On the Front Line of Life: Stephen Leacock: Memories and Reflections, 1935–1944

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.

Anyone who knows anything about Leacock knows that, in addition to the
comic essays and sketches that he wrote for money and fame, he also
published books on solemn subjects like economics and politics. Some,
reading a little more carefully, note that humorous and serious essays
alternated in many of his volumes, and that the two aspects of his
personality are closer than might at first be thought. But Alan Bowker
has ventured even further. He suggests—convincingly, I think—that,
in the last 10 years of his life, Leacock evolved a new kind of essay,
unique to him, that stimulated his readers by leading them from laughter
to thought, and pricked the pretensions of the pompous by subjecting
their arguments to a dose of humorous and deflating common sense.

Most of the 24 essays included here are reprinted from later
collections that are now rarely read (how many of us are even aware of
Model Memoirs or the execrably titled Funny Pieces?). They reveal a
Leacock appalled by the drift of the world toward war but also an old
man resigned to human folly and intent on reiterating truths that were
being forgotten. Moreover, a few hitherto uncollected writings,
including “What Is Left of Adam Smith?” (in which he excoriates his
fellow economists), “Canada and the Monarchy,” and his retirement
speech from McGill to selected ex-students, are otherwise virtually
inaccessible.

Despite occasional sillinesses, prophetic statements that have not worn
well, and a few unfortunate prejudices, what we find here is an
endearing Leacock determined to speak out as he nears death, a Leacock
who is more than a genial but lightweight comic professor, the mask he
wore so determinedly in his earlier years. This is a Leacock worth
reviving. Above all, Alan Bowker has provided a lengthy introduction
that is accurate, shrewd, well-balanced, and clearly written; it offers
a far more complex portrait of a tricky writer than most of his previous
biographers have produced. A book to be welcomed by scholar and general
reader alike.