Love Conquers All
Comic Essays on Modern Foolishness, Domestic Absurdity, and New York Social RitualsBy Robert Benchley
Length6h 32m
About this audiobook
Robert Benchley's *Love Conquers All* gathers the urbane, lightly anarchic comic essays that established his reputation as a master of American humor. With mock-serious argument, deliberate understatement, conversational digression, and sudden turns toward absurdity, Benchley transforms ordinary subjects—social manners, domestic inconvenience, work, leisure, and the small tyrannies of modern life—into occasions for intellectual play. The collection belongs to the early twentieth-century tradition of the familiar essay while anticipating the polished magazine humor associated with the Algonquin Round Table and, later, *The New Yorker*. Its title is characteristically misleading: romantic sentiment is less its subject than the comically overconfident claims people make about human behavior, particularly when confronted by society's conventions. Benchley (1889–1945) was a critic, essayist, actor, and celebrated member of New York's literary and theatrical circles. His experience at *Vanity Fair*, *The New Yorker*, and the stage helped shape a style equally comfortable with literary parody, social observation, and performance. Writing amid the cultural transformations of the Jazz Age, he treated bureaucracy, etiquette, technology, and middle-class aspiration as materials for satire, while preserving an appealingly self-deprecating persona. This book is especially rewarding for readers interested in American literary modernism, periodical culture, and the history of comic prose. It offers more than genial entertainment: beneath its effortless wit lies a precise anatomy of self-deception and social ritual. Readers who value intelligent, concise, and enduringly relevant humor will find *Love Conquers All* an exemplary introduction to Benchley's art.
Audiobook details
Rating★★★★ 4.0 (250)
Includes Goodreads, LibraryThing, Amazon
GenreHumor
Length6 hrs 32 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateNov 26, 2023
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1My Man Jeeves (Annotated)
2I.—THE BENCHLEY-WHITTIER CORRESPONDENCE
3PART 1
4PART 2
5PART 3
Show all chaptersShow less
6The Well-Informed Children's Hour
7NUMBER WHO MAY WATCH
8PRELIMINARIES
9PROCEDURE
10V—A CHRISTMAS SPECTACLE
11For Use in Christmas Eve Entertainments in the Vestry
12HOW TO FIND A GAME TO WATCH
13THE DETAILS OF THE GAME
14VII—WATCHING BASEBALL
15D.A.C. NEWS
16VIII—HOW TO BE A SPECTATOR AT SPRING PLANTING
17IX—THE MANHATTADOR
18X—WHAT TO DO WHILE THE FAMILY IS AWAY
19XI—"ROLL YOUR OWN"
20Inside Points on Building and Maintaining a Private Tennis Court
21XII—DO INSECTS THINK?
22XIII—THE SCORE IN THE STANDS
23XIV—MID-WINTER SPORTS
24XV—READING THE FUNNIES ALOUD
25XVI—OPERA SYNOPSES
26ACT I
27ACT 2
28ACT 3
29II—IL MINNESTRONE
30ACT I
31ACT 2
32ACT 3
33ACT I
34ACT 2
35ACT 3
36XVII—THE YOUNG IDEA'S SHOOTING GALLERY
37XVIII—POLYP WITH A PAST
38The Story Of An Organism With A Heart
39BATHING
40CLOTHING
41WEIGHT
42FRESH AIR
43DEVELOPMENT
44FEEDING
45XX—THE COMMITTEE ON THE WHOLE
46XXI—NOTING AN INCREASE IN BIGAMY
47XXII—THE REAL WIGLAF: MAN AND MONARCH
48XXIII—FACING THE BOYS' CAMP PROBLEM
49XXIV—ALL ABOUT THE SILESIAN PROBLEM
50XXV—"HAPPY THE HOME WHERE BOOKS ARE FOUND"
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