Will Cuppy, American Satirist

Will Cuppy, American Satirist PDF

Author: Wes D. Gehring

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2013-10-30

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 0786469617

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Back in the golden age of humor books (late 1920s-early 1950s), when wits of the pantheon like Robert Benchley, James Thurber, and S.J. Perelman were producing their signature works, there was another singular satirist who more than held his own with such fast company: Will Cuppy (1884-1949). This factual funnyman's metier is dark comedy that flirts with nihilism. His agenda is baldly stated in such classic Cuppy book titles as How to Be a Hermit (1929), How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes (1931), and The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950). This biography doubles as a critical study of a satirist whose shish-kebabing of humanity was often done through the veiled anthropomorphic use of animals. For a biographer, Will Cuppy represents a treasure trove of possibilities. He was a great humorist, and most of his best work is still in print, but until now he has never been the subject of a book-length study. His mesmerizingly complex and eccentric private life almost trumps the comic accomplishments of his public persona.

Encyclopedia of American Humorists

Encyclopedia of American Humorists PDF

Author: Steven H. Gale

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-14

Total Pages: 558

ISBN-13: 1317362276

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First published in 1988, this book contains entries on famous American Humorists. Humor has been present in American literature, from the beginning, and has developed characteristics that reflect the American character, both regional and national. Although American literature was, in the past, treated as inferior to British literature, there has always been a large popular audience for the genre, which this book shows. The figures with entries in this encyclopedia not only amuse in their writing, but also aim to enlighten- setting out to expose the foibles and foolishness of society and the individuals who compose it. It is the manner in which these authors try to accomplish this end that determines whether they appear in the volume. Indeed, the book will demonstrate that the best humor has at its base, a ready understanding of human nature.

The Golden Vanity

The Golden Vanity PDF

Author: Isabel Paterson

Publisher: Transaction Publishers

Published: 2016-12-31

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 1412863651

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In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald told the tale of a high society love affair that became an iconic depiction of life during the Jazz Age of the 1920s. After the 1929 stock market crash, life took an ironic downturn even for the wealthy. Written in light of these events, The Golden Vanity is both a social comedy of errors and a sardonic view of the Jazz Age and the crash, told through the lives of three self-assertive women who could not be more different. Cousins Gina, Geraldine, and Mysie are all inhabitants of New York City, but their lives could not be more different. A secretary starts a new job rife with romantic entanglements, a best-selling novelist is undermined by her husband’s attempts to win big on the stock market, and an actress leads an unconventional, yet surprisingly intellectual, life. Isabel Paterson follows their stories through the economic collapse and demonstrates, with sophisticated wit, that “doing what everyone else is doing” is not the best way to survive such times. Originally published in 1934, The Golden Vanity has been out of print for far too long. A new introduction by Stephen Cox illuminates the novel’s important historical footprint and places it in a modern context.

How To Attract The Wombat

How To Attract The Wombat PDF

Author: Will Cuppy

Publisher: David R. Godine Publisher

Published: 2016-04-15

Total Pages: 135

ISBN-13: 1567925758

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Here is one of Will Cuppy's three classic “How-To’s,” considering notable birds and animals whose habits (and often existence) seem to have disturbed Cuppy (“Birds Who Can’t Even Fly,” “Optional Insects,” “Octopuses and Those Things”), as well as more mundane creatures like the frog, the gnat, and the moa, who have no visible vices but whose virtues are truly awful. Spanning the breadth of the animal kingdom, Cuppy neatly classes his observations for easy reference: Problem Mammals, Pleasures of Pond Life, Birds Who Can’t Sing and Know It. Included with 50 shorter pieces are longer meditations like ‘The Poet and the Nautilus,” “Swan-upping, Indeed!” and “How to Swat a Fly,” which codifies the essentials of this simple activity in ten hilarious principles. All this, plus over 100 delightful Nofziger drawings! But the seat of honor is, of course, occupied by the Wombat, the nocturnal star of three essays. Whether asleep in Rossetti’s silver epergne or tunneling under the lawn, the wombat never fails to fascinate Cuppy, clearly supplying his alter ego for the animal kingdom.

Enjoyment of Laughter

Enjoyment of Laughter PDF

Author: Max Eastman

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-09-29

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 1351311700

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Humor at its best is a somewhat fluid and transitory element, but most books about it are illustrated with hardened old jokes from the comic papers, or classic witticisms jerked out of their context. Max Eastman, in this work, avoids this catastrophe by quoting mainly from contemporary American humor. This is not an anthology in that selections have been made with a view to making a point rather than covering the field. The purpose of Eastman's fabled work is to make the reader laugh. Since his early school days, it has seemed to him that textbooks are wrongly written in that they are conducted in a way which ignores the natural operation of the mind. As a result, the opinion is universal, and under the circumstances a fact, that in order to learn anything you have to study. Since this introduction to humor is itself near to writing a textbook, Eastman uses the very text he constructs to illustrate the manner in which textbooks should be written. Examination and classification of the kinds of humorous experience upon the basis of a theory is a science. As such, this work offers a fair chance to illustrate a method of instruction. However, the distinction between a good joke and a bad one will not prevent the reader from making bad jokes nor enable one to make good ones. There is an artistic and playful element that simply cannot be taught. Enjoyment of Laughter presents a total view of the science of laughter and draws upon some of the great American humorists to do so.

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