Legacy of Laughter: A Treasury of Newfoundland Wit and Humour.

R. Gordon Moyles is professor emeritus of English at the University of
Alberta, co-author of Imperial Dreams and Colonial Realities: British
Views of Canada, 1880–1914, and author of The Salvation Army and the
Public.

Lest you groan and say, “oh no! not another book of Newfie jokes,” I hasten to assure you that the examples of wit and humour in this volume are, so the compiler tells us, an essential feature of Newfoundland folk culture—the amusing sayings, clever verbal comebacks, sly politicisms, and memorable come-uppances of the well-known “characters” of St. John’s and beyond.

So, along with the many stories by and about Mickey Quinn, we learn something of just who Mickey Quinn was, and why his name is memorialized in the lounge of the Delta Hotel on the corner of New Gower Street and Barter’s Hill. So we laugh and learn, and a little bit of both does one awful good.