DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Afternoons in Utopia: Tales of the New Time" by Stephen Butler Leacock. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.
This groundbreaking new source of international scope defines the essay as nonfictional prose texts of between one and 50 pages in length. The more than 500 entries by 275 contributors include entries on nationalities, various categories of essays such as generic (such as sermons, aphorisms), individual major works, notable writers, and periodicals that created a market for essays, and particularly famous or significant essays. The preface details the historical development of the essay, and the alphabetically arranged entries usually include biographical sketch, nationality, era, selected writings list, additional readings, and anthologies
This original NCL collection brings together Leacock’s comic masterpieces, the many varieties of his remarkable humour. In one story a young man is seized by fear as he attempts to open his first bank account. In another, Lord Ronald, the beloved of Gertrude the Governess, “flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.” In a third, the Mariposa Belle sinks in the shallow waters of Lake Wissanotti. Completing these timeless comedies are two of Leacock’s own essays on humour.
Affectionately combining both the idyllic and ironic, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town is Stephen Leacock’s most beloved book. Set in fictional Mariposa, an Ontario town on the shore of Lake Wissanotti, these sketches present a remarkable range of characters: some irritating, some exasperating, some foolhardy, but all endearing. Painted with the skilful brushstrokes of a great comic artist, the delightful inhabitants of Mariposa represent the people of small towns everywhere. As fresh, funny, and insightful today as when it was first published in 1912, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town is Stephen Leacock at his best – colourful, imaginative, and thoroughly entertaining.
The humour, irony, and wit of Stephen Leacock have never been shown to better advantage than in Literary Lapses, his first collection of comic writings. Within its pages are such classic stories as the man who is seized by fear as he opens a bank account; the awful case of the young man who dies because he cannot tell a lie; the astonishing tale of the baby who ate thirteen Christmas dinners, and many other tales that have become part of the world's comic literature. When Literary Lapses first appeared in 1910, it was an instant critical and popular success. Within a few years of its publication, Leacock was acknowledged as the English-speaking world’s most beloved humourist.
This celebrated collection of sketches sparkles with Stephen Leacock’s humour and shines with the warmth of his wit. The comical E.P., star of the title essay, “My Remarkable Uncle,” is a classic Leacock character. He is president of a railway with a letterhead but no rails, and he heads a bank that boasts credit but no cash whatsoever – all of which trouble E.P. not in the least. My Remarkable Uncle, a wonderful smorgasbord of mirth served up by a master of comedy, includes several essays, a short story, a political parable, and personal reflections on a dizzying array of subjects. Here, in rich abundance, are the inspired nonsense and the unerring eye for human folly that have made Stephen Leacock Canada’s most celebrated humorist.
“Do you know the characteristic wine of Madeira?…I do not know whether Leacock ever drank Madeira himself – he was very much a Scotch-whisky man – but I enjoy Madeira greatly, and I never drink it without thinking of Leacock, who was sometimes dry, sometimes sweet, but who always leaves upon the tongue a hint of brimstone…” In his witty and illuminating introduction, which takes up the first third of the book, Robertson Davies invites us to join him in a Feast of Stephen. Davies’ selection of fifteen pieces from Leacock’s less familiar works presents the humorist as a true, broad, and sympathetic interpreter of Canadian life, as a man who may have lacked self-knowledge and sensitive insight into the feelings of others, but “whose best work was the outpouring of genius.” All shades of Leacock’s writing are represented here, from the “brilliant nonsense which made some critics liken him to Lewis Carroll,” to his occasional attacks of “aggressive Lowbrowism.” Together in all their diversity, Davies’ selections pay tribute to the gifts of exuberance, originality, and slightly malicious truth with which Leacock so entertainingly extends our vision.
Step into the extraordinary world of Utopia as you join the enigmatic journey of a time-traveling voyager. Awakened from a deep slumber, he finds himself in a magnificent Gothic chamber, bathed in ethereal light. In this realm untouched by the passage of centuries, he encounters a venerable figure known as Oom, who welcomes him with regal grace. Together, they explore a realm of wondrous sights and delectable delights, where the boundaries of time and perception blur.
The first book to survey the history of Northern Ireland migration from partition in 1921 to the present, including the personal stories of individuals who emigrated to many destinations abroad, some of whom later returned.
This study introduces the history, themes, and critical responses to Canadian fantastic literature. Taking a chronological approach, this volume covers the main periods of Canadian science fiction and fantasy from the early nineteenth century to the first decades of the twenty-first century. The book examines both the texts and the contexts of Canadian writing in the fantastic, analyzing themes and techniques in novels and short stories, and looking at both national and international contexts of the literature’s history. This introduction will offer a coherent narrative of Canadian fantastic literature through analysis of the major texts and authors in the field and through relating the authors’ work to the world around them.
