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List of Recommended Readings


Stephen Leacock wrote so much in so many disciplines for so many years, one cannot expect that all of his writings would be recognized as masterpieces. There are in fact many examples in his oeuvre of-lowbrowism - instances where Leacock's craftmanship is merely a mercantile activity fixated on a topical thought of its day, and as such, they cannot be elevated beyond their own day. The following list of recommended readings includes samples of his best work.

Recommended Humorous Readings

From Literary Lapses (1910)

"My Financial Career" (text and audio)
"Boarding-house Geometry" (text)
"The Awful Fate of Melpomenus Jones" (text)
"A, B, and C" (text)

From Nonsense Novels (1911)

"Gertrude the Governess"
"Guido the Gimlet of Ghent"
"Hannah of the Highlands"

Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (1912) (text to Preface)

From Behind the Beyond (1913)

"Homer and Humbug"

Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich (1914)

From Further Foolishness (1917)

"Are the Rich Happy?"

From Frenzied Fiction (1918)

"The New Education" (text)

From The Hohenzollerns in America (1919)

"How to Introduce Two People to One Another"

From Winnowed Wisdom (1926)

"Our Summer Convention"
"At the Ladies' Culture Club"

From Short Circuits (1928)

"Old Junk and New Money"
"How to Borrow Money" (text)
"Save Me from My Friends"

From The Iron Man and the Tin Woman (1929)

"Further Progress in Specialization" (text)
"Eddie the Bar-tender"

From The Dry Pickwick (1932)

"The Dry Pickwick"
"The Perfect Optimist"
"Ho for Happiness"

From Last Leaves (1945)

"Three Score and Ten"

Recommended Serious Readings

From Essays and Literary Sudies (1916)

"The Devil and the Deep Sea" (text)
"Fiction and Reality"

The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice (1920)

From My Discovery of England (1922)

"Oxford as I See It"

Humour: Its Theory and Technique, with Examples and Samples; A Book of Discovery (1935)

Humour and Humanity; An Introduction to the Study of Humour (1937)

Canada, the Foundation of its Future (1941)

While There Is Time: The Case Against Social Catastrophe (1945)

The Boy I Left Behind Me (1946)


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