Stephen Leacock - A Short Story Collection

By Stephen Leacock

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

The family emigrated to Canada in 1876 to live on a 100-acre farm in Sutton, Ontario. There Leacock was home-schooled and later enrolled into the elite private school Upper Canada College in Toronto. Academically he was very strong and enrolled at the University of Toronto to study languages and literature. He left there after his alcoholic father abandoned the family and finances were too stretched to continue his attendance. He now enrolled in a three-month course at Strathroy Collegiate Institute to become a qualified high school teacher and with it a regular income.

Leacock published humorous articles in many Canadian and US magazines but his real passion was economics and political theory. In 1899 he enrolled for postgraduate studies at the University of Chicago and earned his PhD in 1903.

His marriage to Beatrix Hamilton produced a single child 15 years later. Over time father and son developed a love-hate relationship, partially caused by his son’s diminutive stature of only four feet.

He accepted a post at McGill University and kept it until he retired in 1936. His work ‘Elements of Political Science’, was adopted as a standard textbook for two decades and was also his most profitable. He now also began public speaking and lecturing.

In 1910, he privately printed some articles as ‘Literary Lapses’. It was then released by a recognised publisher, and he became a commercially successful writer. His collections of light-hearted whimsy, parody, nonsense, and satire were now frequently published along with biographies and several award-winning volumes on Canada.

Politically Leacock was a difficult creature. He opposed women’s right to vote, was a champion of Empire but advocated social welfare legislation and wealth redistribution, but he often caused friction with his racist views.

Leacock has been forgotten as an economist, but it’s often said 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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Miniature Masterpieces
• Release date: Mar 15, 2024
• ISBN: 9781835474594

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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Stephen Leacock - A Short Story Collection

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

The family emigrated to Canada in 1876 to live on a 100-acre farm in Sutton, Ontario.  There Leacock was home-schooled and later enrolled into the elite private school Upper Canada College in Toronto.  Academically he was very strong and enrolled at the University of Toronto to study languages and literature.  He left there after his alcoholic father abandoned the family and finances were too stretched to continue his attendance.  He now enrolled in a three-month course at Strathroy Collegiate Institute to become a qualified high school teacher and with it a regular income.

Leacock published humorous articles in many Canadian and US magazines but his real passion was economics and political theory.  In 1899 he enrolled for postgraduate studies at the University of Chicago and earned his PhD in 1903.

His marriage to Beatrix Hamilton produced a single child 15 years later.  Over time father and son developed a love-hate relationship, partially caused by his son’s diminutive stature of only four feet.

He accepted a post at McGill University and kept it until he retired in 1936.  His work ‘Elements of Political Science’, was adopted as a standard textbook for two decades and was also his most profitable.  He now also began public speaking and lecturing.

In 1910, he privately printed some articles as ‘Literary Lapses’.  It was then released by a recognised publisher, and he became a commercially successful writer.  His collections of light-hearted whimsy, parody, nonsense, and satire were now frequently published along with biographies and several award-winning volumes on Canada.

Politically Leacock was a difficult creature.  He opposed women’s right to vote, was a champion of Empire but advocated social welfare legislation and wealth redistribution, but he often caused friction with his racist views.

Leacock has been forgotten as an economist, but it’s often said 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. 

Index of Contents

Men Who Have Shaved Me 

How to Make A Million Dollars

Self-Made Men 

My Financial Career 

Borrowing a Match 

The Force of Statistics 

Aristocratic Education 

The New Food 

How to Live to Be 200 

The Awful Fate of Melpomenus Jones 

Men Who Have Shaved Me

A barber is by nature and inclination a sport. He can tell you at what exact hour the ball game of the day is to begin, can foretell its issue without losing a stroke of the razor, and can explain the points of inferiority of all the players, as compared with better men that he