Leacock, Stephen

▪ Canadian author

in full  Stephen Butler Leacock 

born Dec. 30, 1869, Swanmore, Hampshire, Eng.

died March 28, 1944, Toronto, Ont., Can.

 internationally popular Canadian humorist, educator, lecturer, and author of more than 30 books of lighthearted sketches and essays.

      Leacock immigrated to Canada with his parents at the age of six. He attended Upper Canada College (1882–87) and later received a B.A. degree from the University of Toronto (1891). After teaching for eight years at Upper Canada College, he entered the University of Chicago and was awarded a Ph.D. in 1903. Appointed that same year to the staff of McGill University in Montreal, he became head of the department of economics and political science in 1908 and served in that capacity until his retirement in 1936. Although Leacock was the author of nearly 20 works on history and political economy, his true calling was humour, both as a lecturer and as an author.

      His fame now rests securely on work begun with the beguiling fantasies of Literary Lapses (1910) and Nonsense Novels (1911). Leacock's humour is typically based on a comic perception of social foibles and the incongruity between appearance and reality in human conduct, and his work is characterized by the invention of lively comic situations. Most renowned are his Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (1912), which gently mocks life in the fictional town of Mariposa, Ont., and Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich (1914).

      He also wrote Humour: Its Theory and Technique (1935), a discussion of his humour, and The Boy I Left Behind Me (1946), an uncompleted autobiography.

Additional Reading

James Doyle, Stephen Leacock: The Sage of Orillia (1992); Gerald Lynch, Stephen Leacock: Humour and Humanity (1988).

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