Carleton B. (Carleton Britton) Case

Carleton Britton Case was an American writer, editor, and compiler born in 1857 and active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Library and public-domain records connect him with a long list of accessible, crowd-pleasing books, including Recitations for Every Occasion, Comic Dialogues for Boys and Girls, Parlor Games and Parties for Young and Old, and Funny Stories Told by the Soldiers.

Rather than being known for one major novel, he seems to have specialized in gathering material people could use in everyday social life: readings for school and church events, after-dinner speeches, etiquette guides, humor collections, fortune-telling books, and wartime anecdote books. That gives his work a distinctive flavor—practical, entertaining, and closely tied to the kinds of communal amusements and public performances that were popular in his era.

Today, Case is remembered mainly through library catalogs, digitized editions, and public-domain archives that preserve his many compilations. Even in brief glimpses, his bibliography suggests a writer deeply interested in how people spoke, celebrated, joked, and entertained one another.