The early worm

The early worm by Robert Benchley is a collection of humorous essays written in the early 20th century. With droll, deadpan wit, it skewers modern habits, public fads, urban inconveniences, and historical myths through parodies, mock interviews, absurd reports, and running comic conceits. Expect urbane satire, playful logic, and affectionate send-ups of American life, culture, and celebrity.

The opening of this collection strings together brisk comic pieces: a mock graduation address that mangles “the facts of life,” a tirade against New York’s sidewalk-choking construction sheds, and a salesman’s report that chases Paul Revere through his midnight ride to land an acid order. It then pivots to an absurd “true crime,” a list of football-season “upsets,” and a nonsensical interview with Mussolini, followed by the launch of a bicycle “polar expedition” through Manhattan and a jab at the perpetual “Save Old Ironsides” drives. Benchley lampoons nostalgia with a miserable “good old-fashioned” country Christmas, reimagines a luxury tower as a tenement back-yard, parodies theatrical reminiscences, and offers a faux-earnest inventory of what college “taught” him. Brief sketches continue—an awkward chat with Dreiser, another quaint mystery, a tabloid-style scoop on Louis XVI, and a mock history of the Christmas card—before the opening section trails into a stylistic pastiche of the era’s literary chroniclers. (This is an automatically generated summary.)