Great Forgotten Humorists

From Steve Carper’s collection of thousands of humor books, a look at some names you’ve unfortunately forgotten about, along with other weird and seldom seen items.

ABOUT THE COLLECTION

THE HUMORISTS

Will Cuppy

MORE FORGOTTEN FUN

MISCELLANEOUS RARITIES FROM MY COLLECTION

Groucho says what? Not the Groucho we all know so well, but an ad man of the 1920s who wrote humorous critiques of the ad world in the magazine Printers’ Ink. Who “Groucho” was might have been an open secret in 1930, for all we know, but he’s anonymous today.

What Groucho Says, by Groucho (Harper & Brothers, 1930)

It couldn’t be a humor collection without the real Groucho. He’s all over this Farsi edition of the script for A Day at the Races, printed in Iran. Curiously, the script includes an English transcription of the “Gabriel (Who Dat Man)” musical number. Farsi is read right to left, so the spine of this trade paperback is on the reader’s right.

A Day at the Races, by Robert Pirosh, George Seaton, and George Oppenheimer (Faber and Faber, 1993)