Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town

W.J. Keith is a retired professor of English at the University of Toronto and author A Sense of Style: Studies in the Art of Fiction in English-Speaking Canada.

Stephen Leacock’s book is now generally regarded as a Canadian
classic, and it is therefore appropriate that Leacock’s bibliographer
should now offer the first full-scale edition complete with variant
readings from manuscript and serialization, notes on obscure references,
and much else besides. As is now well known but hitherto difficult to
document, Mariposa is based on Orillia in central Ontario, and Leacock
originally gave names to his characters that were closer to those of
some of Orillia’s citizens. The evidence for this is all here. In
addition, Carl Spadoni effectively scotches the myth that the little
town objected to Leacock’s gentle (and in some cases not so gentle)
caricatures. On the contrary, as a review in the Orillia Packet
observes, “Orillians are rather proud to think that Orillia is the
‘little town.’”

The editorial aspects of the text, then, are admirable, but the
literary-critical parts of the introduction are another matter. At one
point, Spadoni astonished me by claiming that I had once “compared
favourably” Sunshine Sketches to George Eliot’s Middlemarch!
Fortunately, he quotes the passage in question, which says nothing of
the sort. Such a statement, if proven, could ruin anyone’s reputation;
I confine myself to asserting (charitably, under the circumstances) that
Spadoni’s comprehension of straightforward prose seems uncertain.

In addition, there is a solemn section on “The Social and Political
Context,” illustrated by Leacock quotations apparently not recognized
as funny, that is—to say the least—disturbing. Humor is, to be sure,
a notoriously tricky subject for any commentator; Leacock’s
puckishness is continually sabotaging humorless critics.

One further qualification: the decision to include Leacock’s hitherto
unpublished dramatization could be questioned. It is certainly a
novelty, but it throws little light on the original book, and its 72
pages must add considerably to the cost of the edition.

Nonetheless, the strictly scholarly aspects of the editorial material
are more than welcome, and deserve the highest praise.