The volume opens with Phœbe Cary's parody of Charles Wolfe's 'The Burial of Sir John Moore,' replacing martial solemnity with a wedding's absurdities: 'Not a sigh was heard, nor a funeral tone, / As the man to his bridal we hurried.' This sets the tone for a collection that often relies on recognizable literary forms twisted for comic effect. Across the table of contents, one finds dialect poems by James Whitcomb Riley, mock lectures by John Phoenix, and satirical sketches by Finley Peter Dunne's Mr. Dooley. The editor, Marshall P. Wilder, has assembled pieces that vary widely in pace—from brisk, rhyming stanzas to leisurely narrative essays—and in voice, from the polished irony of Kate Field's travelogue to the folksy cadences of Anne Virginia Culbertson's African American dialect stories.

Parody and Poetic Form as Comic Engine

Several selections in this volume derive their humor from the deliberate mismatch between a familiar poetic structure and an incongruous subject. Phœbe Cary's 'The Marriage of Sir John Smith' is the clearest example, recasting a funeral elegy as a wedding narrative. The parody works line by line: where the original has 'No useless coffin enclosed his breast,' Cary writes 'No useless watch-chain covered his chest.' The humor depends on the reader's recognition of the source text. Similarly, Albert Gorton Greene's 'Old Grimes' adapts a ballad meter to describe a miserly old man, while John Phoenix's 'Lectures on Astronomy' and 'Musical Review Extraordinary' use mock-scholarly prose to deflate pretension. These pieces reward close attention to form, as the joke often lies in the tension between the elevated language and the mundane or ridiculous subject.

Dialect and Regional Voice

A significant portion of the volume showcases American dialect writing, particularly from the South and Midwest. James Whitcomb Riley contributes several poems in Hoosier dialect, such as 'The Runaway Boy' and 'My Ruthers,' where the humor emerges from the speaker's folksy perspective and phonetic spelling. Anne Virginia Culbertson's stories, including 'Whar Dem Sinful Apples Grow' and 'The Woman Who Married an Owl,' employ African American dialect, rendering speech patterns that were a staple of the period's humor. The pace in these pieces is often slower, drawing out the comedy through repetition and the narrator's deadpan delivery. In contrast, Finley Peter Dunne's 'Mr. Dooley on Expert Testimony' uses Irish-American dialect to satirize legal proceedings, with the bartender-philosopher's winding sentences building to a punchline. The juxtaposition of these voices within a single volume highlights the era's fascination with regional speech as a marker of authenticity and humor.

Shifts in Narrative Pace and Perspective

The volume's prose selections demonstrate notable changes in pace, from the brisk, anecdotal style of Kate Field's 'A Night in a Rocking-Chair' to the more deliberate, observational humor of Elliott Flower's 'The Strike of One.' Field's piece moves quickly through a series of mishaps—a crowded carriage, a lost hotel, a noisy parlor—with short paragraphs and direct dialogue. The narrator's frustration is conveyed through rapid-fire complaints: 'Ring! I rang that bell until I ached to be a man for one brief moment.' By contrast, George Horace Lorimer's 'Letter from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son' adopts a slower, epistolary pace, with the father's advice unfolding in measured, aphoristic sentences. The volume also includes pieces that shift perspective mid-narrative, such as J.J. Hooper's 'Simon Starts in the World,' which moves from third-person exposition to first-person dialogue. These variations in tempo and viewpoint prevent the collection from becoming monotonous, offering the reader a range of comic experiences from slapstick to satire.

Readers approaching this volume should be prepared for a wide range of comic styles, from gentle parody to broad dialect humor. The editor's selection emphasizes variety over thematic unity, so the experience is best taken in short bursts rather than straight through. Pay attention to the way each piece establishes its voice—whether through meter, dialect, or narrative stance—as the humor often depends on the gap between form and content. The volume also offers a snapshot of American literary tastes at the turn of the century, when regional dialects and parodic forms were especially popular.