The best humorous stories by famous writers

Mark Twain said that humor is humanity's greatest blessing and its most effective weapon, because nothing can stand against the onslaught of laughter. And he is undoubtedly right - it has long been proven that laughter is one of the best medicines.

But to write good humorous stories is not easy at all. Jack London thinks it's the hardest genre. Woodhouse, one of the best humorists, even believes that it's impossible to write a funny story if the author doesn't have the right attitude toward life. Twain, on the other hand, believes that true humor is full of wisdom. In his view, wit alone is of little value if it is not laced with wisdom. The true vocation of the humorist, he argues, is to ridicule the deceivers and the privileged, the lies and delusions that run counter to human liberties. And he even distinguishes between types of humor, noting that the funny may not be in the subject or plot of the story, but in the way it is told.

This anthology presents the best humorous stories by 16 well-known writers, some of whom are famous precisely for their wit (Jerome C. Jerome, Mark Twain, O. Henry, Saki), while others have tried their pen a few times in the realm of the ridiculous. These include classic authors such as Beers, Dodet, Balzac, Doyle, London, Kipling, Poe, Hawthorne and Chekhov, as well as less familiar names such as Barry Payne, Brett Hart and W. У. Jacobs. Half of the selected stories are published in Bulgarian for the first time.