Another lighthearted tale from American author Ellis Parker Butler (December 5, 1869 – September 13, 1937) which revolves around old Peter Lane, who lives on a decrepit houseboat on the Mississippi River and mostly whiles away his time whittling with his jack-knife and not really doing much else. That is, until one night, a sickly woman knocks at his boat door holding her son in her arms. This encounter would change Peter’s life, as the old man befriends little Buddy and is...
Excerpt from „In Pawn”: Lem Redding had a dimple in his cheek that appeared when he smiled. For a boy with a faceful of freckles he was pretty. He had dear, bright gray eyes, and his smile, aided by the dimple, made most folks love him at sight. His hair was brown, as his dead mother’s had been; in fact he was much like that mother in more ways than one-far more like her than he was like Harvey Redding, his father. Lem was quick, agile, lively, and Harvey was plumb lazy. Th...
Ellis Parker Butler (1869-1937) was a contemporary of many big names in American fiction straddling the 19th and 20th centuries, but today he’s almost completely forgotten. The selections in „Mike Flannery On Duty and Off” book include three humorous stories, „Just Like a Cat,” „The Three Hundred” and „Fleas Will Be Fleas,” by this American humorist, whose first success, „Pigs is Pigs” (1906), remained his greatest. Nevertheless, the Mike Flannery stories are among his best...
Ellis Parker Butler (1869-1937) was a contemporary of many big names in American fiction straddling the 19th and 20th centuries, but today he’s almost completely forgotten. Butler, the author of more than 30 books and more than 2,000 stories and essays. His writing spanned more than forty years and his stories, poems and articles were published in more than 225 magazines. „Perkins of Portland „ are amusing tales showing the effectiveness of advertising some rather questiona...
Beloved humor writer Ellis Parker Butler hits it out of the ballpark with his first full-length novel, „Kilo: Being the Love Story of Eliph’ Hewlitt, Book Agent”. The plot centers around Eliph’ Hewlitt, a travelling book salesman of the horse-and-buggy era who finds the love of his life in Kilo, Iowa and he decides on the spot to marry her and settles down there, peddling books to the locals, but Sally Briggs, the woman whom he’s fixated on, doesn’t feel the same way. The c...
Humorous novel set in Riverbank, a fictionalized Muscatine, in a Mississippi River town. Pastor David Dean and his wife take up residence in this town, Iowa in the 1850s and learn how unaccepting a small town can be of new residents, even after a stay of decades. An interesting social history of mid nineteenth century life, emphasizing the dominance of crass commercial interests in the vicissitudes of small town life, written by an American author Ellis Parker Butler. He wa...
A hilarious parody of the detective genre – Philo Gubb dreams of becoming a detective like Sherlock Holmes and quitting his job as a wallpaper-hanger. He enrolls in a correspondence course which offers lessons and various disguises. He soon gets involved in several cases and much to his surprise – and those around him – proves to be rather adept at solving crimes. Amazingly, he solves many puzzles and even catches some real thieves and other criminals usually by some mistak...
A city man moves to the suburbs with humorous results – gardening, automobiling, and golfing become new avocations. The book „The Adventures of a Suburbanite” includes two chapters on golf: „The Royal Game” and „Advanced Golf.” The subjects of humor in this book are mostly the two neighbors’ opposing opinions about all aspects of domestic and rural life, the gardening, and a variety of slapstick troubles with an automobile. Why is the neighbor so obsessed with his car? Wher...
First published in 1920, „Swatty: A Story of Real Boy” is another breathtaking tale from American author Ellis Parker Butler (December 5, 1869 – September 13, 1937). Butler, the author of more than 30 books and more than 2,000 stories and essays, is most famous for his short story „Pigs is Pigs” in which a bureaucratic stationmaster insists on levying the livestock rate for a shipment of two pet guinea pigs that soon start proliferating geometrically. His writing spanned mo...
Ellis Parker Butler was an American author in the first half of the 20th century. He was the author of more than 30 books and more than 2,000 stories and essays, and is most famous for his short story „Pigs is Pigs”. His writing spanned more than forty years and his stories, poems and articles were published in more than 225 magazines. More of this popular author’s fun, a bundle of absurd complications and ridiculous situations arising from a young married couple’s scheme t...
