At the height of the Jazz Age, Ring Lardner was Americas most beloved humorist, equally admired by a popular audience and by literary friends like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Edmund Wilson. A sports writer who became a sensation with his comic baseball bestseller, "You Know Me Al," Lardner had a rare gift for inspired nonsense and an ear attuned to the rhythms and hilarious oddities of American speech. He was also a sharp and dispassionate observer of the American scene.

Here, in one volume for the first time, the full text of You Know Me Al, The Big Town, and the long out-of-print The Real Dope, and a generous sampling of humor pieces, sports reporting, song lyrics, surrealist playlets, and letters.