Inspiration to Live Your Magic: 75 Inspiring Biographies

Stephen Leacock
Though he was a political scientist and economist, Stephen Leacock is 
not known for his writing on those subjects; rather, he is famous for 
his sense of humor and his witty stories that continue to inspire writers 
and comedians today.
A good sense of humor can get you through just about anything; if he were still with us, 
Stephen Leacock would be the first to agree.
A hundred years ago, Leacock was probably the best-known humor writer and most 
famous Canadian in the world. His stories and books, such as Sunshine Sketches of a 
Little Town, had brought him fame and fortune. And soon-to-be-legendary comedians 
like Jack Benny and Groucho Marx were inspired by his writing.
But, as funny as he was, Leacock hadn’t always had much to laugh about.
His family moved to the little town of Egypt, Ontario from England, where they had been 
quite wealthy. However, their Canadian farm failed and his father became an alcoholic 
who beat his wife and children. It was up to Stephen to stand up to his own father and 
kick him out of the house.
A top student, Stephen had to put himself through university by taking teaching jobs, 
which he hated. He started trying to sell his stories to magazines as a way of making extra 
money for school - his real interests were economics and politics.
Leacock eventually became head of the political economy department at McGill 
University in Montreal. By that time, his stories had taken off and his fame had begun to 
spread worldwide.

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Even then, Leacock had a hard time. He had married a wealthy young woman and they 
tried for fifteen years to have a child. Then their only son was born with a birth defect, 
and Leacock’s wife died of cancer just ten years later.
Through all of his personal problems, and despite the frustration of having his political 
science and economic work ignored compared to his funny stories, Stephen Leacock kept 
his remarkable sense of humor.
That humor not only got him through some dark times, it also assured him a place in 
history. Every year, the Stephen Leacock Award is given to the funniest writer in Canada, 
and Leacock’s books are still found in classrooms and libraries across the country - not 
his dry works on politics and economy, but the collections of witty tales and parodies that 
preserve his reputation as a man who made the world laugh.
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