My Financial Career and Other Follies

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, theMariposa Bellesinks in the shallow waters of Lake Wissanotti. Completing these timeless comedies are two of Leacock's own essays on humour. From the Paperback edition.

STEPHEN LEACOCK was born in Swanmore, Hampshire, England, in 1869. His family emigrated to Canada in 1876 and settled on a farm north of Toronto. Educated at Upper Canada College and the University of Toronto, Leacock pursued graduate studies in economics at the University of Chicago, where he studied under Thorstein Veblen. Even before he completed his doctorate, Leacock accepted a position as sessional lecturer in political science and economics at McGill University. From 1908 until his retirement in 1936, he chaired the Department of Political Science and Economics. The author of nineteen books and countless articles on economics, history, and political science, Leacock turned to the writing of humour as his beloved avocation. His first collection of comic stories, Literary Lapses, appeared in 1910, and from that time until his death he published a volume of humour almost every year.

DAVID STAINES is the general editor of the New Canadian Library. He is a professor of English and acting director of the Institute of Canadian Studies at the University of Ottawa.

My Financial Career
The Awful Fate of Melpomenus Jones
Gertrude the Governess: or, Simple Seventeen
The Marine Excursion of the Knights of Pythias
The Dentist and the Gas
The Love Story of Mr. Peter Spillikins
The Reading Public: A Book Store Study
The Snoopopaths or Fifty Stories in One
My Revelations as a Spy
Personal Adventures in the Spirit World
War and Peace at the Galaxy Club
Buggam Grange: A Good Old Ghost Story
How We Kept Mother’s Day
Old Junk and New Money
A Lesson on the Links
Fifty Cents’ Worth
The Perfect Optimist or Day-dreams in a Dental Chair
Ho for Happiness
My Remarkable Uncle
Good News! A New Party!
Humour As I See It
The Saving Grace of Humour
 
Afterword