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F. Stephen Leacock

(1896-1944)

Born in Swanmore, England in 1896 Stephen Leacock is one of Canada's great writers of humorous fiction. Af­ter many failed attempts at farming in England, South Africa and the United States, his father took the family to the Lake Simcoe area of Ontario. Leacock's fa­ther eventually aban­doned the family, leav­ing his mother in charge of eleven children. Leacock was educated at the University of Toronto, and then went to the University of Chicago where he studied political economy. In 1903 he took a position as lec­turer at McGill University, where he eventually be­came head of the Department of Economics and Po­litical Science.

Leacock wrote much non-fiction, but he is best known for his humorous fiction. His first collection of humorous stories appeared in 1904, “Literary Lapses”. They were musings, parodies, satires, funny anecdotes and conversations. Since they were collected from vari­ous sources, the stories shared very little in common other than Leacock's sharp sense of humor. His two most important books of humor are “Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town” (1912) and “Arcadian Adventures with the Idol Rich” (1914). In the former, Leacock takes us to small-town Ontario, and while the people and practices of this town are clearly satirized, it is done with a great deal of affection. The latter takes place in a large American city and is much more scathing in its criticism of what Leacock saw as a hypo­critical, self-serving and ultimately destructive eco­nomic upper-class.

Leacock also wrote extensively about humor, which he saw as the ultimate expression of human kindness and progress. He wrote about Mark Twain, Charles Dickens and others, and his thesis is most fully devel­oped in “Humour and Humanity” (1937). While some critiqued his reliance on a "lesser" genre, Leacock remained dedicated to his first love, humor.

by Lee Skallerup

Ex. 1. Answer the following questions.

1. What was Leacock’s literary genre?

2. Say some words about Leacock’s educational career.

3. When did his first collection of humorous stories appear?

4. Name his two most important books of humor.

5. What did Leacock write about humor?

G. Your First few Days in Canada

Finding a place to live

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