The Best American Humorous Short Stories | Page 2

humorous one. When we come to the close of
the nineteenth century the work of such men as "Mr. Dooley" (Finley
Peter Dunne, 1867- ) and George Ade (1866- ) stands out. But while
these two writers successfully conform to the exacting critical
requirements of good humor and--especially the former--of good
literature, neither--though Ade more so--attains to the greatest
excellence of the short story. Mr. Dooley of the Archey Road is
essentially a wholesome and wide-poised humorous philosopher, and
the author of Fables in Slang is chiefly a satirist, whether in fable, play
or what not.
This volume might well have started with something by Washington

Irving, I suppose many critics would say. It does not seem to me,
however, that Irving's best short stories, such as The Legend of Sleepy
Hollow and Rip Van Winkle, are essentially humorous stories, although
they are o'erspread with the genial light of reminiscence. It is the
armchair geniality of the eighteenth century essayists, a constituent of
the author rather than of his material and product. Irving's best
humorous creations, indeed, are scarcely short stories at all, but rather
essaylike sketches, or sketchlike essays. James Lawson (1799-1880) in
his Tales and Sketches: by a Cosmopolite (1830), notably in The
Dapper Gentleman's Story, is also plainly a follower of Irving. We
come to a different vein in the work of such writers as William Tappan
Thompson (1812-1882), author of the amusing stories in letter form,
Major Jones's Courtship (1840); Johnson Jones Hooper (1815-1862),
author of Widow Rugby's Husband, and Other Tales of Alabama (1851);
Joseph G. Baldwin (1815-1864), who wrote The Flush Times of
Alabama and Mississippi (1853); and Augustus Baldwin Longstreet
(1790-1870), whose Georgia Scenes (1835) are as important in "local
color" as they are racy in humor. Yet none of these writers yield the
excellent short story which is also a good piece of humorous literature.
But they opened the way for the work of later writers who did attain
these combined excellences.
The sentimental vein of the midcentury is seen in the work of Seba
Smith (1792-1868), Eliza Leslie (1787-1858), Frances Miriam
Whitcher ("Widow Bedott," 1811-1852), Mary W. Janvrin (1830-1870),
and Alice Bradley Haven Neal (1828-1863). The well-known work of
Joseph Clay Neal (1807-1847) is so all pervaded with caricature and
humor that it belongs with the work of the professional humorist school
rather than with the short story writers. To mention his Charcoal
Sketches, or Scenes in a Metropolis (1837-1849) must suffice. The
work of Seba Smith is sufficiently expressed in his title, Way Down
East, or Portraitures of Yankee Life (1854), although his Letters of
Major Jack Downing (1833) is better known. Of his single stories may
be mentioned The General Court and Jane Andrews' Firkin of Butter
(October, 1847, Graham's Magazine). The work of Frances Miriam
Whitcher ("Widow Bedott") is of somewhat finer grain, both as humor
and in other literary qualities. Her stories or sketches, such as Aunt

Magwire's Account of Parson Scrantum's Donation Party (March, 1848,
Godey's Lady's Book) and Aunt Magwire's Account of the Mission to
Muffletegawmy (July, 1859, Godey's), were afterwards collected in The
Widow Bedott Papers (1855-56-80). The scope of the work of Mary B.
Haven is sufficiently suggested by her story, Mrs. Bowen's Parlor and
Spare Bedroom (February, 1860, Godey's), while the best stories of
Mary W. Janvrin include The Foreign Count; or, High Art in
Tattletown (October, 1860, Godey's) and City Relations; or, the
Newmans' Summer at Clovernook (November, 1861, Godey's). The
work of Alice Bradley Haven Neal is of somewhat similar texture. Her
book, The Gossips of Rivertown, with Sketches in Prose and Verse
(1850) indicates her field, as does the single title, The Third-Class
Hotel (December, 1861, Godey's). Perhaps the most representative
figure of this school is Eliza Leslie (1787-1858), who as "Miss Leslie"
was one of the most frequent contributors to the magazines of the
1830's, 1840's and 1850's. One of her best stories is The Watkinson
Evening (December, 1846, Godey's Lady's Book), included in the
present volume; others are The Batson Cottage (November, 1846,
Godey's Lady's Book) and Juliet Irwin; or, the Carriage People (June,
1847, Godey's Lady's Book). One of her chief collections of stories is
Pencil Sketches (1833-1837). "Miss Leslie," wrote Edgar Allan Poe, "is
celebrated for the homely naturalness of her stories and for the broad
satire of her comic style." She was the editor of The Gift one of the best
annuals of the time, and in that position perhaps exerted her chief
influence on American literature When one has read three or four
representative stories by these seven authors one can grasp them all.
Their titles as a rule strike the keynote. These writers, except "the
Widow Bedott," are perhaps sentimentalists rather than humorists in
intention, but read in the light of later days their