Leacock, Stephen

The Shepherd And Other Christmas Stories: The Gift Of The Magi, The Cricket On The Hearth, Yes, Virginia There Is A Santa Claus, Hoodoo Mcgiggin And Christmas Cake Recipe

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The Shepherd & other Xmas Stories

The Shepherd And Other Christmas Stories: The Gift Of The Magi, The Cricket On The Hearth, Yes, Virginia There Is A Santa Claus, Hoodoo Mcgiggin And Christmas Cake Recipe
Frederick Forsyth , O. Henry , Charles Dickens , Francis P. Church , and Stephen Leacock
Manufacturer: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC Audio)
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Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: 0660192829

Customer Reviews:

The Shepherd & other Xmas Stories.......2006-12-23

In Canada people start calling the CBC in early December to ask when they will broadcast the story, "The Shepherd" read on the radio by the late Alan Maitland. I suspect that much of Canada was quiet the last half hour when they just played it on Radio One.
It is a tense & beautiful spirit/ghost story about a young RAF pilot lost over the North Sea on Xmas Eve.
I highly recommend it for its expert narration, as an event for the whole family to listen to, ages 10 & up, & as just a darn good story.

The rest of the stories, each w/a bit of irony or a bittersweet taste, are well done, too.

Ulysses Vancouver, Victoria and Whistler (Ulysses Travel Guide Vancouver) (Ulysses Travel Guide Vancouver)

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Ulysses Vancouver, Victoria and Whistler (Ulysses Travel Guide Vancouver) (Ulysses Travel Guide Vancouver)
Stephen Leacock
Manufacturer: Ulysses Travel Guides
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Suite Francaise

ASIN: 2894647638

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Some sense in Nonsense
Brilliant Humor from 90 Years Ago-- Still Funny & Relevant
Best buy in comic reading ever!

Nonsense Novels
Stephen Leacock
Manufacturer: NYRB Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1590171187
Release Date: 2004-11-30

Book Description

A gift? Yes-a gift for you. You're welcome.—from the introduction by Daniel Handler

Nonsense Novels sends up the silliest conventions of the ghost story, the detective story, the rags-to-riches story, the adventure story, the shipwreck story, and, of course, the story itself. Among other things. Here the close cultivation of cliché yields a bumper crop of absurdity and the utterly ludicrous turns up at every new twist of the tale.

This is a satirical masterpiece. Stephen Leacock was a genius.

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I intend, he announced, "to try a bold, a daring experiment, which, if it succeeds, will bring us into immediate connection with the world of spirits. My plan is to leave two sovereigns here upon the edge of the table during the night. If they are gone in the morning, I shall know that Q has contrived to de-astralise himself, and has taken the sovereigns. The only question is, do you happen to have two sovereigns? I myself, unfortunately, have nothing but small change about me."

Customer Reviews:

Some sense in Nonsense.......2006-01-06

Wit is often not associated with the academe. Therefore it is a suprise to see such wit in Stephen Leacock. As a professor of Economics at McGill University in the mid 20th century, Leacock was counted among Canada's greatest humorists.
In the Nonsense Novels, Leacocks unleashes parodies of most literary genres: The Great Detective, the first tale, satirizes Arthur Conan Doyle's Scandal in Bohemia.
There are tales of capers involving gullible women, a desert island landing with an alternate ending, analysis of societal conditions, and some stories that are plain nonsense.
A Hero in Homespun and the Man in Asbetoes are two worth reading; the latter being a farcical exposition on the future of capitalism and scientific advancement - very scary, if it were not so funny.

I was introduced to Leacock while browsing gutenberg.org, and have not been disappointed.
If you feel overwhelmed by the importance attached to triviality today, then you might do well to pick up and read the Nonsense Novels.

Brilliant Humor from 90 Years Ago-- Still Funny & Relevant.......2005-09-22

Leacock is one of a handful of literary parodists and humorists (Perelman, Benchley, Twain) whose parodies, though more or less a century old, are still laugh-out-loud funny. If you're a Sherlock Holmes fan, Leacock's "Maddened by Mystery: or, The Defective Detective" will make you chortle. If you appreciate romance novels, "Gertrude The Governess" will still tickle. Canadian Leacock was a master humorist with a light touch, and an unerring deflator of cliche and presumption. This collection of short pieces will still entertain the sophisticated fan of written humor, and should be in every collection.

*Note: The full text of this book is available online.

Best buy in comic reading ever!.......2003-03-28

Where do I begin to describe the absolutely astonishing quality of Leacock's work? I first heard of Stephen Leacock when reading a book about the Marx brothers. It seems Groucho was on a train, and happened to pass the room of Jack Benny (who was traveling with them, working on the same vaudeville circuit. Groucho heard Benny screaming with laughter, and popped his head into Benny's room to see what the commotion was. Benny told Groucho that it was a book by Leacock, whom Groucho admitted to not knowing. Benny told Groucho, "It's the funniest stuff I've ever read!" Groucho later bought a copy of the book, loved it as much as Benny, and said that he always looked for anything written by Stephen Leacock.

Okay, but what about his stories? Leacock's stock in trade was the parody of classic literature - stories about humble girls of (unknowingly) noble ancestry, who are engaged to work as servants for title lords, only to fall in love with the son of the mansion are turned into hysterically funny romps, where the lies not in the intentionally funny line, but in carefully crafted twists of standard sentence construction.

A sample, from the above-described story, called "Gertrude the Governess; or Simply Seventeen":

"Young Ronald said nothing; he flung himself from the house, flung himself upon his horse, and rode madly off in all directions."

Leacock treats the classic tale of knighthood (handsome, strong knight declares his love for the gentle maiden of the castle, and she loves him too, though they've never met) to similarly wicked entanglement of story and prose.

"Sorrows of a Super Soul" tells the classic Russian tale of an unrequited love, while "Carolyn's Christmas" the story of the old farmer, his family away (one son in the city, another in prison), his farm mortgaged, and a strange girl happening upon the family on Christmas Eve, with a baby, but no wedding ring. Both of these, and all other stories in this slim book, will have you laughing until you cry.

Book Description

This original NCL collection brings together Leacock’s comic masterpieces, the many varieties of his remarkable humour. In one story a young man is seized by fear as he attempts to open his first bank account. In another, Lord Ronald, the beloved of Gertrude the Governess, “flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.” In a third, the Mariposa Belle sinks in the shallow waters of Lake Wissanotti.

Completing these timeless comedies are two of Leacock’s own essays on humour.

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HAPPY STORIES, JUST TO LAUGH AT
Leacock Stephen
Manufacturer: Dodd, Mead and Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000HQVCPE

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funniest book i've ever read
It Soothes the Soul
the funniest book i've ever read
An endearing portrait of Oriliia -- my home town
Wonderful satire on small town life

Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town
Stephen Leacock
Manufacturer: Echo Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1406814334

Book Description

Twelve episodes in the everyday life of the community of Mariposa

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In the city, people never read the newspapers, not really, only little bits and scraps of them. But in Mariposa it's different. There they read the whole thing from cover to cover, and they build up on it, in the course of years, a range of acquirement that would put a college president to the blush. Anybody who has ever heard Henry Mullins and Peter Glover talk about the future of China will know just what I mean.

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funniest book i've ever read.......2003-06-22

no hype. i couldn't stop laughing as i was reading this. and i mean laughing out loud. in a cafe. with everyone staring at me. but i didn't care. and i couldn't help it if i did. it's just too hilarious.

It Soothes the Soul.......2003-02-27

There is at least one author who may remind you of Stephen Leacock, namely Garrison Keillor of Lake Wobegon fame, but Leacock should be recognized as the ultimate master of quaint, bucolic humor. Leacock, who died in 1944, became arguably the most prominent Canadian humorist of his day (and probably of all time). What is ironic about that claim is that Leacock worked for most of his life as a professor of economics. We do not usually equate economics with humor, preferring to think of that profession as one of bow ties and supply and demand charts. Throw that presumption out the window and pick up a copy of "Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town," Leacock's best known work available through the New Canadian Library series.

For me, one of the funniest sections of the book was the introduction written by Leacock, where he gives you some background about himself and his profession. This short piece of writing quickly gives you an idea of the type of humor you will find in the actual sketches: a very sly, very quiet and clever type of humor that often takes a while to sink in. Leacock does not rely on rim shot jokes or manic posturing in his writings. Instead, he creates the fictional Canadian town of Mariposa and populates it with small town archetypes that are wonders to behold.

All of the characters are hilarious in their own way: Mr. Smith, the proprietor of the local hotel and bar, full of schemes to earn money while trying to get his liquor license back. Then there is Jefferson Thorpe, the barber involved in financial schemes that may put him on the level of the Morgans and the Rockefellers. The Reverend Mr. Drone presides over the local Church of England in Mariposa, a man who reads Greek as easy as can be but laments his lack of knowledge about logarithms and balancing the financial books of the church. Peter Pupkin, the teller at the local bank, has a secret he wants no one to know about, but which eventually comes out while he is courting the daughter of the town judge. All of these characters, and several others, interact throughout the sketches.

Leacock has the ability to turn a story, to make it take a crazy, unexpected twist even when you are looking for such a maneuver. That he accomplishes this in stories that rarely run longer than twenty pages is certainly a sign of great talent. By the time you reach the end of the book, you know these people as though you lived in the town yourself, and you know what makes them tick.

Despite all of the crazy antics in Mariposa, Leacock never lets the reader lose sight of the fact that these are basically good people living good lives. There seems to be a lot of feeling for the citizens of Mariposa on the part of Leacock, which comes to a head in the final sketch in the collection, "L'Envoi. The Train to Mariposa," where he recounts traveling back to the town after being away for years, with all of the attendant emotions that brings as recognizable landmarks come into view and the traveler realizes that his little town is the same as when he left it years before.

I suspect there is a historical importance to "Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town." These writings first appeared in 1912, a time when many people living in the bigger Canadian cities still remembered life in a small town. In addition to the humorous aspects of the book, the author includes many descriptive passages concerning the atmosphere and layout of Mariposa, something instantly recognizable to anyone who grew up in such a place. Nostalgia for the simpler life of the small town probably played a significant role in the book's success.

I look forward to reading more Stephen Leacock. While much of the humor in the book is not belly laugh funny, it does provide one with a deep satisfaction of reading clever humor from an author who knows how to tickle the funny bone. You do not need to be Canadian to enjoy this wonderful book.

the funniest book i've ever read.......2002-12-04

Like the heading says, this is the funniest book I've ever read. Leacock was a comic genius and this is his best work. Buy it, read it, love it.

An endearing portrait of Oriliia -- my home town.......2001-12-17

Perhaps the finest comment about Stephen Leacock in the last half century is that "he is a
Will Rogers for the 90's."

Rogers, of course, is one of the most beloved of American humorists -- he was killed in
1935 when his plane crashed near Point Barrow, Alaska. Leacock died on March 28, 1944.
Like Rogers, he had been Canada's favorite humorist for decades.

Sunshine Sketches is about Orillia, Ontario, Canada, where Leacock had his summer home
on Brewery Bay (he once wrote, "I have known that name, the old Brewery Bay, to make
people feel thirsty by correspondence as far away as Nevada.") His home is now maintained
as a historic site by the town of Orillia. I lived there for almost 30 years, and the people of Orillia are still much the same as Leacock portrayed them in 1912.

These stories about various personalities in town were printed in the local newspaper in the
1910 - 1912 era, before being compiled into this book which established Leacock's literary
fame. The people portrayed really lived, though some are composites; the events are of a
kindly humorist looking at the foibles of small town life. Once they came out in book form
and soared to national popularity, everyone in town figured the rest of the country was
laughing at them because of Leacock's book and he was royally hated in Orillia to the end
of his life.

Gradually, and this took decades, Orillians came to recognize that genius had walked
amongst them for several decades. (It's hard to recognize genius when your own ego is so
inflated.) Orillia now awards the annual "Leacock Medal for Humor" -- Canada's top literary
prize for the best book of humour for the preceding year.

Leacock died when I was six, but I did know his son, who still lived in town. I delivered
papers to the editor of the "Newspacket," Leacock's name for the Orillia Packet and Times
(where I worked) and the rival Newsletter. The Packet had the same editor in the 1940's as
when Leacock wrote about him in 1910.

But the book is more than Orillia; it is a wonderfully kind and humorous description of life in
many small towns. The American artist Norman Rockwell painted the same kinds of scenes;
it is the type of idyllic urban life so many of us keep longing to find again in our hectic
urban world.

Leacock realized the book was universal in its description of small towns, and in the preface
he wrote "Mariposa is not a real town. On the contrary, it is about seventy or eighty of
them. You may find them all the way from Lake Superior to the sea, with the same square
streets and the same maple trees and the same churches and hotels, and everywhere the
sunshine of the land of hope."

True enough, which gives this book continuing appeal nearly a century after it was written.
All great writing is about topics you know, and as a longtime resident Leacock knew Orillia
well. As for Leacock himself, he wrote, "I was born at Swanmoor, Hants., England, on Dec.
30, 1869. I am not aware that there was any particular conjunction of the planets at the
time, but should think it extremely likely."

He says of his education, "I survived until I took the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in
1903. The meaning of this degree is that the recipient of instruction is examined for the last
time in his life, and is pronounced completely full. After this, no new ideas can be imparted
to him."

In reviewing Charles Dickens' works in 1934, Leacock wrote what could well be his own
epitaph: "Transitory popularity is not proof of genius. But permanent popularity is." The fact
his writings are still current illustrates the nature of his writing.

In contrast to the sometimes sardonic humor of modern times, Sunshine Sketches reflects
Leacock's idea that "the essence of humor is human kindness." Or, in the same vein, "Humor
may be defined as the kindly contemplation of the incongruities of life, and the artistic
expression thereof."

Granted, this book is not what he recognized to have widespread appeal to modern readers.
In his own words, "There are only two subjects that appeal nowadays to the general public,
murder and sex; and, for people of culture, sex-murder." Yet, anyone reading this will
remember scenes from it for much longer than anything from a murder mystery.

In today's world, where newspapers almost daily track Prime Minister Tony Blair's dash to
the political right, Leacock wrote, "Socialism won't work except in Heaven where they don't
need it and in Hell where they already have it."

He described his own home as follows, "I have a large country house -- a sort of farm
which I carry on as a hobby . . . . Ten years ago the deficit on my farm was about a
hundred dollars; but by well-designed capital expenditure and by greater attention to
details, I have got it into the thousands." Sounds familiar to today's farm policies ?

It's what I mean by this being a timeless work.

Leacock himself noted, when talking about good literature, "Personally, I would sooner have
written 'Alice in Wonderland' than the whole of the 'Encyclopedia Britannica'." This is his
'Alice' and it well deserves to be favorably compared to Lewis Carroll's work.

By all measures, it is still the finest Canadian book ever written.

Wonderful satire on small town life.......2001-07-07

This 1912 work uses sketches about the residents of a small Ontario lake town. The tone is mock-boosterish, giving rise to some sly comic moments. This is a wonderful parody of that can-do mentality that seems to infect us in North America. The work anticipates Lake Woebegone by some years, but has a distinctly Canadian feel. We've seen lots of works take mythical townspeople one by one, but I can think of few that do it as well and as simply as this one. This is a must read.

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good sense of humor required!
An acquired taste, but fun satire
A wonderful mixture of comedy, nonsense and compassion

Literary Lapses (New Canadian Library)
Stephen Leacock
Manufacturer: New Canadian Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 0771099835
Release Date: 1989-05-01

Book Description

The humour, irony, and wit of Stephen Leacock have never been shown to better advantage than in Literary Lapses, his first collection of comic writings. Within its pages are such classic stories as the man who is seized by fear as he opens a bank account; the awful case of the young man who dies because he cannot tell a lie; the astonishing tale of the baby who ate thirteen Christmas dinners, and many other tales that have become part of the world's comic literature.

When Literary Lapses first appeared in 1910, it was an instant critical and popular success. Within a few years of its publication, Leacock was acknowledged as the English-speaking world’s most beloved humourist.

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Oh, Henry, quick! Baby has snatched the pill! It was too true. Dear little Gustavus Adolphus, the golden-haired baby boy, had grabbed the whole Christmas dinner off the poker chip and bolted it. Three hundred and fifty pounds of concentrated nourishment passed down the oesophagus of the unthinking child.

Customer Reviews:

good sense of humor required!.......2002-03-24

This is for those who love that dry English humor. I love this book! It mocks so beautifuly stupidities, naivete, and human anxietes. If you like slap stick humor, please look somewhere else.

An acquired taste, but fun satire.......2001-11-04

This book contains a collection of ironically satirical essays. Satire is not my favorite form of humor, so it took me a few essays to get "into the swing" of the book, but I can say that once I came around to the appropriate frame of reference, I quite enjoyed the book. When reading this book, you must also remember that it was originally published in 1910; the humorous themes of the essays have aged well, but some of the settings have not.

As I read the essays, I kept having the nagging thought that the author's style reminded me of a contemporary author. Once I reached the "How to Make a Million Dollars" essay, it hit me: I would not hesitate to call Stephen Leacock the Dave Barry (Miami columnist and author) of the early 1900s. They both have the same sort of perverse logic to their points of view. Thus, if you can picture Dave Barry writing in the early 1900s, you can get some idea of what reading this book of essays would be like.

A wonderful mixture of comedy, nonsense and compassion.......2000-11-21

Stephen Leacock was a Canadian author who wrote his works with an optimistic yet realistic view of life. His light-hearted, bubbly diction impressed me all the way through the novel. Each short story was unique and had true-to-life situations and entertaining characters to whom readers of all ages can relate. His stories are full of good advice for everyone from the socially elite, eager-to-please teenager to the hard-working businessman to the overprotective father. Leacock exaggerates in many of his sketches, but that aspect of each story fits in perfectly with the separate ideas he presents. I recommend this novel to anyone who agrees that life should be lived to the absolute fullest, taking all chances and having a good time. As Stephen Leacock says, "Eat what you want. Eat lots of it. Yes, eat too much of it. Eat till you can just stagger across the room with it and prop it up against the sofa." (Leacock Literary 31)

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My Discovery of England
Stephen Leacock
Manufacturer: Echo Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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A wry view of London, Oxford, politics, business and the English sense of humour

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In fact you will find that, just as with us in America, the benefit of prohibition is intended to fall on the poorer classes. There is no desire to interfere with the rich.

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The Penguin Stephen Leacock
Stephen Leacock
Manufacturer: Penguin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Re-reading "It Was Christmas. And do you know where ..."

Frenzied Fiction
Stephen Leacock
Manufacturer: Hard Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 1406939404

Book 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.

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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."

Customer Reviews:

Re-reading "It Was Christmas. And do you know where ...".......1997-06-04

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.

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