Leacock, Stephen Butler

Leacock, Stephen Butler (1869-1944), Canadian writer and economist, born in Swanmore, England, and taken to Canada as a child. He was educated at the universities of Toronto and Chicago. From 1908 to 1936 he taught at McGill University. Leacock wrote several books on political science and economics and the biographies Mark Twain (1932) and Charles Dickens (1933). He is best known for his essays, parodies, and short stories, in which he strikes a vein of burlesque and satiric nonsense that is unique in modern humorous writing. His humour is based on the incongruity between appearance and reality in human conduct. Among such works are Literary Lapses (1910), Nonsense Novels (1911), Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich (1914), and Moonbeams from the Larger Lunacy (1915).