Benchley Lost and Found (Dover Humor)

James Thurber once said that every humorist is haunted by the idea that the piece she is working on was done faster and better by Robert Benchley in 1919. And if Thurber said that, the scrubs that pass for wits today should be doubly scared. (Dave Barry once told me that Robert Benchley was his favorite humorist, and it shows, but we should give him points for honesty.) Benchley Lost and Found is a collection of pieces culled from the old Liberty Magazine, the work of those indefatigable scavengers, Dover Publications. This means that while the 39 pieces in the book aren't all of Benchley's gems, the volume is a nice introduction to one of America's true comic genii. Picking something at random: "'By George,' I said, examining it, 'it is not only a vitamin, but it is vitamin F! See how F it looks!' And, sure enough, it was vitamin F all over, the very vitamin F which had been eluding Science since that day in 1913 when Science decided that there were such things as vitamins. (Before 1913 people had just been eating food and dying like flies.)" Read Benchley. Make yourself happy.