"Delightful. Mr. Gross's legendary gifts as an editor and critic
are much in evidence...the entire anthology benefits from his
discreet running commentary. Parody is a form of impersonation,
obviously, but also collaboration. What makes it so pleasurable, as
Mr. Gross's anthology shows on every page, is not just the accuracy
of the performance, though that's certainly essential. In the
funniest parodies, there is the faint but unmistakable sense of
giddy collusion; and in such improbable duets the parodist can't
always be distinguished from the parodied." -- The Wall Street
Journal
"An enjoyable survey of the age of literary parody, well informed
but unpedantic." --The New Yorker
"Writing a parody is hard. In the 1940s, a competition in the
New Statesman invited readers to parody Graham Greene. Greene
himself entered under a pseudonym and only came second. Get it
right, though, and you have a withering form of criticism and an
immortal entertainment rolled into one. John Gross's new anthology
of parodies in English (with a few foreign titbits) has samples
both high and low of this diverse genre." -- The Economist
"The critic FR Leavis disliked parody on the grounds that it the
writer being held up to ridicule. A moment or two in the company of
John Gross's sparkling new compendium demonstrates how wrong Leavis
was. Gross's book passes the first great anthologist's test
-putting in everything the reader expects to find, and a whole lot
more besides-with flying colours." --DJ Taylor, The Financial
Times
"Remarkable...John Gross has proved a fine editor of selections
from a mode that is more varied and trickier than it may seem, as
indeed he indicates in his scholarly introduction. The collection
provides the delights of both amusement and schadenfreude and for
the most erudite readers, the incomparable joy of knowing that they
have recognized and appreciated much that the rest of us have not."
--The New Criterion
"Funny and intelligent. John Gross is an excellent and unintrusive
host, offering his words of explanation or discussion here and
there with wit and understated erudition, and he has produced here
a fine, diverting book." --The Times Literary Supplement
"John Gross has compiled a historical anthology that is something
to treasure." -- John Sutherland, Literary Review
"Superb. This is an anthology with something for everyone." --
Simon Griffith, Mail on Sunday
"This collection of parodies does not disappoint. A deliciously
funny book." -- Bevis Hillier, The Spectator
"It is a mark of the range and depth of this collection of spoofs,
skits and lampoons that the editor John Gross gives, that...it is
impossible to read it without smiling, smirking or laughing out
loud." -- Mark Sanderson, London Evening Standard
"Excellent introduction to this superb smorgasbord of mimicry and
literary mutilation." -- Jonathan Wright, Catholic Herald
"The best pastiches, burlesques and spoofs have a magical wit that
transcends mere mimicry, as this wide-ranging anthology shows.
Gross has very sensibly put together an anthology that aims to
gives pleasure on at least two levels. At best, his entries have
enough comic vigour or elegance to be amusing even when one does
not know the author being spoofed, and hilarious when one does." --
Kevin Jackson, The Sunday Times
"The art of parody has long occupied a pleasingly subversive place
in our literature, so John Gross had a rich field to harvest here.
His new and welcome anthology is well stocked with witty and
diverting specimens. The book contains many gems." -- J. M. W.
Thompson, Standpoint
"Substantial and richly entertaining anthology." -- The Sunday
Telegraph
"Funny and intelligent. John Gross is an excellent and unintrusive
host, offering his words of explanation or discussion here and
there with wit and understated erudition, and he has produced here
a fine, diverting book." -- The Times Literary Supplement
"Endlessly enjoyable." -- The Guardian
"A brilliant compendium." -- The Buffalo News
"The Oxford Book of Parodies is a treat. Gross's selection is
judicious, ingenious, and accessible." --The Weekly Standard
"Plenty here to savor." --Books & Culture, Favorite Books of
2010
Parodies come in all shapes and sizes. There are broad parodies and
subtle parodies, ingenious imitations and knockabout spoofs,
scornful lampoons and affectionate pastiches. All these varieties,
and many others, appear in this delightful new anthology compiled
by master anthologist John Gross.
The classics of the genre are all here, but so are scores of lesser
known but scarcely less brilliant works. At every stage there are
surprises. Proust visits Chelsea, Yeats re-writes "Old King Cole,"
Harry Potter encounters Mick Jagger, a modernized Sermon on the
Mount rubs shoulders with an obituary of Sherlock Holmes. The
collection provides a hilarious running commentary on literary
history, but it also looks beyond literature to include such things
as ad parodies, political parodies, and even a scientific
hoax.
The collection includes work by such accomplished parodists as Max
Beerbohm, Robert Benchley, Bret Harte, H. L. Mencken, George
Orwell, James Thurber, Peter Ustinov, and Evelyn Waugh. And the
"victims" include Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Poe,
Longfellow, Emily Dickinson, Conan Doyle, A. A. Milne, Raymond
Chandler, Agatha Christie, Cole Porter, Ernest Hemingway, Allen
Ginsberg, Martin Amis, and many others. The first and longer of the
book's two parts is devoted to English-language authors, arranged
in chronological order, along with parodies that they have
inspired. The second part includes sections on more general
literary topics, on aspects of individual authors which transcend
the format of the first part, and on a handful of foreign
writers.
Parody can be the most entertaining form of criticism, and one of
the most delicate, erudite, and allusive. The Oxford Book of
Parod
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