The Letters of Stephen Leacock by David Staines, Barbara Nimmo, Stephen Leacock

1120 Reviews The Letters ofStephen Leacock. Ed. byDAVID STAINESwith BARBARA NIMMO. Oxford: OxfordUniversityPress. 2005. xi+528pp. Ig9.99. ISBN978-o-i9-54o869-o. Stephen Leacock does not getmuch scholarly attention, which is somewhat surpris ing considering his prolific output of over sixty books and hundreds of articles and pamphlets and his place in Canadian literary history. He was born in England in I869, but his familymoved toOntario when he was six years old. After a penurious upbringing, he graduated from theUniversity ofToronto before obtaining a Ph.D. inpolitical science from theUniversity ofChicago, working with Thorstein Veblen. He later stated that 'themeaning of [thePh.D. was] that the recipient of instruction is examined for the last time inhis life,and ispronounced completely full.After this,no new ideas can be imparted tohim' (Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (Toronto: Bell & Cockburn, I9I2), p. ix).He took up a position in theDepartment of Economics and Political Science atMcGill University where he remained forhis entire academic career (including being head of department forover thirtyyears). Although perhaps best known today for the Stephen Leacock Medal forHumour, which has been awarded yearly since I947 to the best humorous book by a Canadian author, he was equally heralded during his lifetime forhis humorous writing as well as his work on political economy. His firstbook, Elements ofPolitical Science (I906), was a standard university textbook and was translated into almost twenty languages, and he continued to publish widely regarded books in political economy. In short, his was an excellent scholarly career. To supplement his earnings as a scholar, how ever, Leacock turned to humorous writing. In I9IO he published Literary Lapses, which was followed by Nonsense Novels in I91 I, a parody of the popular genres of literature, and bywhat iswidely perceived as his masterpiece, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, in I9I2. Wodehousian at times-'Lord Ronald [. . .] flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions' (Nonsense Novels (New York: John Lane, I9I I), P. 73)-Leacock was one of the best-selling authors inCanada in the firsthalf of the twentieth century.His interest in small-town lifehas impacted on such laterauthors asAlice Munro and Garrison Keillor. His literaryoutput remained high throughout his life:he continued toproduce works on political economy, comic sketches and novels, studies ofhumour-his Humour: Its Theory and Technique (I 93 5) was highly regarded-as well as travelnarratives and acclaimed biographies ofMark Twain (1932) and Charles Dickens (I933). This makes it all themore surprising that he has not received much critical at tention. There has been the occasional biography-David Legate, Stephen Leacock: A Biography (Toronto: Doubleday, I978); James Doyle, Stephen Leacock: The Sage ofOrillia (Toronto: ECW Press, I992)-and bibliography-Carl Spadoni, A Bib liography of Stephen Leacock (Toronto: ECW Press, I998); now updated as An e Bibliography of Stephen Leacock, 2nd edn (Shelburne, ON: The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2004)-as well as several earnest studies of his humorous technique Gerald Lynch, Stephen Leacock: Humour and Humanity (Kingston, ON: McGill Queen's University Press, I988); Zdenka Vavrova-Rejskova, Stephen Leacock and theArt ofHumour (Prague: Univerzita Karlova, I987). It is only David Staines, however, who has sustained the field of Leacockian studies in depth. His earlier collection-Stephen Leacock: A Reappraisal (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, I986)-is complemented nicely by this collection of letters.The work of some fifteen years, it assembles awide-ranging and humane account of Leacock (aided, in part, by Barbara Nimmo, Leacock's niece). This is a superb selection ofLeacock's letters, ranging fromhis early childhood to just amonth before his death from throat can cer in 1944. The ten sections each possess a useful introduction and the letters are meticulously annotated. Illustrated with original photographs, this selection of letters provides a crucial personal account of one of Canada's top early twentieth-century MLR, I03.4, 2oo8 II21 writers. Leacock deserves far more than posterity has so fargiven him and this col lection goes some way to rectifyingthis injustice. NEWCASTLEUNIVERSITY STACYGILLIS Miraculous Rhymes: The Writing ofGautier de Coinci. By TONY HUNT. (Gallica, 8) Cambridge: Brewer. 2007. Viii+2I2pp. ?50. ISBN 978-I-84384-I26-5. Tony Hunt claims thathis is the firstbook...

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