Audio Books

Cobb's Anatomy (version 2)

Irvin S. Cobb
Irving S. Cobb discusses the human body and its various strange parts in his own inimitable hilarious style. He discusses the tummy and the problems of having a large one; teeth, hair and finally hands and feet. Summary by Phil Chenevert

In a Steamer Chair and Other Stories

Barr, Robert
Thirteen short stories by one of the most famous writers in his day. Robert Barr was a British Canadian short story writer and novelist, born in Glasgow, Scotland. In London of the 1890s Barr became a more prolific author - publishing a book a year - and was familiar with many of the best selling authors of his day, including Bret Harte and Stephen Crane. Most of his literary output was of the crime genre, then quite in vogue. When Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories were becoming well known, Barr published in the Idler the first Holmes parody, "The Adventures of Sherlaw Kombs" (1892), a spoof that was continued a decade later in another Barr story, "The Adventure of the Second Swag" (1904)(For these two stories, see in LibriVox Barr's The Triumphs of Eugène Valmont). Despite the jibe at the growing Holmes phenomenon Barr and Doyle remained on very good terms. Doyle describes him in his memoirs Memories and Adventures as, "a volcanic Anglo - or rather Scot American, with a violent manner, a wealth of strong adjectives, and one of the kindest natures underneath it all."

Dere Mable

Streeter, Edward
Bill is in training camp, preparing to go off to World War I. This book is a collection of love letters written to his sweetheart, Mable. The letters are humorous, mis-spelled, and have many stories of life in an army camp - all from Bill's unique perspective.

Mr. Punch's Model Music-hall Songs & Dramas

F. Anstey
F. Anstey was the nom de plume of Thomas Anstey Guthrie, a Londoner who was trained for the bar but found success as a writer of humorous pieces for Punch and humorous novels. Mr. Punch's Model Music Hall is a collection of humorous pieces written for Punch, divided into songs and dramas. In his usual fashion, Mr. Anstey captured the tone of his times and then exaggerated whatever was already absurd to entertain and give pointed commentary at the same time.

Fresh Every Hour

John Peter Toohey
This book is best described by its subtitle: “DETAILING the Adventures, Comic and Pathetic of one Jimmy Martin, Purveyor of Publicity, a Young Gentleman Possessing Sublime Nerve, Whimsical Imagination, Colossal Impudence, and, Withal the Heart of a Child.” Jimmy, press agent extraordinaire, conjures up outlandish and truth-stretching publicity stunts for an amusement park, theaters and performers, often with unexpected and amusing results. Despite his foibles, Jimmy presses on in pursuit of career success and of pretty Lolita Murphy of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
The author, an American writer (and theatrical press agent himself) was a founding member of the legendary Algonquin Round Table and was reputed to have suggested the name for “The New Yorker” magazine. (Lee Smalley)

Best Nonsense Verses

Josephine Daskam Bacon
From Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky to limericks written by Anonymous, some of the crankiest, most logical and lyrical people turn common sense upside-down. May they inspire the child inside of you to find your way through the most challenging situations with a new set of eyes! Josephine Dodge Daskam, aka Josephine Daskam Bacon, selected these nonsense verses with the permission of their authors Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, W.S. Gilbert, Guy Wetmore Carryl, Charles E. Carryl, Oliver Herford, Gelett Burgess, George du Maurier, and Rudyard Kipling. (Grace Buchanan)

Skipper's Wooing

W. W. Jacobs
The crew of the ship come together in a syndicate to find the missing father of the lady whom their skipper should like to favour. Their resulting escapades prove to be highly amusing

Pinafore Picture Book: The Story Of H.M.S. Pinafore (Version 2)

W. S. Gilbert
Pinafore’s sublimely silly story is made even sillier by this (ostensibly for children) 1908 story version of the 1878 Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. Gilbert, the author of the operetta’s lyrics, writes this version of the story with his tongue planted firmly in his cheek. Most adults and children will find this version vastly amusing.

Pomander Walk

Louis Napoleon Parker
Pomander Walk is a unique street in London, and in this humorous novel we meet the unusual residents. It was originally produced as a stage play and includes lively dialog.

Princess Aline, The

Davis, Richard Harding
Morton Carlton, an easy-going, rich young artist, has never taken the concepts of love and marriage all that seriously -- until by accident a copy of an English illustrated paper falls into his hands, which contains a photograph of the young Princess Aline of Hohenwald. Instantly, Carlton is captivated by the princess, and decides that he must meet her. But how to get close to a princess, who lives in a small German duchy well protected by guards and etiquette?
Carlton decides to travel to Europe and try his luck...

Human Boy Again

Eden Phillpotts
Published in 1908, this is a further collection of twelve humorous short stories about English school boys. The author wrote two other books in this series: The Human Boy (1900) and The Human Boy And The War (1916). Eden Phillpotts was popular with the reading public and wrote prolifically novels, short stories, poetry, plays, and nonfiction.

Our Street

William Makepeace Thackeray
Written as an autobiographical sketch of a Mr. M.A. Titmarsh, Our Street is a tongue-in-cheek look at English society and the characters who live in the street where he finds himself. It is the second of five "Christmas Books" written by Thackeray under the pseudonym of M.A. Titmarsh.

Old Soak, and Hail And Farewell

Don Marquis
Published in 1921 (Prohibition went into effect in January 1920), "Hail and Farewell" is a collection of poems in honour of alcohol, drunkenness, and all things related.

In "The Old Soak", an old codger grumbles and connives to get alcohol in the age of Prohibition. Part is narrative, and part is installments from The Old Soak's papers.
“I'm writing a diary. A diary of the past. A kind of gol-dinged autobiography of what me and Old King Booze done before he went into the grave and took one of my feet with him. In just a little while now there won't be any one in this here broad land of ours, speaking of it geographically, that knows what an old-fashioned barroom was like. They'll meet up with the word, future generations of posterity will, and wonder and wonder and wonder just what a saloon could have resembled, and they will cudgel their brains in vain, as the poet says."
“Have you got any of it written?” we asked him. “Here's the start of it,” said he.
We present it just as the Old Soak penned it.

Compleat Bachelor

Oliver Onions
George Oliver Onions was a British writer of story collections and over 40 novels…. Onions wrote detective fiction, social comedy, historical fiction and romance novels. This social comedy of late Victorian England is among his first published materials. Rollo Butterfield, the compleat bachelor, looks upon his family and friends with an affectionate, gently humorous eye.

Pomona's Travels

Stockton, Frank R.
Pomona and Jone of Rudder Grange fame travel to England and Scotland. Along the way, Pomona tangles with wild pigs, haymaking, hotels great and small, Pullman cars, comparison-makers, and a Duchess. She makes two matches and - in her usual, unorthodox way - stag hunts and attends a knighting. Pomona is as hilarious as ever, if a bit more rounded off on the edges.

Rudder Grange

Stockton, Frank R.
This book presents a number of short, comedic sketches of a country life in middle America in the late 1800s. The hilarious twists and turns endear our adorable, naive married couple to the reader; and the orphan servant Pomona - dear, odd, funny Pomona! - is the focus of several of the stories. Imagine a honeymoon in a lunatic asylum, and you’ve got Rudder Grange!

On Our Selection

Steele Rudd
The humorous account of Dad and Dave and the rest of the Rudd clan as they attempt to carve a farming 'selection' out of the Australian wilderness in spite of fire, famine, snakebite, and a loony hired hand.

Perkins, the Fakeer: A Travesty on Reincarnation

Edward S. Van Zile
As the title suggests we are treated to three humourous and curious psychical transpositions in the cases of "When Reginald was Caroline," "How Chopin came to Remsen," and "Clarissa's troublesome baby" . If you're looking for a break from more serious fare you can count on this one to amuse and entertain you

Dandy Dick

Arthur Wing Pinero
“Dandy Dick” was the third of the farces which Mr. Pinero wrote for the old Court Theatre—a series of plays which, besides giving playgoers a fresh source of laughter, and the English stage a new order of comic play, brought plentiful prosperity to the joint management of Mr. Arthur Cecil and the late Mr. John Clayton.

Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, Vol. 3, No. 28, December, 1921

W. H. Fawcett
"Captain Billy's Whiz Bang" was an iconic magazine of American wit and humor launched by W.H. Fawcett in 1919. Each 64-page issue is packed with jokes, quips, and humorous bits of writing. Each year it grew in popularity, and Fawcett’s success lead to the formation of the well-known Fawcett Publications, which issued "Whiz Comics" and introduced Captain Marvel. The magazine was immortalized in a line in the song “Trouble” from Meredith Wilson’s “The Music Man.”

Yollop

George Barr McCutcheon
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 be...prison. This humorous satire takes a somewhat different look at prisons, criminals, the law and reformers.

Marge Askinforit

Barry Pain
A rollicking parody of the Margot Asquith memoirs, in which Pain's character, Marge, beguiles us with the most personal details of her dysfunctional family, and delights in relating every cringing, if not wholly accurate, minutiae of her exciting private life.

There is a Tavern in the Town

James Stephens
The soul of Irish wit is captured in this unique tale of a barstool philosopher, the concluding story from 'Here Are Ladies' by James Stephens.

Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, Vol. 2, No. 23, August, 1921

W. H. Fawcett
"Captain Billy's Whiz Bang" was an iconic magazine of American wit and humor launched by W.H. Fawcett in 1919. Each 64-page issue is packed with jokes, quips, and humorous bits of writing. Each year it grew in popularity, and Fawcett’s success lead to the formation of the well-known Fawcett Publications, which issued "Whiz Comics" and introduced Captain Marvel. The magazine was immortalized in a line in the song “Trouble” from Meredith Wilson’s “The Music Man.”

Swatty: A Story of Real Boys

Ellis Parker Butler
The fun adventures of Georgie, Swatty, and Bony, as they encounter flooding rivers, emotional girls, burning buildings, rotten stumps, mean teachers, a haunted house, dark caves, murderers, and ice jams.

Comedies of Courtship

Anthony Hope
A series of short stories about love and the process of courtship.

Idiot at home

John Kendrick Bangs
The Idiot returns along with Ms Idiot and their two children, Mollie and Tommy, move into their first house in suburbia. What follows are encounters with his companions from his boarding house days,Coffee and Repartee, along with new characters that inhabit suburbia with the unassailable logic of the Idiot and Mrs Idiot regarding various aspects of life in the suburbs, starting with why the knowledge of an egg beater is more important than that of Wagner. Which story is your favourite?

Bab Ballads, The

Gilbert, W. S.
The Bab Ballads are a collection of light verse by W. S. Gilbert, illustrated with his own comic drawings. Gilbert wrote the Ballads before he became famous for his comic opera librettos with Arthur Sullivan. In writing the Bab Ballads, Gilbert developed his unique "topsy-turvy" style, where the humour was derived by setting up a ridiculous premise and working out its logical consequences, however absurd. The Ballads also reveal Gilbert's cynical and satirical approach to humour. They became famous on their own, as well as being a source for plot elements, characters and songs that Gilbert would recycle in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. The Bab Ballads take their name from Gilbert's childhood nickname, and he later began to sign his illustrations "Bab".

Egregious English

T. W. H. Crosland
This 1903 book is a tongue-in-cheek send-up of English people and subjects. Within the humor (or humour), the listener may be surprised by some diamond-hard observations. The listener is also alerted to some attitudes of a different time that would not be acceptable in today's polite discourse. Here writing as “Angus McNeil”, a Scotsman, Crosland was a British author, poet, and journalist (1865-1924) . ( David Wales)

Six Bad Husbands and Six Unhappy Wives

Ella Wheeler Wilcox
This is a collection of six short stories, each of them illustrating that even a marriage which looks perfect from the outside can be sabotaged quite easily by the two people involved.

Take it From Dad

George Livermore
Take It From Dad is a collection of letters written by a father to his son, Ted, at boarding school, away from home for the first time. In each letter "Dad" comments on some aspect of Ted's experience, attitude, or behavior, illustrating and driving home his point with an entertaining tale about human nature. This book is appropriate for all ages from adolescence on, and its lessons are as relevant today as when they were written.--Lee Smalley

Kilo: Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt, Book Agent

Ellis Parker Butler
Traveling salesman Eliph' Hewlitt finds the love of his life in Kilo, Iowa and decides to settle down there.

Sorrows of a Show Girl

Kenneth McGaffey
Originally printed in The Morning Telegraph in New York, this is the story of Miss Sabrina, the show girl, and her ups and downs with the unpredictable theatrical industry and the Great White Way, the lights and glamour of Broadway. "In order to set myself right with both the public and the vast army of Sabrinas that add youth and beauty to our stage, and brilliancy and gaiety to our well known cafes, I wish to say that she is all that she should be...”- Kenneth McGaffey

Over The Plum Pudding

John Kendrick Bangs
Great Caesar’s ghost and shades of A Christmas Carol! Stories – some ghostly, some Christmas, some humorous, some all three -- twelve of them by a master story teller and humorist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Jeremy And Hamlet: A Chronicle Of Certain Incidents In The Lives Of A Boy, A Dog, And A Country Town

Hugh Walpole
Hamlet is Jeremy’s dog. This 1923 book is Hugh Walpole’s second volume in his Jeremy semi-autobiographical trilogy (Jeremy (1919 available at librivox.org), Jeremy at Crale (1927, available at fadedpage.org)), about a ten-year-old English boy. One commentator wrote this of the first book: “With affectionate humor, Mr. Walpole tells the story of Jeremy and his two sisters, Helen and Mary Cole, who grow up in Polchester, a quiet English Cathedral town…. Mr. Walpole has given his narrative a rare double appeal, for it not only recreates for the adult the illusion of his own happiest youth, but it unfolds for the child-reader a genuine and moving experience with real people and pleasant things.”

Uncle Of An Angel

Thomas A. Janvier
In what I have read so far this book appears to be a humorous character study on two levels. That between the uncle and niece and that of polite society in the 19th century. Anything can happen. I for one want to find out what will happen!!

This Simian World

Clarence Day
Clarence Day, Jr., best known for his work Life with Father, presents a satirical speculation on how the world might be different if we apes had not risen to prominence, but rather one of the other species had become dominant in our place.

Complete Works of Artemus Ward Part 2, War

Artemus Ward
Charles Farrar Browne, a native of Maine, became famous as a writer and lecturer under the name of Artemus Ward. Like his friend Mark Twain, Browne worked as a type-setter in his youth and in 1858, began publishing a series of letters, essays, and stories told in the first person by a droll, illiterate rube with a good measure of subtle common sense who commented on the events and fads of the day. Taking his character to the stage as a lecturer, Browne became an early-day prototype of what we now name a stand-up comedian. Artemus Ward was such a favorite of President Abraham Lincoln that the chief executive read one of the Ward stories to his assembled cabinet officers before getting down to the business of discussing the proposed Emancipation Proclamation. Browne’s writings became popular in England as well as in America, and he travelled to Britain to perform his Artemus Ward lectures and contribute to the comic magazine Punch. Browne contracted tuberculosis and died at the age of thirty-two in Southampton. (There was a real Artemus Ward, a general in the Continental Army during the American Revolution.) ( Delmar H. Dolbier)

English Audio Books

The most popular500

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Dictionary 180,000

Fiction364

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General694

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Dramatic Readings151

Epistolary Fiction47

Erotica12

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Historical Fiction433

Humorous Fiction387

Literary227

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Religious Fiction109

Romance477

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Myths, Legends & Fairy Tales178

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