Edward Streeter was one of the New England humorists, a group that includes such other Harvard men as Robert Benchley (class of '12) and Ogden Nash (a dropout). His post-Dere Mable humor is wry, sophisticated, and increasingly touched with wisps of sadness. The range of his humor is disclosed, appropriately, by his first few books and his last book. The Dere Mable books are raucously satirical and exploit near illiteracy as a comic device. Streeter's last book, Ham Martin, Class of'17 (1969), is a somber reflection upon both his business career and his literary aspirations; its humor is heavily muted and scarcely perceptible to any but Streeter enthusiasts. Between these extremes of both time and temper lies his masterpiece, Father of the Bride (1949), the one work in which his particular style and his special kind of sophisticated humor are flawlessly displayed.

The gentility, restraint, charitableness, and wit of...