL WOMAN, by Marabel Morgan (1973).

It is truly an unintentional scream, and makes a great gag gift for gay anniversaries. Famously, the book said to assemble a bunch of costumes to greet your husband at the door in when he returns home from work - including wrapping oneself in saran wrap.

Bizarrely, I vaguely remember a testimonial within the book - a middle aged matron gushes about how she took Marabel's advice, and recently wore a Mod babydoll set of pajamas at 5 in the evening, complete with white go-go boots. Not only was her husband thrilled, but now her 12 year old son is always on time for dinner so he can "check out Mom's latest look"!

I kid you not. A very 70's scream, written very earnestly.

r41 LMAO That episode of Maude was hysterical. When Maude shifted her body after Vivian slammed the door, I just howled.

Lucia and anything by Barbara Pym.

By the way, there is a great new book about the Bensons, "A Very Queer Family Indeed."

There is a certain sadness in Barbara Pym's work, or perhaps melancholy is a better word, mixed in with the humor. I love Damon Runyon and find myself talking like his characters. Whenever I see an old woman I immediately think of her as an "old doll". Beverly Nichols wrote some very humorous books, I recommend "Revue" if you can find it.

"One Pair of Hands" by Monica Dickens is very funny. I also second the Lucia books by Benson, and anything by Nancy Mitford. EM Delafield is gently amusing. "Vile Bodies" by Evelyn Waugh.

Phyllis Diller's Housekeeping Hints, and Coffee, Tea, or Me.

"One Pair of Hands" by Monica Dickens +1

Stephen Potter's "Upmanship" series - one of the funniest things I've read. Instruction books for taking down your opponents whether social, business, sporting, or wooing - and all in the most elegant 'old chap' way possible.

The Theory and Practice of Gamesmanship: Or the Art of Winning Games Without Actually Cheating. Illustrated by Frank Wilson. 1947

Lifemanship: With a Summary of Recent Researches in Gamesmanship. Illustrated by Frank Wilson. 1950.

One-Upmanship: Being Some Account of the Activities and Teachings of the Lifemanship Correspondence College of One-Upness and Games Lifemastery. Illustrated by Frank Wilson. 1952.

Supermanship, or, How to Continue to Stay Top without Actually Falling Apart. Illustrated by Frank Wilson. 1958.

Anti-Woo: The Lifeman's Improved Primer for Non-Lovers. Illustrated by Frank Wilson. 1965.

The Complete Golf Gamesmanship. Illustrated by Frank Wilson. 1968. (Also titled Golfmanship.)

The Complete Upmanship: Including, Gamesmanship, Lifemanship, One-Upmanship, Supermanship. 1970.

I'd agree with Vile Bodies r45 but only until about half way through, then it becomes very surreal and bleak. Waugh said it was written as a light hearted romp until his wife left him around the mid way point so the back half reflects his unhappiness.

A pic of part of the Upmanship series...

Naked Came the Stranger sounds like fun

I liked [italic]Schindler's List[/italic] a lot, but the movie was funnier.

It's A Handful of Dust, not Vile Bodies, R49, whose back half was influenced by the first Mrs. Waugh's desertion of Evelyn. In fact, the book becomes not only dark but unbearably deflating. Without giving anything away, I'd say the last few pages are shattering on the most intense level. You feel totally beaten down.

But in a better mood, Waugh is irresistibly funny. Newbies might try Scoop. And Vile Bodies is really quite droll. Decline and Fall is also fine, though Waugh is typically rough on the Welsh. He has all the prejudices of the English middle class and then some.

Patrick Dennis also wrote a few other funny books. Others were mediocre. But I love JOYOUS SEASON and GENIUS and parts of TONY.

R53 no, it was Vile Bodies.

"Adam Fenwick-Symes is the novel's antihero; his quest to marry Nina parodies the conventions of romantic comedy, as the traditional foils and allies prove distracted and ineffectual. War looms, Adam's circle of friends disintegrates, and Adam and Nina's engagement founders. At the book's end, we find Adam alone on an apocalyptic European battlefield. The book shifts in tone from light-hearted romp to bleak desolation (Waugh himself later attributed it to the breakdown of his first marriage halfway through the book's composition[5]). Others have defended the novel's curious ending as a poetically just reversal of the conventions of comic romance.[6][7]"

I once picked up a Waugh novel but it began with a horrifyingly blasé description of a fox hunt and I couldn't get past the first chapter. I think it was Scoop. Never tried him again. Should I?

If you only know about How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying as a movie or musical, you really need to read the 1952 book by Shepherd Mead. Every young person entering the business world would be well advised to read it as non-fiction, and it's held up remarkably well.

I still stand by Vile Bodies as what I found to be Waugh's funniest novel. [R45] here. Now that I think of it, yes, it's dark, but to me, all of his work is. It was an era of dancing on graves.

A Cool Million: The Dismantling of Lemuel Pitkin by Nathanael West

It's a wicked parody of Horatio Alger novels in which people from humble backgrounds lift themselves up by their own bootstraps, and through hard work and determination achieve the American Dream.

In West's version, every miserable thing that can go wrong for the main character does go wrong - except only worse.

It's dementedly funny.

Fran Liebowitz, Metropolitan Life (1978) and Social Studies (1981).

"My caller is an agent from Los Angeles. He is audibly tan."

R55: Wikipedia says exactly the same thing about A Handful of Dust on the page devoted to the novel. And this book, unlike Vile Bodies, is largely about the breakup of a marriage because of the wife's unfaithfulness.

Pre-1920. "Three Men in a Boat" by Jerome K. Jerome, great comic writing.

Kate Atkinson's Behind the Scenes at the Museum and, even better, Human Croquet are 2 brilliantly witty books of the last 25 years or so. She is the British novelist who writes the wonderful Jackson Brodie mysteries as well as more serious novels like Life After Life and A God in Ruins.

One of the best writers publishing today. I look forward to each new book in all of her genres.

Ludwig Wittgenstein thought that PG Wodehouse's "Honeysuckle Cottage" was the funniest story he'd ever read. It's one of Wodehouse's short Mulliner stories, published in 1925.

Edmund Crispin's mystery novels have lots of humour.

Adding a vote for E. M Delafield's very funny "Diary of a Provincial Lady" series.

Splendora by Edward Swift.

It's about the new lady librarian in a small East Texas town who isn't all she appears to be.

Agreed, R62!

Midnight Cowboy and Valley of the Dolls. Funny in a certain set of mind.

But are these books British witty or the broader American haha 'witty'?

Many of these books are British, R69.

Most of them are "British" witty - understated - (even the ones by American authors).

There are, of course, a few campy, retro pop culture recs as well.

Thank you r70.

A vote for Shirley Jackson's non-spooky books, including Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons.

Before I went to study in England many years ago, I was given a list of books I had to read before going. I grumbled because I was poor and had to lay out $ for all of these books, but there's only one I remember to this day. It was called "1066 and All That: A Memorable History of England, Comprising all the Parts You Can Remember, Including 103 Good Things, 5 Bad Kings and 2 Genuine Dates" by W.C. Sellar and R.J. Yeatman. I am a history buff and I found it a very funny, delightful read.

R64, Whenever I think about funny, I always think Wittgenstein.

r74 Ha! Many underestimate Ludwig's sense of humor. Wonderful dancer, too.

Anything by Jean Shepherd, whose most famous work was [italc]A Christmas Story[/italic]. It is impossible to read any of his stories or books without laughing out loud. These tales have held up remarkably well over the decades.

Little Me.

Little Me.

Cornelia Otis Skinner was a stage actress who also published several volumes of witty anecdotal essays that were also printed in magazines like The New Yorker. Her book titles include Dithers and Jitters and Excuse It, Please!

r33 that reminds me of Uppity Women of the Renaissance, but it's post 1970s.

It should hardly need saying, but witty writing in the 1920s was synonymous with Dorothy Parker. Her "Constant Reader" columns are still hilarious to this day.

Thank you so much for this thread. I already have a 300+ long "to read" list but about eight of the titles you glorious readers supplied already escalated to my earliest twenty for 2017.

Anything by Quentin Crisp of course! And Everyday Drinking by Kingsley Amis