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Literary Lapses
Forty wry, whimsical and witty essays
Paperback
First published January 1, 1910
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374 people want to read
About the author
Stephen Leacock
517 books103 followersStephen P. H. Butler Leacock, FRSC, was a Canadian teacher, political scientist, writer, and humorist. Between the years 1915 and 1925, he was the best-known English-speaking humorist in the world. He is known for his light humour along with criticisms of people's follies. The Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour was named in his honour.
Wikipedia article.
Wikipedia article.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 65 reviews
September 21, 2023
Canada’s own Stephen Leacock was a hard - albeit hilarious - nut to crack.
When he broke onto the world literary stage in 1910 with this collection of stories, the reaction was wildly mixed. Ordinary folks LOVED him.
And because of their hardcore support, Leacock soon became the funniest Anglophone writer on the planet - for the last thirty years of his life.
But you know something else?
Rich members of the Establishment LOATHED him.
Why?
Well you see, Leacock was cast in that strangely oddball but distinctly Canadian mold - the Red Tory.
Like John G. Diefenbaker was, half a century later.
Except he was VERY Red.
A radical professional economist, educated at the prestigious University of Chicago - remember the place where left-leaning Saul Bellow hung his hat? - he believed in emulating Robin Hood, and redistributing wealth.
And he even ran as a Tory candidate in Ontario’s Muskoka cottage country on that platform!
So the Establishment labelled him a Bolshevik.
After all, better Dead than Red, right?
Wrong, said Leacock! He just chuckled: hey, you guys are missing the point... there’s NOTHING wrong with money, as long as EVERYBODY has enough!
And used his gift of comedy to prove the point.
Oh, so subtly...
Take the Crown Jewel of this collection, the legendary My Financial Career.
Little Mr. Everyman decides one day that, since he has more than fifty bucks in his wallet (what’d HE do - win the lottery?), he’ll deposit it safely in the town bank.
Well, the bank manager treats him as royalty in his private office - until he learns this poor schmo’s only got a grand total of $56.00 TO HIS NAME!
Well, all heck breaks loose. The poor little guy gets suddenly very, very paranoid...
And merry mayhem breaks out like gangbusters.
The rest you’ll have to read for yourself.
Enough said?
Yeah, Leacock LOVED the little guy.
Fought hard for him all his life.
And who knows if after that story, Leacock could ever show his face in a serious Canadian bank again - without breaking out in a very broad smile?
When he broke onto the world literary stage in 1910 with this collection of stories, the reaction was wildly mixed. Ordinary folks LOVED him.
And because of their hardcore support, Leacock soon became the funniest Anglophone writer on the planet - for the last thirty years of his life.
But you know something else?
Rich members of the Establishment LOATHED him.
Why?
Well you see, Leacock was cast in that strangely oddball but distinctly Canadian mold - the Red Tory.
Like John G. Diefenbaker was, half a century later.
Except he was VERY Red.
A radical professional economist, educated at the prestigious University of Chicago - remember the place where left-leaning Saul Bellow hung his hat? - he believed in emulating Robin Hood, and redistributing wealth.
And he even ran as a Tory candidate in Ontario’s Muskoka cottage country on that platform!
So the Establishment labelled him a Bolshevik.
After all, better Dead than Red, right?
Wrong, said Leacock! He just chuckled: hey, you guys are missing the point... there’s NOTHING wrong with money, as long as EVERYBODY has enough!
And used his gift of comedy to prove the point.
Oh, so subtly...
Take the Crown Jewel of this collection, the legendary My Financial Career.
Little Mr. Everyman decides one day that, since he has more than fifty bucks in his wallet (what’d HE do - win the lottery?), he’ll deposit it safely in the town bank.
Well, the bank manager treats him as royalty in his private office - until he learns this poor schmo’s only got a grand total of $56.00 TO HIS NAME!
Well, all heck breaks loose. The poor little guy gets suddenly very, very paranoid...
And merry mayhem breaks out like gangbusters.
The rest you’ll have to read for yourself.
Enough said?
Yeah, Leacock LOVED the little guy.
Fought hard for him all his life.
And who knows if after that story, Leacock could ever show his face in a serious Canadian bank again - without breaking out in a very broad smile?
August 29, 2017
26 χιουμοριστικά κείμενα γραμμένα στις αρχές του προηγούμενου αιώνα, μόνο μερικά από τα οποία αστεία. Ομολογώ ότι από ένα σημείο και μετά απλώς το ξεφύλλισα, το χιούμορ είναι εντελώς παρωχημένο.
June 2, 2020
An old favourite - but I find that it has dated a bit on rereading. Except for The Magician's Revenge, I didn't find the remaining ones riotously funny. Still, four stars for the book which introduced me to this hilarious writer!
August 8, 2018
Poviedky miestami absurdnejšie ako tie cesty bratislavskou MHD, počas ktorých som ich väčšinou čítala
January 29, 2015
Laugh out loud funny, on a regular basis
The book didn't click for me, until about chapter 4. Not so much because of the Librivox reading, which is good or excellent depending on the reader, but because...well I don't know. It took me a little while to "get" the author.
I mention this only to suggest to you that if you are listening to this and just don't get it, give it a little time. It really is excellent once you click to it.
(His politics regarding the Armenians are abominable, though.)
The book didn't click for me, until about chapter 4. Not so much because of the Librivox reading, which is good or excellent depending on the reader, but because...well I don't know. It took me a little while to "get" the author.
I mention this only to suggest to you that if you are listening to this and just don't get it, give it a little time. It really is excellent once you click to it.
(His politics regarding the Armenians are abominable, though.)
May 22, 2010
This is an all-time classic. Even though it is SO OLD (first published 1910!) it surely gives you a good laugh. And maybe a snip of nostalgia for good ol' times :) In Czech as "Literární poklesky" in a brilliant translation. An ideal gift even for people who do not read really much, as the short stories are really short :)
June 3, 2012
Having started with Leacock's Sunshine Sketches, I struggled through his first offering of short stories. There are glimpses of the delightfully wicked humour and turn of phrases here and there, just not enough.
September 11, 2012
Dry, witty, and charming, this collection of short stories will leave you so amazed you'll be asking yourself, 'just how did he manage to arrange the words so artfully?'
November 5, 2013
I read this mostly because my memory of Sunshine Sketches was a little too vague to legitimately support the idea that the Stephen Leacock prize was awarded to works (like The Best Laid Plans) that were outclassed by Leacock's own work. After reading Literary Lapses I would temper my judgment, but in the specific case alluded to above, Leacock remains superior if at times dated. The benefit of Leacock's work being humorous is that it has a much better shelf life than a given novel from the era – a bit dry perhaps, more sensible chuckles than tears of mirth, but then time always takes its due. Other works awarded the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal could well be funnier, but I don't follow the prize so closely, and past experience leads me to be cautious.
April 30, 2013
Leacock was a humorist genius loved by Groucho Marx and many others for his comic chops, great emotional detail of humor. Using the fictional English royal family, the Oxheads, he detailed the mythic cowardice of Lord Oxhead's family, several members of which are set up to be admired and then we see the description of their valor was more in its absence than presence. First to reach Plymouth in a boat to let the people know that, near as he could tell from a great distance, the Spanish Armada had arrived. Or the one who fought with Wellington, and was fired for it.
June 9, 2024
This collection of sketches and stories is absolutely hilarious. Stephen Leacock is one of the truly great humorists of the 20th Century. At their best these pieces are delightful and ingenious. One of Leacock's many areas of expertise in the art of comedic writing is to exploit the device of misapplied logic. It is difficult to single out any individual pieces from this collection without being unfair to the others. The majority of them work extremely well and perusal of this volume had me laughing aloud frequently.
March 4, 2013
Britský (aspoň původem) humor, jak ho mám rád - suchý, absurdní, ale s přesahem. Autor znal lidi a dobře jim rozuměl.
October 3, 2016
Great. The style reminded me of Three Men in a Boat, and I liked that one as well.
August 26, 2017
If you've never read Leacock you are missing out on some serious entertainment. His writing is smart, imaginative, funny, and altogether quite enjoyable.
May 18, 2021
Amusing sketches, though unfortunately some stories included the casual racism of the time of writing.
September 2, 2023
Πάρα πολύ διασκεδαστικό!!
October 24, 2023
Leacock's fiction and sketches are always entertaining. Having said that, I did not feel that this collection quite lived up classics such as "Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town." Some of his humour remains hilarious a century later, while some of the sketches here have not aged so well ...
September 30, 2025
Tyto více než století staré povídky potvrzují, že lidské slabosti se nemění a dobrý humor jen tak nezestárne. K této knize se určitě zase někdy rád vrátím.
February 2, 2016
It's rare I read anything which causes me embarrassment in public with suppressed snorts of hilarity and fits of the giggles, and I can't remember anyone who's hit that button quite as well as Leacock did with me in this collection of essays, 'short stories', reflections, propositions, satires and... well, just about everything under the sun bar poetry and the odd three-volume epic.
I gather Spike Milligan was influenced by Leacock who then, in turn, influenced the Monty Python team giving us the world as we know it today. Well, not all of it, but many of the bits that matter. I guessed that before I found it to be true. Leacock is so off-the-wall at times he takes the plaster with him. Supposed autobiographical anecdotes are so ridiculous as to be quite unbelievable, and satire has its sharp edges and pointy bits removed through the surrealism of the pastiche. Occasionally, Leacock leads himself so far up the garden path that he has no way of going any further, leaving it with an effective 'That's silly' before veering off into new territory, but when he does so the timing is so perfect I even got a belly-laugh out of that.
There doesn't seem much in the world he doesn't put up for scrutiny, from daily life to maths via art and literature, (not that those are dots easily joined). The pieces are almost invariably very short, a few minutes' reading apiece, and this is probably something to have on a phone or an E-reader for those odd wasted spaces in the day to dip into and out of again, a method I now wish I'd followed instead of swallowing the entire book in a few days' reading cover-to-cover.
This was going to be a five-star review, but lost a star in retrospect given some measure of inconsistency. There were items which didn't hit the mark but, to be fair to Leacock, it would probably prove impossible to write so many vignettes without some going awry. Such is the nature of experimentation. Sometimes the litmus paper just gets damp. For this to have been a five-star work would have been a miracle. For it to get four is incredible enough.
I gather Spike Milligan was influenced by Leacock who then, in turn, influenced the Monty Python team giving us the world as we know it today. Well, not all of it, but many of the bits that matter. I guessed that before I found it to be true. Leacock is so off-the-wall at times he takes the plaster with him. Supposed autobiographical anecdotes are so ridiculous as to be quite unbelievable, and satire has its sharp edges and pointy bits removed through the surrealism of the pastiche. Occasionally, Leacock leads himself so far up the garden path that he has no way of going any further, leaving it with an effective 'That's silly' before veering off into new territory, but when he does so the timing is so perfect I even got a belly-laugh out of that.
There doesn't seem much in the world he doesn't put up for scrutiny, from daily life to maths via art and literature, (not that those are dots easily joined). The pieces are almost invariably very short, a few minutes' reading apiece, and this is probably something to have on a phone or an E-reader for those odd wasted spaces in the day to dip into and out of again, a method I now wish I'd followed instead of swallowing the entire book in a few days' reading cover-to-cover.
This was going to be a five-star review, but lost a star in retrospect given some measure of inconsistency. There were items which didn't hit the mark but, to be fair to Leacock, it would probably prove impossible to write so many vignettes without some going awry. Such is the nature of experimentation. Sometimes the litmus paper just gets damp. For this to have been a five-star work would have been a miracle. For it to get four is incredible enough.
February 15, 2018
About a million short stories in this collection first published in 1910. Comedy sketches I think someone called them, them being short-short and, supposedly, funny. There's only two that I thought were good but both were very good. One is about a very nervous man attempting to open a bank account. ("Can I see the manager?" I said, and added solemnly, "alone." I don't know why I said "alone.") The other is a letter in answer to an invitation for a children's party by a man who doesn't really like children. Winter Pastimes is also cool, a sort of turn of the century Jackass. Stephen Leacock, who apparently was huge in popularity one hundred years ago, as a humorist, writes well outside the genre as well as evidenced in Number Fifty-Six and The Life of John Smith. But that's like five stories and there's a million here, maybe a bit less, and the majority are outdated and not funny. My rating I consider generous.
June 20, 2011
Stephen Leacock isn't that funny. Humourous, yes. But laugh until your tummy hurts? No. You've got to go to Wodehouse for that. Some of these little sketches I found more humourous than others. "My Financial Career" still cracks me up. The guy who's so polite that he can't insist upon leaving when his equally polite hosts press upon him to stay a bit longer. The guy who thinks he's a Shakespeare-ophile, but ends up creating a character out of whole cloth when he doesn't want to admit that he got a cast list wrong. Some of the sketches I wasn't remotely amused by (e.g. the three half-hours with the poets), and others I got the gist but thought they went on longer than the joke needed to be (e.g. the sketch about A, B, and C from the math problems). In other words, kind of a mixed bag.
January 19, 2012
Leacock has probably reached the point where he's well-known because of all the people asking why he's not better known. Don't let this be the first piece of pre-1925 literature that you read, simply because some of the cultural references are just too dated, but as a quick read with more than a few laughs and a couple of really good fables, it's worth putting in the time.
February 25, 2013
My Financial Career and The Awful Fate of Melpomenus Jones are the clear highlights here. Absolutely hilarious. I found a lot of truth, personally, in On Collecting Things too. The rest vary in quality, but I'd definitely recommend checking this out.
May 9, 2015
These little stories are very much of a time gone by. Many of them are still quite funny, though. I particularly liked "Hoodoo McFiggin's Christmas", "Winter Pastimes" and "The Conjuror's Revenge". And how can you not laugh at the ubiquitous "My Financial Career"?
December 19, 2013
103 years ago. That's when this book was first published. Humour doesn't usually age well so it's actually a miracle that there were a couple stories in here that made me laugh.
I like his building better though.
I like his building better though.
November 24, 2014
Asi jsem byla tolik namlsaná povídkou, kterou jsem četla kdysi, že jsem čekala to samé i od ostatních. Občas to byla zábava, jindy ne. V celku průměrné. Rozhodně vyhrála matematická povídka o pánech A, B a C… :-D
January 20, 2018
A series of short humorist works. I did not realize until nearly done that the author was that Stephen Leacock with a building named after him, in which I take computer classes.
My favourite was "Number Fifty-Six".
My favourite was "Number Fifty-Six".
August 8, 2007
Horrendously humorous! 'Melpomenus Jones' ranks among the favourite teaching materials with young and not-so-young alike!!
November 29, 2010
Many of the stories are still hilarious even after ten years and many re-reads. Others not so much.
July 17, 2011
My first book by Stephen Leacock. I love this kind of humor.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 65 reviews