Lessons from Leacock by Stephen Leacock
Three of Stephen Leacock's best-loved stories My Remarkable Uncle, Maddened by Mystery, and The Marine Excursion of the Knights of Pythias were recorded live by CBC Radio at the Shaw Festival's Bell Canada Reading Series for this unique, entertaining audiobook. In the early part of the twentieth century, Stephen Leacock was one of the best-known humorists in the English-speaking world. His most celebrated work, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, depicts everyday life in the fictional town of Mariposa. Its denizens, based on Leacock's own acquaintances in Orillia, Ontario, are as alive today as they were when he created them in 1912. Performed by members of the Shaw Festival ensemble, the stories in this recording feature deadpan humour and wry observations of ordinary people and showcase the gentle satire of Canada's greatest humorist.
Leacock, Stephen: - Stephen P. H. Butler Leacock FRSC (30 December 1869 - 28 March 1944) was a Canadian teacher, political scientist, writer, and humourist. Between the years 1915 and 1925, he was the best-known English-speaking humourist in the world.[1] He is known for his light humour along with criticisms of people's follies. Stephen Leacock was born in Swanmore, a village near Southampton in southern England. He was the third of the eleven children born to (Walter) Peter Leacock (b.1834), who was born and grew up at Oak Hill on the Isle of Wight, an estate that his grandfather had purchased after returning from Madeira where his family had made a fortune out of plantations and Leacock's Madeira wine, founded in 1760. Stephen's mother, Agnes, was born at Soberton, the youngest daughter by his second wife (Caroline Linton Palmer) of the Rev. Stephen Butler, of Bury Lodge, the Butler estate that overlooked the village of Hambledon, Hampshire. Stephen Butler (for whom Leacock was named), was the maternal grandson of Admiral James Richard Dacres and a brother of Sir Thomas Dacres Butler, Usher of the Black Rod. Leacock's mother was the half-sister of Major Thomas Adair Butler, who won the Victoria Cross at the siege and capture of Lucknow. Peter's father, Thomas Murdock Leacock J.P., had already conceived plans eventually to send his son out to the colonies, but when he discovered that at age eighteen Peter had married Agnes Butler without his permission, almost immediately he shipped them out to South Africa where he had bought them a farm. The farm in South Africa failed and Stephen's parents returned to Hampshire, where he was born. When Stephen was six, he came out with his family to Canada, where they settled on a farm near the village of Sutton, Ontario, and the shores of Lake Simcoe. Their farm in the township of Georgina in York County was also unsuccessful, and the family was kept afloat by money sent from Leacock's paternal grandfather. His father became an alcoholic; in the fall of 1878, he travelled west to Manitoba with his brother E.P. Leacock (the subject of Stephen's book My Remarkable Uncle, published in 1942), leaving behind Agnes and the children.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| EAN | 9780864922793 |
| Title | Lessons from Leacock |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Note | Unavailable |
| By (author) | Stephen Leacock |
| Adapted by | Christopher Newton |
| Narrator | Stephen Leacock |