Sunshine Sketches Of A Little Town Classic Reprint

Excerpt from Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town Many of my friends are under the impression that 'i write these humorous nothings in idle moments when the wearied brain is unable to perform the serious labours of the economist. My own experience is exactly the other way. The writing of solid, in structive stuff fortified by facts and figures is easy enough. There is no trouble in writing a scientific treatise on the folk-lore of Central China, or a statistical enquiry into the declining population of Prince Edward Island. But to write something out of one's own mind, worth reading for its own sake, is an arduous contrivance only to be achieved in fortunate moments, few and far between. Personally I would sooner have written Alice in Wonderland than the whole Encyclopaedia Britannica. In regard to the present work I must disclaim at once all intention of trying to do anything so ridiculously easy as writing about a real place and real people. Mariposa is not a real town. On the contrary, it is about seventy or eighty of them. You may find them all the way from Lake Superior to the sea, with the same square streets and the same maple trees and the same churches and hotels, and everywhere the sunshine of the land of hope. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town is a sequence of stories by Stephen Leacock, first published in 1912. It is generally considered to be one of the most enduring classics of Canadian humorous literature.

Affectionately combining both the idyllic and ironic, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town is Stephen Leacock’s most beloved book. Set in fictional Mariposa, an Ontario town on the shore of Lake Wissanotti, these sketches present a remarkable range of characters: some irritating, some exasperating, some foolhardy, but all endearing. Painted with the skilful brushstrokes of a great comic artist, the delightful inhabitants of Mariposa represent the people of small towns everywhere. As fresh, funny, and insightful today as when it was first published in 1912, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town is Stephen Leacock at his best – colourful, imaginative, and thoroughly entertaining.

Canada's answer to Mark Twain and Charles Dickens, Stephen Leacock was a master of humor and characterization. His endearing portrayals of small-town life in Ontario and his memorable characters place him in the company of Canada's finest writers. This Norton Critical Edition of "Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town" uses the text of the 1912 first edition, second impression, the only edition that takes into account the corrections made between impressions. It is accompanied by explanatory annotations and textual emendations. "Backgrounds and Contexts" includes a concise excerpt on "Sunshine Sketches" from the leading Leacock biography, as well as a selection of contemporary reviews from Canada, Britain, and the United States. "Criticism" is comprised of two sections. The first presents eight scholarly interpretations, by Desmond Pacey, Silver Donald Cameron, W. H. Magee, Ina Ferris, Beverly J. Rasporich, Frank Birbalsingh, Gerald Lynch, and Glenn Willmont, selected for their contribution to critical discussion of the novel. The second brings together responses to the novel by esteemed Canadian novelists Robertson Davies, Guy Vanderhaeghe, and Mordecai Richler. A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included. About the Series: No other series of classic texts equals the caliber of the Norton Critical Editions. Each volume combines the most authoritative text available with the comprehensive pedagogical apparatus necessary to appreciate the work fully. Careful editing, first-rate translation, and thorough explanatory annotations allow each text to meet the highest literary standards while remaining accessible to students. Each edition is printed on acid-free paperand every text in the series remains in print. Norton Critical Editions are the choice for excellence in scholarship for students at more than 2,000 universities worldwide.

Canada's answer to Mark Twain and Charles Dickens, Stephen Leacock was a master of humor and characterization. His endearing portrayals of small-town life in Ontario and his memorable characters place him in the company of Canada's finest writers. This Norton Critical Edition of Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town uses the text of the 1912 first edition, second impression, the only edition that takes into account the corrections made between impressions. It is accompanied by explanatory annotations and textual emendations. Backgrounds and Contexts includes a concise excerpt on Sunshine Sketches from the leading Leacock biography, as well as a selection of contemporary reviews from Canada, Britain, and the United States. Criticism is comprised of two sections. The first presents eight scholarly interpretations, by Desmond Pacey, Silver Donald Cameron, W. H. Magee, Ina Ferris, Beverly J. Rasporich, Frank Birbalsingh, Gerald Lynch, and Glenn Willmont, selected for their contribution to critical discussion of the novel. The second brings together responses to the novel by esteemed Canadian novelists Robertson Davies, Guy Vanderhaeghe, and Mordecai Richler. A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included. About the Series: No other series of classic texts equals the caliber of the Norton Critical Editions. Each volume combines the most authoritative text available with the comprehensive pedagogical apparatus necessary to appreciate the work fully. Careful editing, first-rate translation, and thorough explanatory annotations allow each text to meet the highest literary standards while remaining accessible to students. Each edition is printed on acid-free paperand every text in the series remains in print. Norton Critical Editions are the choice for excellence in scholarship for students at more than 2,000 universities worldwide.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town" by Stephen Leacock. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

In April 1912, the ‘unsinkable’ ocean liner, the Titanic, was lost on her maiden voyage, a happenstance which-while in no way funny-for the student of history offers a certain irony. While many publishers will no doubt see fit to cash in on the centenary of this historic tragedy, Gaspereau Press has the anniversary of another shipwreck, and its ballast of irony, in mind: the sinking of the Mariposa Belle-that intrepid pleasure steamer which has plied the waters of the Canadian literary imagination since it was first described (and sunk) in Stephen Leacock’s short-story sequence Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town in 1912. This may well be the funniest book ever written by a Canadian-at least intentionally. Leacock himself claimed that “the works are of so humorous a character that for many years it was found impossible to print them. The compositors fell back from their task suffocating with laughter and gasping for air.” Impressively, the stories remain laugh-out-loud funny even today-especially for refuges from or residents of small-town Canada, where the echoes of Mariposa’s belle-ish époque are still audible, and delight in its playful subversion still taken. As the popularity of Corner Gas and Little Mosque on the Prairie (television sitcoms which are clearly descendants of Leacock’s Sketches) attest, the tangled web of small town interrelations is a rich, rewarding and enduring terrain for the humourist. Why, you ask, would Gaspereau republish this classic volume of Canadian humour when both inexpensive and tarted-up editions abound, and the text itself is readily available on the internet? The answer is simple: For pleasure! We want to honour the hundredth birthday of Leacock’s classic by creating a straightforward, affordable and extremely well-made sewn paperback edition that pays homage to the original format and typography of John Lane’s The Bodley Head edition of 1912. Our edition will be typeset in Canada Type’s Ronaldson, a revival of Alexander Kay’s Ronaldson Old Style, originally designed for the MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan foundry of Philadelphia in 1884.