Reading path
The Laughing Library
Literature is not always solemn. Some of the most enduring works in the canon are built on laughter: savage satire, absurd invention, social comedy so precise it draws blood while smiling. This path traces the comic tradition from ancient Athens through Renaissance excess, Enlightenment wit, Victorian social skewering, and into the dark absurdism of the twentieth century. Along the way, the boundaries between humour and horror blur in ways that are genuinely unsettling. The best comedy has always been serious about something, and the writers collected here prove that nothing cuts deeper than a well-aimed joke.
In the app a path keeps your place, marks what you have read, and hands you the next work when you are ready for it.
The first button needs the app on this device; the second gets it there.
The route
- 1. LysistrataAristophanes, 411 BCE
- 2. The MisanthropeMolière, 1666
- 3. Gargantua and PantagruelFrançois Rabelais, 1534
- 4. Don QuixoteMiguel de Cervantes, 1605
- 5. CandideVoltaire, 1759
- 6. Tristram ShandyLaurence Sterne, 1759
- 7. Gulliver's TravelsJonathan Swift, 1726
- 8. A Modest ProposalJonathan Swift, 1729
- 9. The Rape of the LockAlexander Pope, 1712
- 10. EmmaJane Austen, 1815
- 11. Lady SusanJane Austen, 1871
- 12. Dead SoulsNikolai Gogol, 1842
- 13. The NoseNikolai Gogol, 1836
- 14. Barry LyndonWilliam Makepeace Thackeray, 1844
- 15. Vanity FairWilliam Makepeace Thackeray, 1848
- 16. Under the Greenwood TreeThomas Hardy, 1872
- 17. The Importance of Being EarnestOscar Wilde, 1895
- 18. The Picture of Dorian GrayOscar Wilde, 1890
- 19. The Master & MargaritaMikhail Bulgakov, 1967
- 20. Catch-22Joseph Heller, 1961
- 21. Slaughterhouse-FiveKurt Vonnegut, 1969
- 22. The Tin DrumGünter Grass, 1959
- 23. HerzogSaul Bellow, 1964
- 24. The Good Soldier ŠvejkJaroslav Hašek, 1921
- 25. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the GalaxyDouglas Adams, 1979
- 26. Cold Comfort FarmStella Gibbons, 1932
- 27. Lucky JimKingsley Amis, 1954
- 28. DecameronGiovanni Boccaccio, 1353
- 29. Tom JonesHenry Fielding, 1749
- 30. At Swim Two-BirdsFlann O'Brien, 1939
- 31. Bouvard et PécuchetGustave Flaubert, 1881
- 32. Bridget Jones's DiaryHelen Fielding, 1996
- 33. I Served The King Of EnglandBohumil Hrabal, 1983
- 34. ScoopEvelyn Waugh, 1938
- 35. Barchester TowersAnthony Trollope, 1857
- 36. The Pickwick PapersCharles Dickens, 1836
- 37. The SwindlerFrancisco de Quevedo, 1626
- 38. MacunaímaMario de Andrade, 1928
- 39. The Praise of FollyErasmus, 1511
- 40. Three Trapped TigersGuillermo Cabrera Infante, 1965
- 41. Zuleika DobsonMax Beerbohm, 1911
- 42. Under the NetIris Murdoch, 1954
- 43. Eminent VictoriansLytton Strachey, 1918
- 44. The Golden AssApuleius, 158 CE
- 45. Framley ParsonageAnthony Trollope, 1861
- 46. Martin ChuzzlewitCharles Dickens, 1843
- 47. The Adventures Of Roderick RandomTobias Smollett, 1748
- 48. The Prince and the PauperMark Twain, 1881
- 49. The Diary of a NobodyGeorge Grossmith, Weedon Grossmith, 1892
- 50. Three Men in a BoatJerome K. Jerome, 1889
- 51. The Legend Of Thyl Ulenspiegel And Lamme GoedzakCharles de Coster, 1867
- 52. CheeseWillem Elsschot, 1933
- 53. Seven BrothersAleksis Kivi, 1870
- 54. A PredicamentEdgar Allan Poe, 1838