Historical Humor

When I answered an ad for a caretaker at Saint Mark’s Sanctuary, I thought I’d be dusting chandeliers and polishing floors. I didn’t expect to be tricked into a curse, going into debt to a monster, and being forced to take a self-paced “let’s learn magic” course so I can fix a 2,000-year-old problem. And that monster? Not your ordinary, everyday beast. He has hooves, and horns, and fur on his legs. But you know where he doesn’t have fur? Yeah. There. Which is fine. Except he doesn’t wear pants.

#1 GLOBAL BESTSELLER WITH MORE THAN 8 MILLION COPIES SOLD Meet Elizabeth Zott: “a gifted research chemist, absurdly self-assured and immune to social convention” (The Washington Post) in 1960s California whose career takes a detour when she becomes the unlikely star of a beloved TV...

This hilarious, heartfelt, and soaring adventure will delight fans of The Goonies and Indiana Jones. Performed as a 1930s radio drama, it’s bursting with humor for all ages, orchestral scoring, and some of the most talented voices on Broadway. When their ace pilot parents (and adorable puppy) mysteriously disappear over the Pacific, the Flamingo Sisters - Flo, Faye, and Franny - escape the clutches of their evil Uncle Freidrich (who believes girls should never pilot aeroplanes) and join a flying circus.

The complete “One Breath at a Time” trilogy of time travel romance adventures, including: AS I FADE (Book 1) What would you do if the love of your life was waiting for you fifty years in the past? For Brielle Eden, a successful novelist living in New York City, this is a very real possibility. For reasons unknown to her Brielle is drawn to Paris. Once there, she will quickly discover that not all is as it seems; indeed, there’s a thin line between fantasy and reality... And when she wakes up in a hospital for the mentally insane, Brielle’s nightmare is about to begin. Confused, she ...

After the death of her miserly cousin Antony North, Millicent Boarder is determined her family should never be poor or vulnerable again. To protect them, she conceals her cousin's death and assumes his identity. Now she must face the ton and the world as Mr. North and accept the price she must pay for her family's safety - she will never be loved.

From the incomparable David Rakoff, a poignant, beautiful, witty, and wise novel in verse whose scope spans the twentieth century Through his books and his radio essays for NPR's This American Life, David Rakoff has built a deserved reputation as one of the finest and funniest essayists of our...

Tatiana knows who has her heart...but is she willing to wait for God's timing?Family hardship brings tough choices into the life of young Tatiana. To help her family make ends meet, she is forced to put her education on the shelf. A family friend finds her a housekeeper position and she boards a train to Philadelphia. At the station, a polite young man meets her but refuses to talk and answer her questions! Who is he and why does he act that way? Upon her arrival, Tatiana finds her employer, the sharp-tongued Reverend Wolfe, is a widower with two needy children. Despite his temperament, it ...

Elizabeth Bennet is a lady of decided opinions—especially about a certain Mr Darcy. When Colonel Fitzwilliam reveals that gentleman as the cause of her sister’s romantic woes, Elizabeth does not become angry or distraught. Instead, the news offers some relief, because it allows her to finally understand everything that happened in Hertfordshire the previous autumn. With this new knowledge, she acts to remove herself from the disagreeable company at Rosings.

Now showing at the Palace: classic movies, ghostly mayhem, and murder! When Nora Paige agrees to use the Palace movie theater for the launch of a new online game, she has no way of knowing that the event will end in murder. But when one of the theater’s owners is accused of the crime, the future of the Palace could be in danger. With help from Trixie, the lively ghost of a 1930s usherette, Nora sets out to solve the crime, all while dealing with the latest manipulations from her lying ex, the meddling of a Hollywood mogul with revenge on his mind, and the mysterious delivery box of ...

There’s a voodoo woman in New Orleans who knows your darkest secrets French Quarter paranormal investigator Wyatt Thomas learns he’s permanently linked to the spirit of a man with whom he’d fought a duel during another lifetime. The only person who can free Wyatt from his curse is long-dead voodoo queen Marie Laveaux. To seek her help, he must travel back to Antebellum New Orleans, succeed in his endeavor, or be trapped in the past forever. When Wyatt meets his former lover at the Mulatto Ball, he doesn’t know if he wants to return. While Wyatt is time traveling, detective Tony ...

Sherlock Holmes is an unparalleled genius who uses the gift of deduction and reason to solve the most vexing of crimes. Warlock Holmes, however, is an idiot. A good man, perhaps; a font of arcane power, certainly. But he’s brilliantly dim. Frankly, he couldn’t deduce his way out of a paper bag. The only things he has really got going for him are the might of a thousand demons and his stalwart flatmate. Thankfully, Dr. Watson is always there to aid him through the treacherous shoals of Victorian propriety...

An unusual heroine, Fiona Hawthorn grew up running free. Without a mother to restrain her, she spent her days riding her horse across her father's fields, or swimming like a sea nymph in the upper meadow lake. Trouble is, inside a prim and proper Regency sitting room Fiona is bound to overturn the teapot or accidentally trip the footman. Her notorious Aunt Honore decides to take the hoyden in hand, but amidst the strictures of the beau monde, Fiona is a fish out of water.

In 1914 collisions between motor cars and horse-drawn carriages are an everyday occurrence on the streets of Paterson, New Jersey. But when an out-of-control driver smashes into a buggy driven by Constance, Norma, and Fleurette Kopp, their lives change forever. Constance, the oldest, demands payment for the damages but quickly realizes that she is dealing with a madman.

I am the narrator of this book, which means I already carried every waltz, whisper, and corpse across the finish line, and now “they” have decided I should also stand in the foyer and beckon strangers inside. Splendid. Miss Clemency Harrow arrives at Ashbourne Hall on a Tuesday with a sensible spine, an insolvent father, and an engagement arranged as neatly as a place setting, right down to the Earl waiting at the bottom of the stairs like a man who has never trusted soup. Unfortunately, the house has opinions, the guests have secrets, and Mr Horace Pettigrew has come armed with moral ...

This is the ultimate book of weird history! Combining Volumes 1 and 2 in the “Weird Things in History and Why the Heck They Happened” series, this is your opportunity to jump into a time machine and visit some of the overlooked, the peculiar, and definitely the most amusing things that have influenced our contemporary world. Brace yourself for amusement and astonishment as you explore not only the 50 tales from the first two volumes but 5 additional historical events that you most likely won’t find in any school textbook! “Weird Things in History and Why the Heck They Happened” ...

She joined the Land Army for duty. She found drama, friendship – and a whole lot of trouble. A heartwarming and hilarious WW2 novel bursting with Yorkshire grit, female friendship, and Land Girl spirit. 1944. Feisty eighteen-year-old April Thornton is done with waiting. With a head full of dreams and a heart set on adventure, she defies her parents and signs up for the Women’s Land Army – determined to do her bit for King and country. Swapping her quiet village for muddy fields and unpredictable farm life, April quickly learns that war work isn’t all hay bales and heroics. For ...

Contains books one and two of the Richard Jackson Saga, a coming-of-age adventure series: The Beginning, book 1, and The School Days, book 2. Follow our young hero as he goes through life in the late 1950s, adventure after adventure, large and small. Starting in the summer before his freshman year, the story follows him through his high school life. He finds fame and fortune as an inventor, and wealth in Hollywood as he searches for a girlfriend (...wealth and fame prove far easier to obtain than girls).

From Boston's social underworld emerges Verena Tarrant, a girl with extraordinary oratorical gifts, which she deploys in tawdry meeting-houses on behalf of "the sisterhood of women". She acquires two admirers of a very different stamp: Olive Chancellor, devotee of radical causes, and marked out for tragedy; and Basil Ransom, veteran of the Civil War, with rigid views concerning society and women's place therein. Is the lovely, lighthearted Verena made for public movements or private passions?

Jane Austen's legendary romance—minus the part where you have to Google every third word. What's a Sweary Classic? The complete original story—same plot, same characters, same emotional devastation—just translated into modern, hilarious, sweary language that doesn't require a literature degree to understand. Think: all the Regency drama, zero Victorian torture. Elizabeth Bennet has ninety-nine problems and they're all related to her mother's unhinged obsession with marrying off five daughters before they die penniless and alone. Enter: Mr. Darcy, the new rich guy in town who's so ...

Despite the title, Dickens's portrayal of early industrial society is less relentlessly grim than that in novels by contemporaries such as Elizabeth Gaskell or Charles Kingsley. Hard Times weaves the tale of Thomas Gradgrind, a hard-headed politician who raises his children Louisa and Tom without love and to have no empathy, their lives completely devoid of beauty, culture, or imagination. Only after a series of crises does their father realise that the manner in which he raised his children has ruined their lives.