Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences (1895)

Twain's 1895 demolition of James Fenimore Cooper is a strong candidate for the funniest literary criticism ever written. He announces that there are nineteen rules governing romantic fiction, that Cooper broke eighteen of them in The Deerslayer, and that in two-thirds of a page Cooper scored 114 offenses out of a possible 115. You do not need to have read Cooper. The essay works as a lesson in how not to write, delivered by a man enjoying himself enormously, and it takes about half an hour.