'All theories about comedy are right but none of them is completely right. They all seem to have a piece missing. For instance, George Meredith's theory that comedy and laughter belong to the intellect and not to the emotions has a lot going for it but there is not much intellectual involvement in a baby's gurgling laugh when somebody bends over its cot wearing a funny hat.'
The above quote from the late, bow-tie bedecked raconteur Frank Muir highlights the dangers inherent in attempting to analyse the nature of humour, and the comic novel in particular. Pretty much all novels bar the most unspeakably bleak contain significant shades of humour so quantifying the mercurial stuff that defines a comic novel is nigh on impossible. The century (plus one) of titles collected here (as ever, only one allowed per author) run the gamut from providing a wry shake of the head at an ironic imaginative vision to the kind of full-on chortles and guffaws that could seriously embarrass the reader on their morning commute. Short stories are forbidden (although a reasonable proportion of this list could be classified as novellas) which, unfortunately, takes out such luminaries as James Thurber, Dorothy Parker, O Henry and VS Pritchett (Saki sneaks in courtesy of his single long form work 'The Unbearable Bassington'). Maybe a short list of great comic short stories will at some point appear as an addendum. But for now, from bawdy picaresque to razor-sharp satire, erudite drawing room comedy to scatological surrealism, affectionate pastiche to playful genre-bending - all comic life is here
Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes (1615)
Moll Flanders - Daniel Defoe (1722)
Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift (1726)
Tom Jones - Henry Fielding (1749)
Candide - Voltaire (1759)
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman - Laurence Sterne (1767)
Humphry Clinker - Tobias Smollett (1771)
Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen (1803)
The Pickwick Papers - Charles Dickens (1837)
Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray (1848)
Oblomov - Ivan Goncharov (1859)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain (1884)
Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K Jerome (1889)
The Diary of a Nobody - George and Weedon Grossmith (1892)
Zuleika Dobson - Max Beerbohm (1911)
The Unbearable Bassington - Saki (1912)
Vainglory - Ronald Firbank (1915)
Just William - Richmal Crompton (1922)
Ulysses - James Joyce (1922)
The Good Soldier Svejk - Jaroslav Hasek (1923)
Augustus Carp, Esq., by Himself - Sir Henry Howarth Bashford (1924)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes - Anita Loos (1925)
The Diary of a Provincial Lady - EM Delafield (1930)
Vile Bodies - Evelyn Waugh (1930)
Mapp and Lucia - EF Benson (1931)
Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons (1932)
England, Their England - AG Macdonnell (1933)
High Rising - Angela Thirkell (1933)
The Code of the Woosters - PG Wodehouse (1938)
At Swim-Two-Birds - Flann O' Brien (1939)
The Case of the Gilded Fly - Edmund Crispin (1944)
The Pursuit of Love - Nancy Mitford (1945)
Whisky Galore - Compton Mackenzie (1947)
Excellent Women - Barbara Pym (1952)
The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow (1953)
Down With Skool! - Geoffrey Willans/ Ronald Searle (1953)
Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis (1954)
Auntie Mame - Patrick Dennis (1955)
The Ascent of Rum Doodle - WE Bowman (1956)
Pnin - Vladimir Nabokov (1957)
The Magic Christian - Terry Southern (1959)
Billy Liar - Keith Waterhouse (1959)
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (1961)
Puckoon - Spike Milligan (1963)
The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon (1965)
Friends in Low Places - Simon Raven (1965)
Tremor of Intent - Anthony Burgess (1966)
The Virgin Soldiers - Leslie Thomas (1966)
The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov (1967)
Myra Breckinridge - Gore Vidal (1968)
Travels With My Aunt - Graham Greene (1969)
Portnoy's Complaint - Philip Roth (1969)
A Touch of Daniel - Peter Tinniswood (1969)
Royal Flash - George MacDonald Fraser (1970)
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S Thompson (1971)
Don't Point That Thing at Me - Kyril Bonfiglioli (1972)
The Princess Bride - William Goldman (1973)
Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry - BS Johnson (1973)
Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut (1973)
The Bottle Factory Outing - Beryl Bainbridge (1974)
The History Man - Malcolm Bradbury (1975)
How Steeple Sinderby Wanderers Won The FA Cup - JL Carr (1975)
Squire Haggard's Journal - Michael Green (1975)
Changing Places - David Lodge (1975)
The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (original title: The Death of Reginald Perrin) - David Nobbs (1975)
The Hearing Trumpet - Leonora Carrington (1976)
Wilt - Tom Sharpe (1976)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (1979)
A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole (1980)
A Good Man in Africa - William Boyd (1981)
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 - Sue Townsend (1982)
The Life and Loves of a She Devil - Fay Weldon (1983)
Money - Martin Amis (1984)
Flaubert's Parrot - Julian Barnes (1984)
The Witches of Eastwick - John Updike (1984)
The Commitments - Roddy Doyle (1987)
Mort - Terry Pratchett (1987)
The Bonfire of the Vanities - Tom Wolfe (1987)
Matilda - Roald Dahl (1988)
A Far Cry From Kensington - Muriel Spark (1988)
Stark - Ben Elton (1989)
The Buddha of Suburbia - Hanif Kureishi (1990)
The Wimbledon Poisoner - Nigel Williams (1990)
The Liar - Stephen Fry (1991)
Maximum Bob - Elmore Leonard (1991)
Strip Tease - Carl Hiaasen (1993)
What a Carve Up! - Jonathan Coe (1994)
Wonder Boys - Michael Chabon (1995)
High Fidelity - Nick Hornby (1995)
Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding (1996)
Death and the Penguin - Andrey Kurkov (1996)
Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace (1996)
The Mighty Walzer - Howard Jacobson (1999)
The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde (2001)
Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre (2003)
Wake Up, Sir! - Jonathan Ames (2004)
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian - Marina Lewycka (2005)
The Uncommon Reader - Alan Bennett (2007)
Me Cheeta - James Lever (2008)
Skios - Michael Frayn (2012)
The Sellout - Paul Beatty (2015)
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