Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of Stephen (Butler) Leacock, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 3913 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
For protection, I answered. "Don't you know that all animals are protected by their peculiar markings that render them invisible? The caterpillar looks like the leaf it eats from; the scales of the fish counterfeit the glistening water of the brook; the bear and the 'possum are coloured like the tree-trunks on which they climb. There!" I added, as I concluded my task. "I am now invisible." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Re-reading "It Was Christmas.And do you know where ..."
I've been searching U.S. libraries for years for Leacock's works to relive the laughter of my first reading -- particularly the attack up the parapets by the horde which had to retreat backwards.Can you steer me to copies of these works? I'm just dying to laugh like that again. ... Read more

Book Description

Canadian cultural icon Stephen Leacock was as wise and witty as he was prolific, and as sharp as he was humane. A professor of political economy, author, and social critic, Leacock has long been considered Canada's foremost humourist and social satirist.He was at his best in observational humour but excelled as well in the unforgettable aphorism and the pointed riposte.Leacock's views on life provide a uniquely Canadian take on the world, an ironic perspective which continues to delight and instruct readers around the globe.

Introduced and compiled by scholar and writer Gerald Lynch, with material gleaned from the approximately sixty books of fiction and non-fiction Leacock published, Leacock on Life is an anthology of Leacock's wit and wisdom, beginning with his memorable preface to Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town and ending with his bitter-sweet essay, 'Three Score and Ten.'With selections classified under forty-five headings and a reference key sourcing all quotations, this collection makes widely available Leacock's views on such subjects as: Canadian politics, love, education, economics, humour, technology, business, America, and writing, among many others.Leacock had opinions on every subject, and they are as humorous, provocative, and relevant today as when first articulated.

Book Description
Stephen Leacock (1869-1944) is one of Canada's most respected and beloved writers. A prolific author of prodigious talent, he had an international following during his career. Although he was best known as a humorist, he was also a professor of political economy, an historian, a social critic and propagandist, a writer of doggerel, and a platform entertainer. A Bibliography of Stephen Leacock employs the protocols of descriptive bibliography to record all of Leacock's published work from his first known venture into print in 1887 until the cut-off date of 1998.

One of the bibliography's major strengths is an emphasis on publishing history. Organized into 10 sections, the bibliography describes all editions and issues; Leacock's contributions to books; his serial publications (in newspapers and magazines); reports of his speeches and lectures; lectures given; interviews; authorized adaptations; translations; recordings by Leacock; Braille, talking books and films; encyclopedia articles; and contributions in serial articles and books by others. In addition, there is a section for "Lost Leads," see-references, and a comprehensive index (author, title, and subject).A Bibliography of Stephen Leacock reveals the complexity and scope of Leacock's enormous canon. Based on an in-depth examination of texts and archival documents, this bibliography is a research tool in ... Read more

Book Description

This is a collection of essays devoted to the many dimensions of the writings of Stephen Leacock, the most famous writer in Canada during his lifetime.

Also available in hardcover.

Book Description
Stephen Leacock (1869-1944), perhaps best known and remembered for his delightful book Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, remains one of the best-loved humorists in the English language.

Leacock lived through half of Queen Victoria's reign and half the twentieth century, embracing a world of unsettling change. He wore many hats: teacher, academic, author, economist, public speaker, social leader, and family man. Stephen Leacock: His Remarkable Life is the a comprehensive and thoroughly researched recreation of his remarkable life; it will help form the background for appreciating the source of Leacock's humor and its significance in his own life and times. Newspaper accounts, private letters, diaries and memoirs are brought together with his published humor which illustrated Leacock's amazing creative process and the impact he had as a writer, teacher and thinker. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A superb story about the rescue of a Canadian hero
Canada is a land without heroes but with some very remarkable citizens, as this book about saving the summer home of Canada's most distinguished humourist makes abundantly clear.

One of those remarkable citizens is Pete McGarvey, who came to Orillia in 1947 as a 19-year-old high school graduate to work at a just established and definitely struggling tiny radio station located in cramped quarters above Loblaw's little grocery store.Ten years later McGarvey was honoured as Orillia's "Citizen of the Year" for his success in saving the Stephen Leacock Home and helping make it the town's most enduring and famous attraction.

It's a book written in the kindly spirit of Leacock, who in 1912 portrayed many of the leading citizens of Orillia in 'Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town'.It's Canada's version of the hit musical "Carousel" without the dark elements.Not everyone in town was amused in 1912, or by the time McGarvey arrived on the scene;he and a dedicated few had a long uphill task to persuade town officials to recognize the national stature within their midst.

By the mid-1950s, the Leacock home was abandoned and open to every hobo who wanted a free place to stay.In the winters, as a teenager then, I remember walking across the ice on Lake Couchiching to it and going in to get out of the cold.Leacock's personal library was still there;the hobos didn't consider books worth stealing, and even as a teen I thought i was on sacred ground.

It's not that Leacock was forgotten.Every year, math teacher R. B. Laing read Leacock's witty story about A, B and C to introduce his Grade 10 class to algebra.But most of the snooty set regarded 'Sunshine Sketches' as the ramblings of a local drunk who made fun of the town's most honorable, upright and proper citizens.It's little wonder McGarvey and a dedicated few local citizens had an almost impossible task to rescue and preserve Leacock's home.

Granted, I knew about half the people cited in this book.I used to babysit McGarvey's children.I listened to him every day on the radio, worked at CFOR when I was in high school (which by then was right across the street), and he offered me a permanent job which I turned down to work at the local newspaper.McGarvey was legendary;when it came to writing news stories or taking news over the phone, he was the fastest two-finger typist in Canada.My goal was to be a writer, not a broadcaster (but I am a two-finger typist).

McGarvey's career included being one of the best broadcasters in Orillia, and later Toronto, and a superb writer as this book shows, plus the guiding spirit in persuading Orillia to preserve a memorial to one of Canada's earliest humourists.This book tells a story I grew up with, and fills it in with a wealth of the background efforts needed to make it come true.

It is a testimonial to two Canadian heroes--Leacock, and McGarvey who kept the legend of Leacock alive in the town he made world famous.Surely, someday, McGarvey--and C. H. Hale, who launched the effort shortly after Leacock died in 1944--deserve biographies of their own.

Is this likely?Hardly.Canada usually doesn't honour its heroes.But, in this instance, a Canadian hero got due recognition.This is a superb story of how it happened.



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