Satire
The Satyricon
Satyricon (or Satyrica) is a Latin work of fiction in a mixture of prose and poetry. It is believed to have been written by Gaius Petronius,…
The Crocodile
Ivan Matveich, the most ordinary person you might hope to meet, is swallowed alive by a crocodile at a sideshow. Finding life inside the be…
Damn! A Book of Calumny
Henry Louis "H. L." Mencken (1880 – 1956) was an American journalist, essayist, magazine editor, satirist, acerbic critic of Ameri…
A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder
"A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder" is the most popular of James De Mille's works. It was serialized posthumously in…
A Tale of a Tub
A Tale of a Tub was the first major work written by Jonathan Swift, composed between 1694 and 1697, that was eventually published in 1704. I…
The Battle of the Books
"The Battle of the Books" depicts a literal battle between books in the King's Library (housed in St James's Palace at the time of…
Greener Than You Think
Do remember reading a panic-mongering news story a while back about genetically engineered “Frankengrass” “escaping” from the golf course wh…
The Country Wife
One of the most notorious Restoration comedies in existence, William Wycherley’s The Country Wife is a lively and riotous exploration of cou…
A Cynic Looks At Life
A Cynic Looks At Life is a sharp and insightful collection of essays by Ambrose Bierce, renowned for his acerbic wit and keen observations. …
Behind the Beyond
Behind the Beyond is a witty collection of parodies and humorous anecdotes from renowned Canadian humorist Stephen Leacock. In this engaging…
Curiosities of Street Literature
This is a collection of broadsides from London. Broadsides are short, popular publications, a precursor to today's tabloid journalism. The c…
The Confidence-Man
The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade was the last major novel by Herman Melville, the American writer and author of Moby-Dick. Published on Ap…
The Devil is an Ass
An inferior devil, Pug, asks Satan to send him to Earth to tempt men to Evil. But when Pug arrives in 1616 London and sets himself at the Sq…
Trips to the Moon
The endeavour of small Greek historians to add interest to their work by magnifying the exploits of their countrymen, and piling wonder upon…
The Inheritance
"As the noblest attribute of man, family pride had been cherished time immemorial by the noble race of Rossville. Deep and incurable, t…
Niels Klim's Journey under the Ground
Niels Klim's Underground Travels, originally published in Latin as "Nicolai Klimii Iter Subterraneum" (1741) is a satirical scienc…
The Acharnians
Loaded with cryptic, nearly indecipherable inside jokes and double entendres, this early comedy of Aristophanes has a simple, anti-war premi…
Don Juan
These are the last four Cantos of his mock epic that Byron completed in the year before his death at the age of 36 in Messolonghi, Greece, w…
Crome Yellow
Fascinating and brilliant at many levels, Huxley's spoof of Lady Ottoline Morrell's famous bohemian gatherings is difficult to categorize. T…
Mary Broome
Before Downton Abbey, there was Mary Broome. In Allan Monkhouse's 1911 satire, when the son of a middle-class household gets their housemaid…