author
John Kendrick Bangs
1862–1922
A prolific humorist and satirist, he turned literary history and the afterlife into playgrounds for clever, comic adventures. He is best remembered for A House-Boat on the Styx, the imaginative work that inspired the term “Bangsian fantasy.”
40 Audiobooks
R. Holmes & Co. Being the Remarkable Adventures of Raffles Holmes, Esq., Detective and Amateur Cracksman by Birth
by John Kendrick Bangs
The Water Ghost and Others
by John Kendrick Bangs
Alice in Blunderland: An Iridescent Dream
by John Kendrick Bangs
Ghosts I Have Met and Some Others
by John Kendrick Bangs
The Whole Family: a Novel by Twelve Authors
by William Dean Howells, Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews, John Kendrick Bangs, Alice Brown, Mary Stewart Cutting, Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman, Henry James, Elizabeth Garver Jordan, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Henry Van Dyke, Mary Heaton Vorse, Edith Wyatt
The Booming of Acre Hill, and Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life
by John Kendrick Bangs
Mollie and the Unwiseman Abroad
by John Kendrick Bangs
Olympian Nights
by John Kendrick Bangs
Toppleton's Client; Or, A Spirit in Exile
by John Kendrick Bangs
Coffee and Repartee
by John Kendrick Bangs
A Little Book of Christmas
by John Kendrick Bangs
The Idiot at Home
by John Kendrick Bangs
In Camp With A Tin Soldier
by John Kendrick Bangs
A House-Boat on the Styx
by John Kendrick Bangs
The Pursuit of the House-Boat
by John Kendrick Bangs
A Rebellious Heroine
by John Kendrick Bangs
Mr. Munchausen Being a True Account of Some of the Recent Adventures beyond the Styx of the Late Hieronymus Carl Friedrich, Sometime Baron Munchausen of Bodenwerder
by John Kendrick Bangs
Andiron Tales
by John Kendrick Bangs
The Pursuit of the House-Boat Being Some Further Account of the Divers Doings of the Associated Shades, under the Leadership of Sherlock Holmes, Esq.
by John Kendrick Bangs
Half-Hours with the Idiot
by John Kendrick Bangs
The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces
by John Kendrick Bangs
Paste Jewels
by John Kendrick Bangs
Half-Hours with Jimmieboy
by John Kendrick Bangs
Peeps at People Being Certain Papers from the Writings of Anne Warrington Witherup
by John Kendrick Bangs
The Enchanted Typewriter
by John Kendrick Bangs
The Autobiography of Methuselah
by John Kendrick Bangs
The Inventions of the Idiot
by John Kendrick Bangs
Mollie and the Unwiseman
by John Kendrick Bangs
A Proposal Under Difficulties: A Farce
by John Kendrick Bangs
Cobwebs from a Library Corner
by John Kendrick Bangs
Bikey the Skicycle and Other Tales of Jimmieboy
by John Kendrick Bangs
Over the Plum Pudding
by John Kendrick Bangs
Jack and the Check Book
by John Kendrick Bangs
Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica
by John Kendrick Bangs
The Dreamers: A Club
by John Kendrick Bangs
The Genial Idiot: His Views and Reviews
by John Kendrick Bangs
The Idiot
by John Kendrick Bangs
From Pillar to Post: Leaves from a Lecturer's Note-Book
by John Kendrick Bangs
Mrs. Raffles: Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman
by John Kendrick Bangs
Eight brand new bits of Christmas cheer
by John Kendrick Bangs
About the author
Born in Yonkers, New York, in 1862, John Kendrick Bangs studied political science at Columbia College and briefly attended Columbia Law School before choosing a career in writing. He began as a contributor and associate editor at Life, then went on to edit humor departments at several Harper & Brothers publications, as well as Harper’s Weekly, Munsey’s Magazine, Metropolitan, and Puck.
Bangs wrote extensively across humor, satire, light verse, drama, and fantasy. His best-known books include A House-Boat on the Styx (1895/1896), The Pursuit of the House-Boat, The Enchanted Type-Writer, Coffee and Repartee, Ghosts I Have Met, and The Idiot. His Associated Shades stories imagined famous historical figures carrying on witty adventures after death, a concept that became associated with “Bangsian fantasy.”
He also served in public and educational roles in Yonkers, lectured widely, and in 1918 spoke to YMCA workers and Allied troops in France during World War I. After moving to Ogunquit, Maine, with his second wife, Mary Blakeney Gray, he died in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on January 21, 1922.