[Newspaper clipping pasted into book]

INTRODUCTION.

It is refreshing to find an unworked field all ready for harvesting.

While the wit of men, as a subject for admiration and discussion, is now
threadbare, the wit of women has been almost utterly ignored and
unrecognized.

With the joy and honest pride of a discoverer, I present the results of
a summer's gleaning.

And I feel a cheerful and Colonel Sellers-y confidence in the success of
the book, for every woman will want to own it, as a matter of pride and
interest, and many men will buy it just to see what women think they can
do in this line. In fact, I expect a call for a second volume!

KATE SANBORN.
HANOVER, N.H., August, 1885.

My thanks are due to so many publishers, magazine editors, and personal
friends for material for this book, that a formal note of acknowledgment
seems meagre and unsatisfactory. Proper credit, however, has been given
all through the volume, and with special indebtedness to Messrs. Harper
& Brothers and Charles Scribner's Sons of New York, and Houghton,
Mifflin & Co. of Boston. I add sincere gratitude to all who have so
generously contributed whatever was requested.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
PAGE
THE MELANCHOLY TONE OF WOMEN'S POETRY--PUNS, GOOD
AND BAD--EPIGRAMS AND LACONICS--CYNICISM OF FRENCH
WOMEN--SENTENCES CRISP AND SPARKLING 13

CHAPTER II.

HUMOR OF LITERARY ENGLISHWOMEN 32

CHAPTER III.

FROM ANNE BRADSTREET TO MRS. STOWE 47

CHAPTER IV.

"SAMPLES" HERE AND THERE 67

CHAPTER V.

A BRACE OF WITTY WOMEN 85

CHAPTER VI.

GINGER-SNAPS 103

CHAPTER VII.

PROSE, BUT NOT PROSY 122

CHAPTER VIII.

HUMOROUS POEMS 150

CHAPTER IX.

GOOD-NATURED SATIRE 179

CHAPTER X.

PARODIES--REVIEWS--CHILDREN'S POEMS--COMEDIES BY
WOMEN--A DRAMATIC TRIFLE--A STRING OF FIRECRACKERS 195

TO
G.W.B.
In Grateful Memory.

_"There was in her soul a sense of d