Stephen Leacock was an early 20th century Canadian writer and economist. He received a PhD is political science from the University of Chicago. He opposed women's rights and non Anglo-Saxon immigration, however he was a supporter of social welfare legislation. Leacock explains this humorous book as follows, "It is a favourite fancy of mine to imagine this transformation actually brought about; and to picture the Hohenzollerns as an immigrant family departing for America, their trunks and boxes on their backs, their bundles in their hands. The fragments of a diary that here follow present the...

Stephen Leacock is an unjustly neglected master of the short-story genre, once considered the best-known humorist in the world. Although he was a prolific writer, producing about fifty novels, biographies and histories, he was best known for his humorous articles and short stories in magazines. One of his later collections, Frenzied Fiction shows a master of a genre at the height of his game, and contains all the hallmarks of his earlier work and the trademark wit which he had refined over the previous decades. By turns laugh-aloud hilarious and poignant, and containing such gems as ‘My...

Stephen Leacock originally published his collection of amusing and satirical short tales, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town. The book gives a humorous portrait of its residents and their quirks in the imaginary tiny town of Mariposa, Ontario, Canada, where it is located. The interrelated stories include a variety of characters, including the pompous and conceited politician Josh Smith, the eccentric inventor Peter Pupkin, the domineering and gossipy Mrs. Josiah B. Flack, and the well-intentioned but inept town policeman Mr. Henry Mullins. Leacock makes fun of small-town life and the...