The Penguin Book of Stephen Leacock: 25th Anniversary Edition

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.

This extensive anthology of Leacock’s writings first appeared in 1981,
and is reprinted here on the occasion of its 25th anniversary. More
recent anthologies have tended to intersperse his humorous and serious
pieces, and there is much to be said for that principle. Yet, while much
of his serious writing about contemporary issues has faded, a surprising
amount of his humour is as fresh as it ever was. And this selection by
Robertson Davies, whose own humour was often highly Leacockian, could
hardly be bettered.

Moreover, Davies wrote a brief but excellent introduction especially
for this selection that is a model of its kind: informative, accurate,
wise, witty, clearly written, and admirably fitted for general reader,
student, and scholar alike. These qualities, as Leacock knew well, were
rare in learned circles in his time—and are even rarer in our own.

Despite the tumultuous changes of taste in the last quarter of a
century, Leacock has kept his place as a much-loved Canadian classic.
This gathering represents him at his best.