AMERICAN SATIRE IN PROSE AND VERSE

America has quietly spawned a treasury of skillful satire, amusingly suggestive and sharply critical. This expansive collection, which is devoted to ""serious"" American satire, sparkles with the contributions of 68 native wits and critics (among them, Washington Irving, Benjamin Franklin, Ambrose Bierce, Art Buchwald, FPA, Will Rogers, Robert Benchley). Divided into twelve target areas--personalities, politics, the Arts, Progress, higher education--the selections are too apt and clever to admit of any description short of full quotation. A titular sampling of the funnier bits: ""Senator Pooh and the Communist Woozles"" (Eric Sevareid); ""Men Are Not Descended Off of Monkeys"" (Don Marquis); ""Adultery Makes Dull Bedfellows"" (Wolcott Gibbs); ""To Sleep, Perchance to Steam"" (Perelman). Penetrating critiques clothed in a humorous mantle, this volume brings a neglected art to entertain and jostle ""modern"" American types.