Paul Gerhardt Hiebert is considered one of Canada's outstanding humorists largely on the strength of one masterful book, Sarah Binks (1947). His mock-biography of "the Sweet Songstress of Saskatchewan" stands as a touchstone in Canadian letters for other exercises in the genre, a model of literary burlesque that reflects the essential generosity, geniality, and wry self-examination of the national humor.

Hiebert was born in Pilot Mound, Manitoba, of Russian Mennonite-cum-Methodist immigrants, John and Maria Penner Hiebert. He grew up in small prairie towns with such varied employment as farm worker, cub reporter, and teacher. He received a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Manitoba (1916) and an M.A. in Gothic and Teutonic philology from the University of Toronto (1917). He graduated with an M.Sc. in physics and chemistry from McGill University in 1921, where he also earned a Ph.D. in Chemistry (1924), winning a Governor General's Medal for...