Best of
Humor

1954

The Bafut Beagles


Gerald Durrell - 1954
    Meet a frog with a coat of hair (which turns out not to be hair at all), full grown monkeys that fit inside a teacup, mice with wings, and many more of the species endemic to the Cameroons, not to mention the local ruler, the Fon of Bafut.

Three Singles to Adventure


Gerald Durrell - 1954
    three singles to adventure takes the reader to south America, where he meets the sakiwinki and the sloth clad in bright green fur, where he can hear the horrifying sound of piranha fish on the rampage, or learn how to lasso a galloping anteater.

Dalí's Mustache


Salvador Dalí - 1954
    In addition to his distinguished career in photojournalism, Halsman was one of the great pioneers of experimental photography, motivated by a profound desire to push this youngest of art forms toward new frontiers by using innovative and unorthodox photographic techniques. One of Halsman's favorite subjects was Salvador Dali, the glittering and controversial painter and theorist with whom the photographer shared a unique friendship and extraordinary professional collaboration that spanned over thirty years. Whenever Dali imagined a photograph so strange that its production seemed impossible, Halsman tried to find the solution, and invariably succeeded. As Halsman explains in his postface, Dali's Mustache is the fruit of this marriage of the minds. The jointly conceived and seemingly nonsensical questions and answers reveal the gleeful humor and assumed cynicism for which Dali is famous, while the marvelous and inspired images of Dali's mustache brilliantly display Halsman's consumate skill and extraordinary inventiveness as a photographer. This combination of wit, absurdity, and the off-handedly profound is irresistible and has contributed to the enduring fascination inspired by this unique photographic interview, which has become a cult classic and valuable collector's item since its original publication in 1954. The present volume faithfully reproduces the first edition and will introduce a new generation to the irreverent humor and imaginative genius of two great artists.

Don Camillo's Dilemma


Giovannino Guareschi - 1954
    And still the Good Lord strives to keep the peace in a war that keeps the whole world laughing.

The Incompleat Pogo


Walt Kelly - 1954
    

The Pogo Stepmother Goose (The Best of Pogo)


Walt Kelly - 1954
    

More Peanuts


Charles M. Schulz - 1954
      The strip’s bitter-sweet humour and child-like innocence helped to cement the Peanuts comic strip’s popularity and secure its reputation as a true, one-of-a-kind, timeless classic.

The Benchley Roundup


Robert Benchley - 1954
    Benchley's sketches and articles, published in periodicals like Life, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker, earned him a reputation as one of the sharpest humorists of his time; his influence—on contemporaries such as E. B. White, James Thurber, and S. J. Perelman, or followers like Woody Allen, Steve Martin, and Richard Pryor—has left an indelible mark on the American comic tradition. The Benchley Roundup collects those pieces, selected by Benchley's son Nathaniel, "which seem to stand up best over the years"-a compendium of the most endearing and enduring work from one of America's funniest and most penetrating wits."It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by then I was too famous."—Robert Benchley

The Second Tree from the Corner


E.B. White - 1954
    But no matter what his subject, Mr. White always writes about it in a prose that is a joy to read."--New York Times

The Snouters: Form and Life of the Rhinogrades


Harald Stümpke - 1954
    

Down With Skool!


Geoffrey Willans - 1954
    

Utterly Mad (Mad Reader 4)


Harvey Kurtzman - 1954
    Here, in simple words and fatastically complicated pictures, is the fearlessly outspoken expose that rips the lid off the pressing problems of our times!

Light Armour: Playful Poems on Practically Everything


Richard Armour - 1954