McGill Library
McLennan Library Building3459 rue McTavish
Montreal, Quebec
H3A 0C9
Title and statement of responsibility area
Title proper
Stephen Butler Leacock Fonds
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Level of description
Fonds
Repository
Reference code
CA MUA MG2075
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Issuing jurisdiction and denomination (philatelic)
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Physical description area
Physical description
3 cm of textual records and photographs
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Archival description area
Name of creator
(1869-1944)
Biographical history
Stephen Leacock, humourist and professor of economics at McGill, was born in England, but emigrated in 1876 to Ontario. After graduating B.A. from University of Toronto in 1891, he taught at his old school, Upper Canada College, until 1899. At the University of Chicago, he pursued doctoral studies in economics and political science, and received his Ph.D. in 1903. Leacock taught economics at McGill from 1901 until his retirement in 1936, serving as department chairman from 1908 onwards. Leacock's scholarly writings on economics, political science, sociology, history and literature total more than a hundred articles and two dozen books. Moreover, he was a talented and popular lecturer. His fame, however, is based on his humorous writings; of his more than thirty books, the most famous are Literary Lapses (1910), Nonsense Novels (1911), Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich (1914), and especially Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (1912).
Custodial history
Transferred to Rare Books and Special Collections.
Scope and content
These Leacock papers are almost entirely concerned with the literary side of his career. The literary manuscripts include his copies of "Teaching the Unteachable" (n.d.) and "The Truth about the College Girl" (1927, with covering letter), as well as a single page of an undated murder mystery. His speaking engagements are briefly recorded in a pocket diary for 1925; a single letter from 1933 declines an invitation to address a club. Pictorial materials portray Leacock in a more academic setting: a snapshot of a Commercial Society luncheon (1931), a photograph of F.M.G. Johnson's sketch, now in McGill's Faculty Club (1932), and a pencil portrait by Kathleen Thatcher.
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Originals, Photographs