The Folio Book of Comic Short Stories

This anthology collects short comic fiction in which a situation, not a string of jokes, produces the humor. Typical pieces follow a social climber, a timid employee, a disastrous house party, or a narrator who misunderstands a bargain or a romance. Settings are often offices, lodgings, and family tables. The stories stand alone, with no shared cast and no linking commentary that turns them into a novel. The book is a sampler of comic short stories, not a volume of light verse and not a handbook of after-dinner speaking.

Quarter-bound in dark red cloth with yellow paper sides decorated in gilt and orange with designs, and gilt spine titling. Dark red slipcase.