Funny classic books

Three friends seeking rest on the Thames find comic trouble instead, as packing, food and rowing upset their holiday plans.

An American family's practical response to haunting makes a funny reversal of the ghost's expected triumph over frightened newcomers.

A London clerk's earnest record of domestic life turns wounded pride and small social insults into humorous everyday troubles.

Catherine Morland's taste for frightening novels clouds her judgment, bringing comic expectations into the fashionable society of Bath.

An aspiring knight treats ordinary people and places as chivalric adventures, creating comic collisions between his expectations and everyday reality.

Animals, unruly children and clever troublemakers disturb respectable households in humorous stories where polite behaviour offers little protection.

A baron's insistence that his impossible exploits really happened gives these funny adventures their contrast between confidence and improbability.

Invitations, bridge games and garden produce become weapons of social rivalry as a watchful woman seeks control of town life.

A Connecticut factory man's attempt to remake King Arthur's England brings satirical possibilities to the collision of knowledge and chivalry.

Taught that everything happens for good, a young traveller encounters cruelty and disaster in a satirical collision of belief and experience.

Everyday habits, shyness and rented rooms provide material for humorous essays that wander through personal reflections, jokes and stories.

A stranger's scheme to buy dead serfs still officially alive builds a satirical premise from the gap between records and reality.

Chalk, railway journeys and familiar objects prompt short essays whose jokes and paradoxes invite a fresh look at ordinary things.

A stranger tests a town proud of its honesty, giving respectable residents reasons to put private gain before public principles.