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The prudent husbandman, after having taken from his field all the
straw that is there, rakes it over with a wooden rake and gets as
much again. The wise child, after the lemonade jug is empty, takes
the lemons from the bottom of it and squeezes them into a still
larger brew. So does the sagacious author, after having sold his
material to the magazines and been paid for it, clap it into
book-covers and give it another squeeze. But in the present case
the author is of a nice conscience and anxious to place
responsibility where it is due. He therefore wishes to make all
proper acknowledgments to the editors of "Vanity Fair, The American
Magazine, The Popular Magazine, Life, Puck, The Century, Methuen's
Annual," and all others who are in any way implicated in the making
of this book.
-- STEPHEN LEACOCK
Who but Stephen Leacock would endeavor to describe a boarding house
-- in terms of schoolroom geometry? ("The landlady of a
boarding-house is a parallelogram -- that is, an oblong angular
figure, which cannot be described, but which is equal to
anything.") Or to detail the terrible ordeal of Melpomenus Jones,
unable to say, "Good-bye"?
Leacock (1869-1944) did have his serious side -- for he wrote
learnedly of Twain and Dickens, and was a professor of political
science and economics at McGill University . . . but it was when he
set aside seriousness for levity, with such sketches as "How
Tennyson Killed the May Queen" or "Hoodoo McFiggin's Christmas,"
that he has won over the English-reading public everywhere.
Set in the fictional landscape of Mariposa on the shores of Lake
Wissanotti in Missinaba County, Leacock's Sunshine Sketches of a
Little Town is an affectionate satire of small town life. This
series of humourous connected sketches about graft, high finance,
religion, love and romance is, on one level, an intimate, comic
portrait of town life and local politics. On another level, the
narrative is a powerful commentary on the workings of community
values and on Canada's place within the British Empire. The
Broadview edition includes a critical introduction, thorough
annotation, a list of textual variants, and a range of contextual
materials, including Leacock's stage adaptation of Sunshine
Sketches.
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