Frenzied Fiction by Stephen Leacock

Frenzied Fiction by Stephen Leacock

Stephen Leacock is an unjustly forgotten master of the short-story genre, once considered the best-known humorist in the world. Although he was a prolific writer, publishing about fifty novels, memoirs and histories in his lifetime, he was best known for his story short-collections Literary Lapses, Nonsense Novels and Frenzied Fiction.

'No one, anywhere in the world, can reduce a thing to ridicule with such few short strokes' (Evening Standard) 'His wisdom is always humorous, and his humour is always wise.' (Sunday Times) 'Professor Leacock has made more people laugh with the written word than any other living author. One may say he is one of the greatest jesters, the greatest humorist of the age.' (A.P. Herbert)

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
ISBN 13	9781913724085
ISBN 10	1913724085
Title	Frenzied Fiction
Author	Stephen Leacock
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Renard Press Ltd
Year published	2021-10-27
Number of pages	224
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable