Leacock: A Biography

Don Precosky teaches English at the College of New Caledonia and is the
co-editor of Four Realities: Poets of Northern B.C.

Stephen Leacock must be Canada’s most written-about author. Five book-length studies of him are listed in the bibliography of this biography. To justify its existence, a new book on such a much-covered subject should offer either a first-rate synthesis of already known, but scattered, material or significant new information about its subject. This biography does neither. It is a competent but pedestrian rehashing of old material. Leacock does not come alive. The reader does not come away with a feeling of having looked into the man and gained a better understanding of him. If you have never read a biography of Leacock you might want to try this one. If you have already read one of the existing ones, you won’t miss anything by passing this one up.