My Remarkable Uncle

This celebrated collection of sketches sparkles with Stephen Leacock's humour and shines with the warmth of his wit. The comical E.P., star of the title essay, "My Remarkable Uncle," is a classic Leacock character. He is president of a railway with a letterhead but no rails, and he heads a bank that boasts credit but no cash whatsoever all of which trouble E.P. not in the least. My Remarkable Uncle, a wonderful smorgasbord of mirth served up by a master of comedy, includes several essays, a short story, a political parable, and personal reflections on a dizzying array of subjects. Here, in rich abundance, are the inspired nonsense and the unerring eye for human folly that have made Stephen Leacock Canada's most celebrated humorist.

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. When he received his Ph.D. in 1903, he was appointed to the position of lecturer. From 1908 until his retirement in 1936, he chaired the Department of Political Science and Economics.

Leacock’s most profitable book was his textbook, Elements of Political Science, which was translated into seventeen languages. 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.

Leacock also wrote popular biographies of his two favourite writers, Mark Twain and Charles Dickens. At the time of his death, he left four completed chapters of what was to have been his autobiography. These were published posthumously under the title The Boy I Left Behind Me.

Stephen Leacock died in Toronto, Ontario, in 1944.


From the Paperback edition.

SOME MEMORIES
My Remarkable Uncle
The Old Farm and the New Frame
The Struggle to Make Us Gentlemen
 
LITERARY STUDIES
The British Soldier
The Mathematics of the Lost Chord
The Passing of the Kitchen
Come Back to School
What’s in a Name?
Who Canonizes the Classics?
Among the Antiques
 
SPORTING SECTION
What Is a Sport?
Why Do We Fish?
When Fellers Go Fishing
Eating Air
 
STUDIES IN HUMOUR
The Saving Grace of Humour
Laughing Off Our History
War and Humour
 
MEMORIES OF CHRISTMAS
Christmas Rapture
Christmas Shopping
War- time Santa Claus
War- time Christmas
 
GOODWILL STUFF
Cricket for Americans
Our American Visitors
A Welcome to a Visiting American
Why Is the United States?
 
The Transit of Venus
Migration in English Literature
Three Score and Ten
Index: There Is No Index
L’Envoi: A Salutation Across the Sea
 
Afterword