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Rating: 
Summary: An Eye-Opening Survey Of English-Language Humor
Review: An astonishing tour of 400 years of laughs from the USA, UK, Canada, and Australia. Not just the greats like Wodehouse, Twain, and Garrison Keillor but brilliant (but now forgotten) writers, plus cult favorites like Auberon Waugh, Stella Gibbons and P.J. O'Rourke. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: A Classic Text...the perfect place to begin an education
Review: Key words in the title: humorous prose. Sure, by sticking to prose, Muir had to eliminate comic masters like W.S. Gilbert, , Preston Sturges, the Pythons, & Bernard Shaw (actually, some of Shaw's great criticism makes it in). But when it comes to humorous prose, this book is the Grand Tour. For the time period it covers, this book has everything. I guarantee you'll discover a new favorite author within a week of buying this tome (and that's the highest purpose of an anthology - giving the reader a new favorite). Muir's editorial introductions and insertions are both enlightening and entertaining, and the man's genuine love of the form shines through in each passage. My only complaint? The book needs updating. Add a hundred pages, and stick in stuff from Pratchett, Douglas Adams, Carl Hiaasen, Tom Robbins, David Lodge, even Helen Fielding. Aside from that, the book is perfect. May a higher power bless Muir for doing such a great and important service to both the readers of this anthology and the writers whose work fills its pages.
Rating:
Summary: A Classic Text...the perfect place to begin an education
Review: Key words in the title: humorous prose. Sure, by sticking to prose, Muir had to eliminate comic masters like W.S. Gilbert, , Preston Sturges, the Pythons, & Bernard Shaw (actually, some of Shaw's great criticism makes it in). But when it comes to humorous prose, this book is the Grand Tour. For the time period it covers, this book has everything. I guarantee you'll discover a new favorite author within a week of buying this tome (and that's the highest purpose of an anthology - giving the reader a new favorite). Muir's editorial introductions and insertions are both enlightening and entertaining, and the man's genuine love of the form shines through in each passage. My only complaint? The book needs updating. Add a hundred pages, and stick in stuff from Pratchett, Douglas Adams, Carl Hiaasen, Tom Robbins, David Lodge, even Helen Fielding. Aside from that, the book is perfect. May a higher power bless Muir for doing such a great and important service to both the readers of this anthology and the writers whose work fills its pages.
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