Twentieth century parody, American and British / edited by Burling Lowrey ; introduction by Nathaniel Benchley.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Gotham Book Mart Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Lowrey, Burling, 1918- editor.

Benchley, Nathaniel, 1915-1981, writer of introduction.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Parodies.

Genre:

Parodies.

Parodies (Literature)

Penn Provenance:

Gotham Book Mart (former owner) Gotham Book Mart Collection copy)

Physical Description:

xv, 304 pages ; 22 cm

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

Parody, American and British

Place of Publication:

New York : Harcourt, Brace and Co., ©1960.

Summary:

Good parody is murderously hard to write. Wolcott Gibbs, an accomplished parodist if ever there was one, said that it is the hardest form of creative writing there is, because not only must the style of the subject be reproduced in slightly enlarged form, but it must also hold the interest of people who haven't read the original. It was Aldous Huxley who said that parodies are the most penetrating form of criticism, and Oscar Wilde who said they are the tribute that mediocrity pays to genius, which leaves us with a pretty good idea as to who had been burned and who hadn't. Some of the parodies are, obviously, more successful than others, which is a roundabout way of saying that some don't hold up if you haven't read the original material; but others make glorious reading even if you've never even heard of the author being parodied, and this is the best kind I can think of."--Nathaniel Benchley, from the introduction

Contents:

Introduction / Nathaniel Benchley

The feast by J*s*ph C*nr*d, P.C., X, 36 by R*d**rd K*pl*ng, The mote in the middle distance by H*nry J*m*s / Max Beerbohm

Custer's last stand (In the manner of Edith Wharton) / Donald Ogden Stewart

The blue sleeve garter (Sex and political economy as blended by Mr. Galsworthy) / Robert Benchley

Compiling an American tragedy (Suggestions as to how Theodore Dresier might write his next human document and save five years' work) / Robert Benchley

A note (To be entered in a notebook like Somerset Maugham's notebook if I were keeping one, which I'm not) / E.B. White

The man who knew Lewis / John Riddell

The Chinese situation / Robert Benchley

Scones and stones (After reading "Parents and children," "Men and wives," "Daughters and sons," and So on, by Ivy Compton-Burnett) / Peter de Vries

The courtship of Miles Standish (In the manner of F. Scott Fitzgerald) / Donald Ogden Stewart

Told in gath (with apologies to Mr. A*d* us H*xl*y / Cyril Connolly

A farewell to Josephine's arms (The Hemingway of all flesh) / H.W. Hanemann

A world of women (With acknowledgements to Elizabeth Bowen / J. Maclaren-Ross

Of nothing and the Wolfe / Clifton Fadiman

The Steinbeck party (To mark the publication of "The short novels") / Richard Mallett

A handful of bodies revisited (... written after reading "Men at arms" ... by Evelyn Waugh / Richard Mallett

John O'hara on Major Riddell's amateur hour / John Riddell

Requiem for a noun, or intruder in the dusk (What can come of trying to read William Faulkner while minding a child or vice versa) / Peter de Vries

First Saroyan / Richard Mallett

The salad of the bad cafe by C*rs*n McC*l*ers / J. Maclaren-Ross

Catch her in the oatmeal [In the manner of J.D. Salinger] / Dan Greenburg

From there to infinity (After reading "From here to eternity," by James Jones) / Peter de Vries

Lucky Goldilocks (with apologies to K*ngsl*y Am*s) / Anthony Brode.

On the sidewalk (After reading, at Long last, "On the road," by Jack Kerouac) / John Updike

Mae West and John Riddell: a correspondence / John Riddell A word to Mr. Jones (Introductory note to "Miscegenation," a novel after H.G. Wells) / Hugh Kingsmill

How the Polish problem was resolved by the Right Hon. Sir W*nst*n Ch*rch*ll / Malcolm Muggeridge

Dithers and jitters (A brief digest of the intimate memoirs of Mabel Rudge Truman) / Cornelia Otis Skinner

Joseph (From "Eminent Egyptians" after Lytton Strachey) / Hugh Kingsmill

The night the bufflo came down the chimney (... episode from the early history of J*m*s Th*rb*r / Alex Atkinson

Inside John Gunther

The roundabout of history (With apologies to Professor Toynbee) / John Bowles

The insider by C*l*n W*ls*n / Geoffrey Gorer

Strange interview / John Riddell

The best plays of 1945 (A prophecy in one act) / Wolcott Gibbs

Charley's confidential aunt (In the manner of Mr. T.S. El**t) / Lionel Hale

Another part if the Hubbards or, When they were even younger (With an awed bow to their creator, Lillian Hellman) / Patricia Collinge

Waiting for Santy a Christmas playlet (with a bow to Mr. Clifford Odets) / S.J. Perelman

The doll's not for frying (Supposing Christopher Fry, and not Abe Burrows, had adpted Damon Runyon to the stage) / Peter de Vries

No telly-belly for Larry Gibb (A dual commemoration of Dylan Thomas's "Under milk wood" and the ideal home exhibition) / J.B. Boothroyd

A tattooed streetcar named Rose (... a drama of men and women caught in the washwinger of life. Tennessee Williams was turning the handle when the author of this new drama spelled him for a while / Ira Wallach

Oklahomov! ("Kitty, wake!" adapted from Anton Chekhov's "The seagull" by R*ch*rd R*dg*rs and Osc*r H*mm*rst**n II) / Paul Dehn

Death to a salesman (In the manner, if not the spirit, of Arthur Miller's opus) Trump Macy

Look further back in anger / Alex Atkinson.

"Invictus": A regurgitation (A "New critic" ruminates upon an old poem) / Ira Wallach

The three limperary cripples (Musings between sleeping and waking, and immdiately after reading Joyce, by the literary editor of a Liberal Weekly / Edmund Wilson Reading time: eternity (After an evening with "the morning after the first night," in which Mr. George Jean Nathan ecpoiunds the ultimate criticism) / Wolcott Gibbs

A garland of ibids for Van Wyck Brooks, uneasy Brooks fan / Frank Sullivan

The N*w Y*rk*r: Books (to the comfort station)

A broadway garland (Ten metropolitan reviewers have a look at something called "Honored in the breach," by Mr. Foster Opdyke, which when last heard from, was at the Cosmos Theatre) / G.B. Archer-Beerbohm

Thou tellest me, comrade / Gilbert Highet

In defense of Exurbia / The Rev. Peter Salmon

Miscellany: Dickie Byrd at the South Pole / John Riddell

Chaps in chaps (A tale of the mighty west) / Richard Mallett

Family life in America / Robert Benchley

The keeper of the gelded unicorn (An historical romance which breathes life into a little-known episode in English history) / Ira Wallach

Bateman comes home (Written after reading several recent novels about the Deep South and confusing them a little-as the novelists themselves do-with "Tobacco road" and "God's little acre".) / James Thurber

Grandpop was a cut-up (When I was a child in China, Russia, Italy, Nevada, Kashmir, Columbus, Ohio, Providence, R.I., New York, England and Persia. But my kiddies are cute) Geoffrey Gorer.

Other Format:

Online version: Twentieth century parody, American and British.

OCLC:

338183