| Introduction | | [v] |
| Alexander Jessup |
| The Little Frenchman and His Water Lots | (1839) | [1] |
| George Pope Morris |
| The Angel of the Odd | (1844) | [7] |
| Edgar Allan Poe |
| The Schoolmaster’s Progress | (1844) | [18] |
| Caroline M.S. Kirkland |
| The Watkinson Evening | (1846) | [34] |
| Eliza Leslie |
| Titbottom’s Spectacles | (1854) | [52] |
| George William Curtis |
| My Double; and How He Undid Me | (1859) | [75] |
| Edward Everett Hale |
| A Visit to the Asylum for Aged and Decayed Punsters | (1861) | [94] |
| Oliver Wendell Holmes |
| The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County | (1865) | [102] |
| Mark Twain |
| Elder Brown’s Backslide | (1885) | [109] |
| Harry Stillwell Edwards |
| The Hotel Experience of Mr. Pink Fluker | (1886) | [128] |
| Richard Malcolm Johnston |
| The Nice People | (1890) | [141] |
| Henry Cuyler Bunner |
| The Buller-Podington Compact | (1897) | [151] |
| Frank Richard Stockton |
| Colonel Starbottle for the Plaintiff | (1901) | [170] |
| Bret Harte |
| The Duplicity of Hargraves | (1902) | [199] |
| O. Henry |
| Bargain Day at Tutt House | (1905) | [213] |
| George Randolph Chester |
| A Call | (1906) | [237] |
| Grace MacGowan Cooke |
| How the Widow Won the Deacon | (1911) | [252] |
| William James Lampton |
| Gideon | (1914) | [260] |
| Wells Hastings |