Project Gutenberg's Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor, by Various

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Title: Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor
Volume I

Author: Various

Editor: Thomas L. Masson

Release Date: April 21, 2007 [EBook #21196]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Little Masterpieces of
American Wit and Humor

Edited by Thomas L. Masson

[Illustration: Oliver Wendell Holmes]

VOLUME I

_By_

Washington Irving Oliver Wendell Holmes
Benjamin Franklin "Josh Billings"
"Mark Twain" Charles Dudley Warner
James T. Fields Henry Ward Beecher
and others

NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1903

Copyright, 1903, by
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
Published, October, 1903

[Illustration: Handwritten introduction:

Those selections in this book which are from my own works, were made by
my two assistant compilers, not by me. This is why There are not more.

Mark Twain]

INTRODUCTION

This anthology of American Humor represents a process of selection that
has been going on for more than fifteen years, and in giving it to the
public it is perhaps well that the Editor should precede it with a few
words of explanation as to its meaning and scope.

Not only all that is fairly representative of the work of our American
humorists, from Washington Irving to "Mr. Dooley," has been gathered
together, but also much that is merely fugitive and anecdotal. Thus, in
many instances literary finish has been ignored in order that certain
characteristic and purely American bits should have their place. The
Editor is not unmindful of the danger of this plan. For where there is
such a countless number of witticisms (so-called) as are constantly
coming to the surface, and where so many of them are worthless, it must
always take a rare discrimination to detect the genuine from the false.
This difficulty is greatly increased by the difference of opinion that
exists, even amo