Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels: 'It's a lie, but Heaven will forgive you for it''

By Stephen Leacock

Stephen P H Butler Leacock FRSC was born on 30th December 1869 in Swanmore, near Southampton, England. He was the third of eleven children.

The family emigrated to Canada in 1876, settling on a 100-acre farm in Sutton, Ontario. There Leacock was home-schooled until, funded by his grandfather, he was enrolled into the elite private school Upper Canada College in Toronto. Academically he was very strong. In 1887, at age 17, he became head boy and then proceeded on to the University of Toronto to study languages and literature. Despite completing two years of study in only one, he was obliged to leave the university because his father, an alcoholic, had abandoned the family and finances could not be stretched to continue his attendance. Leacock now enrolled in a three-month course at Strathroy Collegiate Institute to become a qualified high school teacher with a regular income.

He worked at Upper Canada College from 1889 through 1899 and later resumed his studies part-time at the University of Toronto, graduating with a B A in 1891. It was during this period that he was first published in The Varsity, a campus newspaper. But his passion was now economics and political theory. In 1899 he enrolled for postgraduate studies at the University of Chicago and earned his PhD in 1903.

Leacock had married Beatrix Hamilton in 1900 and 15 years later the couple had their only child, Stephen. In time father and son developed a love-hate relationship, partially caused by his son’s diminutive stature of only four feet.

Accepting a post at McGill University Leacock would remain there until he retired in 1936. In 1906, he wrote ‘Elements of Political Science’, quickly adopted as a standard textbook for the next two decades and his most profitable book. He also began public speaking and lecturing, and took a year's leave of absence in 1907 to speak throughout Canada on the subject of national unity.

Leacock had submitted humourous articles to the Toronto magazine Grip in 1894, and was soon published in other Canadian and US magazines. In 1910, he printed privately a collection of these as ‘Literary Lapses’. Acquired by the British publisher, John Lane, it was released in London and New York. He was now a commercially successful writer. There soon followed ‘Nonsense Novels’ (1911) and the sentimental favourite, ‘Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town’ (1912). His ‘Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich’ (1914) is a darker collection that satirizes city life. Collections of sketches continued to be published almost annually, filled with a mixture of light-hearted whimsy, parody, nonsense, and satire.

In later life, he wrote on the art of humour writing and published biographies on Twain and Dickens. Together with continued speaking tours he also added to his non-fiction with many well-regarded and award-winning volumes on Canada.

Politically Leacock was a social conservative and a partisan Conservative. He opposed women’s right to vote and had a varied record on non-English immigration. He was a champion of Empire but an advocate of social welfare legislation and wealth redistribution, but he often caused friction with his racist views towards blacks and Indigenous peoples.

Leacock has for some time been forgotten as an economist, but it’s often quoted that in 1911 more people had heard of him than had heard of Canada. For the decade after 1915 Leacock was the most popular humorist in the English-speaking world.

Stephen Leacock died on 28th March 1944 of throat cancer in Toronto, Canada. He was 74. He was buried in the St George the Martyr Churchyard, Sutton, Ontario.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Miniature Masterpieces
• Release date: Jan 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781803543437

Stephen Leacock

Award-winning Canadian humorist and writer Stephen Leacock (1869-1944) was the author of more than 50 literary works, and between 1915 and 1925 was the most popular humorist in the English-speaking world. Leacock’s fictional works include classics like Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich, and Literary Lapses. In addition to his humor writings, Leacock was an accomplished political theorist, publishing such works as Elements of Political Science and My Discovery of the West: A Discussion of East and West in Canada, for which he won the Governor General's Award for writing in 1937. Leacock’s life continues to be commemorated through the awarding of the Leacock Medal for Humour and with an annual literary festival in his hometown of Orillia, Ontario.

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Winsome Winnie & Other New Nonsense Novels by Stephen Leacock

Stephen P H Butler Leacock FRSC was born on 30th December 1869 in Swanmore, near Southampton, England.  He was the third of eleven children.

The family emigrated to Canada in 1876, settling on a 100-acre farm in Sutton, Ontario.  There Leacock was home-schooled until, funded by his grandfather, he was enrolled into the elite private school Upper Canada College in Toronto.  Academically he was very strong.  In 1887, at age 17, he became head boy and then proceeded on to the University of Toronto to study languages and literature.  Despite completing two years of study in only one, he was obliged to leave the university because his father, an alcoholic, had abandoned the family and finances could not be stretched to continue his attendance.  Leacock now enrolled in a three-month course at Strathroy Collegiate Institute to become a qualified high school teacher with a regular income.

He worked at Upper Canada College from 1889 through 1899 and later resumed his studies part-time at the University of Toronto, graduating with a B A in 1891.  It was during this period that he was first published in The Varsity, a campus newspaper.  But his passion was now economics and political theory.  In 1899 he enrolled for postgraduate studies at the University of Chicago and earned his PhD in 1903.

Leacock had married Beatrix Hamilton in 1900 and 15 years later the couple had their only child, Stephen.  In time father and son developed a love-hate relationship, partially caused by his son’s diminutive stature of only four feet.

Accepting a post at McGill University Leacock would remain there until he retired in 1936.  In 1906, he wrote ‘Elements of Political Science’, quickly adopted as a standard textbook for the next two decades and his most profitable book.  He also began public speaking and lecturing, and took a year's leave of absence in 1907 to speak throughout Canada on the subject of national unity.

Leacock had submitted humourous articles to the Toronto magazine Grip in 1894, and was soon published in other Canadian and US magazines.  In 1910, he printed privately a collection of these as ‘Literary Lapses’.  Acquired by the British publisher, John Lane, it was released in London and New York.   He was now a commercially successful writer.  There soon followed ‘Nonsense Novels’ (1911) and the sentimental favourite, ‘Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town’ (1912).  His ‘Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich’ (1914) is a darker collection that satirizes city life.  Collections of sketches continued to be published almost annually, filled with a mixture of light-hearted whimsy, parody, nonsense, and satire.

In later life, he wrote on the art of humour writing and published biographies on Twain and Dickens.  Together with continued speaking tours he also added to his non-fiction with many well-regarded and award-winning volumes on Canada.

Politically Leacock was a social conservative and a partisan Conservative.  He opposed women’s right to vote and had a varied record on non-English immigration.  He was a champion of Empire but an advocate of social welfare legislation and wealth redistribution, but he often caused friction with his racist views towards blacks and Indigenous peoples.

Leacock has for some time been forgotten as an economist, but it’s often quoted that in 1911 more people had heard of him than had heard of Canada.  For the decade after 1915 Leacock was the most popular humorist in the English-speaking world.

Stephen Leacock died on 28th March 1944 of throat cancer in Toronto, Canada.  He was 74.  He was buried in the St George the Martyr Churchyard, Sutton, Ontario.

Index of Contents

I. WINSOME WINNIE; OR, TRIAL AND TEMPTATION

Chapter I. Thrown on the World

Chapter II. A Rencounter

Chapter III. Friends in Distress

Chapter IV. A Gambling Party in St. James's Close

Chapter V. The Abduction

Chapter VI. The Unknown

Chapter VII. The Proposal

Chapter VIII. Wedded at Last

II. JOHN AND I; OR, HOW I NEARLY LOST MY HUSBAND

III. THE SPLIT IN THE CABINET; OR, THE FATE OF ENGLAND

IV. WHO DO YOU THINK DID IT? OR, THE MIXED-UP MURDER MYSTERY

Chapter I. He Dined with Me Last Night

Chapter II. I Must Save Her Life

Chapter III. I Must Buy a Book on Billiards

Chapter IV. That is Not Billiard Chalk

Chapter V. Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly?

Chapter VI. Show Me the Man Who Wore Those Boots

Chapter VII. Oh, Mr. Kent, Save Me!

Chapter VIII. You Are Peter Kelly

Chapter IX. Let Me Tell You the Story of My Life

Chapter X. So Do I

V. BROKEN BARRIERS; OR, RED LOVE ON A BLUE ISLAND

VI. THE KIDNAPPED PLUMBER: A TALE OF THE NEW TIME

VII. THE BLUE AND THE GREY: A PRE-WAR WAR STORY

VIII. BUGGAM GRANGE: A GOOD OLD GHOST STORY

Stephen Leacock – A Concise Bibliography

I

WINSOME WINNIE OR, TRIAL AND TEMPTATION

(Narrated after the best models of 1875)

CHAPTER I

THROWN ON THE WORLD

Miss Winnifred, said the Old Lawyer, looking keenly over and through his shaggy eyebrows at the fair young creature seated before him, you are this morning twenty-one.

Winnifred Clair raised her deep mourning veil, lowered her eyes and folded her hands.

This morning, continued Mr. Bonehead, my guardianship is at an end.

There was a tone of something like emotion in the voice of the stern old lawyer, while for a moment his eye glistened with something like a tear which he hastened to remove with something like a handkerchief. I have therefore sent for you, he went on, to render you an account of my trust.

He heaved a sigh at her, and then, reaching out his hand, he pulled the woollen bell-rope up and down several times.

An aged clerk appeared.

Did the bell ring? he asked.

I think it did, said the Lawyer. Be good enough, Atkinson, to fetch me the papers of the estate of the late Major Clair defunct.

I have them here, said the clerk, and he laid upon the table a bundle of faded blue papers, and withdrew.

Miss Winnifred, resumed the Old Lawyer, I will now proceed to give you an account of the disposition that has been made of your property. This first document refers to the sum of two thousand pounds left to you by your great uncle. It is lost.

Winnifred bowed.

Pray give me your best attention and I will endeavour to explain to you how I lost it.

Oh, sir, cried Winnifred, I am only a poor girl unskilled in the ways of the world, and knowing nothing but music and French; I fear that the details of business are beyond my grasp. But if it is lost, I gather that it is gone.

It is, said Mr. Bonehead. I lost it in a marginal option in an undeveloped oil company. I suppose that means nothing to you.

Alas, sighed Winnifred, nothing.

Very good, resumed the Lawyer. Here next we have a statement in regard to the thousand pounds left you under the will of your maternal grandmother. I lost it at Monte Carlo. But I need not fatigue you with the details.

Pray spare them, cried the girl.

This final item relates to the sum of fifteen hundred pounds placed in trust for you by your uncle. I lost it on a horse race. That horse, added the Old Lawyer with rising excitement, ought to have won. He was coming down the stretch like blue—but there, there, my dear, you must forgive me if the recollection of it still stirs me to anger. Suffice it to say the horse fell. I have kept for your inspection the score card of the race, and the betting tickets. You will find everything in order.

Sir, said Winnifred, as Mr. Bonehead proceeded to fold up his papers, I am but a poor inadequate girl, a mere child in business, but tell me, I pray, what is left to me of the money that you have managed?

Nothing, said the Lawyer. Everything is gone. And I regret to say, Miss Clair, that it is my painful duty to convey to you a further disclosure of a distressing nature. It concerns your birth.

Just Heaven! cried Winnifred, with a woman's quick intuition. Does it concern my father?

It does, Miss Clair. Your father was not your father.

Oh, sir, exclaimed Winnifred. My poor mother! How she must have suffered!

Your mother was not your mother, said the Old Lawyer gravely. Nay, nay, do not question me. There is a dark secret about your birth.

Alas, said Winnifred, wringing her hands, I am, then, alone in the world and penniless.

You are, said Mr. Bonehead, deeply moved. You are, unfortunately, thrown upon the world. But, if you ever find yourself in a position where you need help and advice, do not scruple to come to me. Especially, he added, for advice. And meantime let me ask you in what way do you propose to earn your livelihood?

I have my needle, said Winnifred.

Let me see it, said the Lawyer.

Winnifred showed it to him.

I fear, said Mr. Bonehead, shaking his head, you will not do much with that.

Then he rang the bell again.

Atkinson, he said, take Miss Clair out and throw her on the world.

CHAPTER II

A RENCOUNTER

As Winnifred Clair passed down the stairway leading from the Lawyer's office, a figure appeared before her in the corridor, blocking the way. It was that of a tall, aristocratic-looking man, whose features wore that peculiarly saturnine appearance seen only in the English nobility. The face, while entirely gentlemanly in its general aspect, was stamped with all the worst passions of mankind.

Had the innocent girl but known it, the face was that of Lord Wynchgate, one of the most contemptible of the greater nobility of Britain, and the figure was his too.

Ha! exclaimed the dissolute Aristocrat, whom have we here? Stay, pretty one, and let me see the fair countenance that I divine behind your veil.

Sir, said Winnifred, drawing herself up proudly, let me pass, I pray.

Not so, cried Wynchgate, reaching out and seizing his intended victim by the wrist, not till I have at least seen the colour of those eyes and imprinted a kiss upon those fair lips.

With a brutal laugh, he drew the struggling girl towards him.

In another moment the aristocratic villain would have succeeded in lifting the veil of the unhappy girl, when suddenly a ringing voice cried, Hold! stop! desist! begone! lay to! cut it out!

With these words a tall, athletic young man, attracted doubtless by the girl's cries, leapt into the corridor from the street without. His figure was that, more or less, of a Greek god, while his face, although at the moment inflamed with anger, was of an entirely moral and permissible configuration.

Save me! save me! cried Winnifred.

I will, cried the Stranger, rushing towards Lord Wynchgate with uplifted cane.

But the cowardly Aristocrat