Literary Lapses

Leacock, Stephen, 1869-1944Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

4.0

Word count: 232K words
Chapters: 24

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Literary Lapses by Stephen LeacockAuthor: Leacock, Stephen, 1869-1944,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Jun 1, 2004

Editor's review

Literary Lapses is a collection of Stephen Leacock's early humorous sketches: short, drawn from everyday life, and skilled at pushing ordinary scenes to absurd extremes—an easy read that carries a gentle, knowing mockery of human affairs. Its value lies not in grand narrative but in demonstrating the rhythm and exaggeration of English humorous prose: the author often recounts absurdities in a deadpan tone, and the contrast itself is the joke. For Chinese readers, this book works well as an introduction to English essays; each piece is short, suited to reading in spare moments and to imitating its sentence patterns for writing practice. Note that some jokes depend on the social context and English puns of the early twentieth century, so they may not land at first reading; slow down and pay attention to tone words and turns of phrase. Overall, it is a light-humor collection for casual dipping and repeated savoring rather than a book to be read in one sitting.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Advanced learners seeking to sharpen their language sense through short English essays
Casual readers who enjoy British humor and absurdist sketches
Teachers who need short texts for close reading or writing imitation in class
Literature lovers interested in early twentieth-century English essays

Not a good fit for

Readers of full-length novels expecting complete plots and character arcs
Readers impatient with old-fashioned English puns and social context
Readers who prefer serious themes or strong emotional impact

Reading tips

Read only one or two pieces at a time, then recall which sentence the joke lands on to train your language sense.
Choose passages you like and read them aloud to feel the deadpan way absurdities are told.
Skip allusions you don't understand, and look up the background only after finishing a piece.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Are the jokes in this book accessible to Chinese readers?

Partly. Many of Leacock's jokes come from exaggerated tone and situational contrast, which are easier to grasp; but passages involving English puns and the social customs of the time may need notes or background knowledge before Chinese readers can see the humor.

Is it suitable as material for imitating English writing?

Yes. The pieces are short with clear structure, and the sentences of exaggeration and irony are easy to break down and imitate. Try analyzing the tonal shifts in one piece sentence by sentence, then write a paragraph imitating it about an everyday scene, practicing how to describe absurdities in a serious tone.

Do I need to read it in order from start to finish?

No. The pieces are relatively independent and can be read in any order according to interest. To appreciate the layers of the author's style, start with a few shorter pieces, then move on to longer, more structurally complex ones.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Leacock, Stephen, 1869-1944 Author

Stephen Leacock (1869–1944) was a Canadian humorist, with sixteen of his works held in this collection. He is known for gentle yet sharp satire, using exaggeration and absurdity to depict small-town life and human foibles. His representative work, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, portrays everyday life through a fictional town and is regarded as a classic of Canadian humorous literature. Early works such as Literary Lapses and Moonbeams from the Larger Lunacy poke fun at social customs and popular ideas, showing his keen eye for everyday absurdity. He also wrote on social questions, including The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice, and documentary-style works such as Adventurers of the Far North: A Chronicle of the Frozen Seas, reflecting a broad range of subjects. Overall, his writing is light and witty without losing insight, and has had some influence on later humorous literature. As public information is limited, biographical details are not elaborated here.