These "39 prodigal pieces" show Robert Benchley at the height of his whimsicality, damning with gentle urbanity all the things that peeve every one of us -- but with a wit and mock anger none of the rest of us could have managed. The discomforts of travel on trains, large and heavy suitcases that must be carried by unwilling porters, standing in line at the post office (then to learn that your package is improperly tied), malicious fogs that blot out the race track at the last lap, the sand that gets kicked into one's face at the beach, vitamins and their puffery, and all the petty annoyances that we grumble about ourselves but laugh at when they befall others.
The 39 prodigal pieces greatly enlarge the corpus of the best Benchley. Forty-four original illustrations, mostly by Peter Arno, are included.
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