Stephen
Butler Leacock, Canada’s pre-eminent humorist, was born in Swanmore, England
in 1869 and as a young child moved to Canada with his family. They settled in
southern Ontario close to the shores of Lake Simcoe (on a 100 acre farm near the
village of Egypt). Leacock attended Upper Canada College, the University of
Toronto and obtained his Ph.D from the University of Chicago. He became a
professor in the Department of Economics and Political Science at Montreal's
McGill University in 1903.
In
1908 Leacock purchased 19.73 acres of land in Orillia, Ontario on the shores of
Lake Couchiching. (Eventually the entire acreage of the property was 33 acres).
The property came to be known as on The Old Brewery Bay. It was here (in 1928) that
Leacock built a magnificent summer home which today has been transformed into a
national historic site and museum.
In
1910 Stephen published the first of his humorous books, Literary Lapses
and thus began a humour-writing career that gained him fame throughout the
world. In 1912 his most famous book Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town
was published. In it, the author lampooned the residents and the foibles of his
summertime home. His fictional Mariposa was undeniably real-life Orillia!
From
1910 until his death in 1944, Leacock produced an impressive string of best
selling humour books which still sell remarkably well over sixty years after his
death. Ironically – and perhaps that is fitting considering his gentle style
of humour – it was Professor Leacock’s 1906 book Elements of Political
Science, a university textbook, which was his most profitable effort in the
publishing field. His lecture tours of Canada, the United States and Europe were
hugely successful.
Leacock
reluctantly retired from McGill in 1936 , having been head of his department
since 1908. Among the honours heaped upon him were being elected to the Royal
Society of Canada in 1919 and winning the Mark Twain Medal in 1935.
Stephen
Leacock passed away in March 1944 and was buried in his family’s plot at
Sibbald Point. In 1947 an award was instituted in his name: The Leacock Medal
for Humour, awarded annually to the book deemed best book of humour published in
Canada the previous year.
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