Selected Bibliography: Books

Apte, Mahadev L. Humor and laughter: an anthropological approach. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1985. GN454.55 .A68

Bennett, Barbara. Comic Visions, Female Voices: Contemporary Women Novelists and Southern Humor. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1998.

Botkin, Benjamin A. ed. A treasury of American anecdotes; sly, salty, shaggy stories of heroes and hellions, beguilers and buffoons, spellbinders and scapegoats, gagsters and gossips, from the grassroots and sidewalks of America. NY: Random House 1957. PN6261 .B6

Braude, Jacob M. New treasury of stories for every speaking and writing occasion. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall 1959. PN6261 .B73

- - -. Pocket portfolio of humor for all occasions. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1961. PN6162 .B685x

- - -. Speaker's encyclopedia of humor: stories, quotes, definitions, and toasts for every situation. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1961. PN6162 .B69

Cerf, Bennett. Try and stop me, a collection of anecdotes and stories, mostly humorous. NY: Simon & Schuster, 1944. PN6161 .C4

Covici, Pascal. Humor and revelation in American literature: the Puritan connection. Columbia: U of Missouri P, 1997. PS430 .C68

Dance, Daryl C. ed. Honey, hush!: an anthology of African American women's humor. NY: W.W. Norton, 1998. PN6231 .N5 H66

Emrich, Duncan, and Ib Ohlsson. The hodgepodge book: an almanac of American folklore; containing all manner of curious, interesting, and out-of-the-way information drawn from American folklore, and not to be found anywhere else in the world; as well as jokes, conundrums, riddles, puzzles, and other matter designed to amuse and entertain--all of it most instructive and delightful. NY: Four Winds P, 1972. Juv 398 EMR

Esar, Evan. Esar's Comic dictionary. NY: Harvest house 1943. PN6153 E65

Foster, James R. Great folktales of wit and humor. NY: Harper 1955. GR25 .F57

| Top | Friend, J. Newton. Words: tricks and traditions. NY: Scribner 1957. PN6231 .P8 F7

Gale, Steven H. ed. Encyclopedia of American humorists. NY: Garland, 1988. PS430 .E53

Hughes, Langston. The book of Negro humor. NY: Dodd, Mead 1966. PN6231.N5 H8

Mintz, Lawrence E. ed. Humor in America: a research guide to genres and topics. NY: Greenwood P, 1988. PS430 .H86

Pullen, John J. Comic relief: the life and laughter of Artemus Ward, 1834-1867. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1983. PS1143 .P84

Sloane, David E. E. ed. New Directions in American Humor. Tuscaloosa, AL: U of Alabama P, 1998.

Spalding, Henry D. ed. Encyclopedia of Black folklore and humor. Middle Village, NY: Jonathan David P, 1972. PN6231 N5 S6

Thorp, Willard. American humorists. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1964. PS430 .T4

Sherrin, Ned. ed. The Oxford dictionary of humorous quotations. Oxford ; NY: Oxford UP, 1995. Ref PN6084 .H8 O94

Twain, Mark. Mark Twain's library of humor. NY: London, Harper & brothers, 1906. PN6157 .C5

Untermeyer, Louis. ed. Treasury of great humor; including wit, whimsy and satire from the remote past to the present. NY: McGraw-Hill 1972. PN6151 U5

Williams, Elsie A. The humor of Jackie Moms Mabley: an African American comedic tradition. NY: Garland, 1995. PN2287 .M128 W56

| Top | Selected Bibliography: Articles

Axelrod, Mark. "Seven Card Stud and the Scarlet Letter Writers." Studies in American Humor 3.2 (1995): 85-96.

Blansfield, Karen C. "Woody Allen and the Comic Tradition in America." Studies in American Humor 6 (1988): 142-53.

Caliskan, Sevda. "The Coded Language of Female Quixotism." Studies in American Humor 3.2 (1995): 23-35.

Caron, James E. "An Allegory of North and South: Reading the Preface to Sut Lovingood. Yarns Spun by a 'Nat'ral Born Durn'd Fool'." Studies in American Humor 3.2 (1995): 49-61.

Garvey, Ellen G. Making Hay of the Yellow Wallpaper: 'The Boveopathic Sanatorium' Proposes a New Remedy for Neurasthenia." Studies in American Humor 3.6 (1999): 49-59.

Haslam, Thomas J. "Absentee Government, the Absurd Frontier, and the Laughable Origins of American Identity; Or, The Twice-Told Fish Tale of Captain John Smith." Studies in American Humor 7 (1989): 58-66.

Jessee, Sharon A. "Laughter and Identity in Ishmael Reed's Mumbo Jumbo." MELUS 21.4 (Wint 1996): 127-39.

| Top | Karle, Deepika. "A Reader's Guide to P. G. Wodehouse's America." Studies in American Humor 7 (1989): 32-44.

Kilcup, Karen. ed. "Recovering New Humor." Studies in American Humor 3.6 (1999).

Kruse, Horst H. "The Motif of the Flattened Corpse: Mark Twain, Max Adeler, and the Tall Tale Tradition." Studies in American Humor 3.4 (1997): 47-53.

Mintz, Lawrence E. "American Humor in the 1920s." Dancing Fools and Weary Blues: The Great Escape of the Twenties. Eds. Lawrence R. Broer and John D. Walther. Bowling Green, OH: Popular, 1990. 160-71.

Nilsen, Don L. F. "Humorous American Poets: How to Distinguish the Best from the Worst." Studies in American Humor 6 (1988): 6-12.

Pitcher, E. W. "'A Complexion of Improbabilities': American Humor and Frontier News and the Revolution." ANQ 12.1 (Wint 1999): 34-41.

Post, Constance J. "Revolutionary Dialogics in American Mock-Epic Poetry: Double-Voicing in M'Fingal, The Anarchiad, and The Hasty-Pudding." Studies in American Humor 6 (1988): 40-51.

Royot, Daniel. "Benjamin Franklin as Founding Father of American Humor." Reappraising Benjamin Franklin: A Bicentennial Perspective. Ed. A. Leo Lemay. Newark: U of Delaware P, 1993. 388-95.

Stearns, Marshall and Jean. "Frontiers of Humor: American Vernacular." Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel. Ed. Alan Dundes. Jackson, MS: UP of Mississippi, 1990. 613-19.

Tanner, James T. F. "Puritan Humor in Seventeenth-Century American Poetry: Sarcasm as Consequence of the Persecution Complex." Studies in American Humor 6 (1988): 13-29.

- - -. ed. "Humor in American Poetry." Studies in American Humor 6 (1988). Special Edition.

Tanner, Stephen L. "The Art of Self-Deprecation in American Literary Humor." Studies in American Humor 3.3 (1996): 54-65.

Ward, A. Joseph. "Prayers Shrieked to Heaven: Humor and Folklore in Contemporary American Indian Literature." Western Folklore 56.3 (Sumr-Fall 1997): 267-80.

MLA Style Citation of this Web Page

Reuben, Paul P. "PAL: Appendix R: American Wit and Humor." PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide. URL:http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/append/axr.html (provide page date or date of your login). 

| Top | Back |Appendices: Index | Alphabetical List | Contents | PAL Home | Literature | Home |