SOURCE: “Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town,” in The Spectator, Vol. 109, No. 4391, August 24, 1912, pp. 277-78.

In the following review of Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, the critic calls the work an “exhilarating volume” that breaks new ground as Leacock moves away from “irresponsible fantasies and burlesques” to works that show a fresh and familiar look at humanity.

Mr. Stephen Leacock, in a delightful autobiographical preface to his new volume, tells us that many of his friends are under the erroneous impression that he writes his humorous nothings in idle moments when the wearied brain is unable to perform the serious labours of the economist. (Mr. Leacock is head of the Department of Economics and Political Science at McGill University, Montreal.) His own experience is exactly the other way. “The writing of solid, instructive stuff, fortified by facts and figures, is easy enough. There is no trouble in...