The comic tradition in America : an anthology / Kenneth S. Lynn; Edited with foreword and notes by Kenneth S. Lynn.

Contents: To the editor of the New England Courant ; To the editor of a newspaper ; Dialogue between Franklin and the gout / Benjamin Franklin -- Containing the most horrible battle ever recorded in poetry or prose ; Rip Van Winkle. A posthumous writing of Diedrich Knickerbocker ; Adventure of the German student / Washington Irving -- Georgia theatrics ; Fight ; Horse-swap / A.B. Longstreet -- Major Downing shakes hands for the President at Philadelphia ; Cousin Nabby describes the unutterable disappointment at Downingville ; Major Downing tells about going to Cambridge and making the President a doctor of laws / Seba Smith -- Simon Suggs attends a camp-meeting / Johnson J. Hooper -- Big bear of Arkansas / T.B. Thorpe -- How to write a Blackwood article ; Diddling considered as one of the exact sciences / Edgar Allan Poe -- Death of Crockett ; Crockett's morning hunt / Davy Crockett -- The Lion of the West: act II, scene 2 / James Kirke Paulding -- What Mr. Robinson thinks ; Second letter from B. Sawin, Esq. ; The courtin' / James Russell Lowell -- Simon Suggs, Jr., Esq., of Rackinsack-Arkansaw / Joseph G. Baldwin -- Parson John Bullen's lizards ; Mrs. Yardley's quilting / George W. Harris -- Celestial railroad / Nathaniel Hawthorne -- Cock-a-doodle-doo! or the crowing of the noble cock Beneventano ; Israel is initiated into the mysteries of lodging / Herman Melville -- Expensive treat of Colonel Moses Grice / Richard Malcolm Johnston -- Uncle Remus initiates the little boy ; Uncle Remus's wonder story / Joel Chandler Harris -- Celebrated jumping frog of Calaveras County ; Whittier dinner speech ; Frescoes from the past ; Fenimore Cooper's literary offenses / Mark Twain -- Point of view / Henry James -- On war preparations ; On his cousin George ; On reform candidates ; Expansion ; Book review / Finley Peter Dunne.