Reading.
Get started

Library / Literature & Fiction

Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town

by Stephen Leacock

Pages
about 219
Category
Literature & Fiction
Language
English
Reading time
4 h at 250 wpm
Start readingThe whole book, as cards or one word at a time. 2.2 h at 450 wpm in Read mode.

From the opening

I The Hostelry of Mr. Smith II The Speculations of Jefferson Thorpe III The Marine Excursion of the Knights of Pythias IV The Ministrations of the Rev. Mr. Drone V The Whirlwind Campaign in Mariposa VI The Beacon on the Hill VII The Extraordinary Entanglement of Mr. Pupkin VIII The Fore-ordained Attachment of Zena Pepperleigh and Peter Pupkin IX The Mariposa Bank Mystery X The Great Election in Missinaba County XI The Candidacy of Mr. Smith XII L'Envoi. The Train to Mariposa

I know no way in which a writer may more fittingly introduce his work to the public than by giving a brief account of who and what he is. By this means some of the blame for what he has done is very properly shifted to the extenuating circumstances of his life.

I was born at Swanmoor, Hants, England, on December 30, 1869. I am not aware that there was any particular conjunction of the planets at the time, but should think it extremely likely. My parents migrated to Canada in 1876, and I decided to go with them. My father took up a farm near Lake Simcoe, in Ontario. This was during the hard times of Canadian farming, and my father was just able by great diligence to pay the hired men and, in years of plenty, to raise enough grain to have seed for the next year's crop without buying any. By this process my brothers and I were inevitably driven off the land, and have become professors, business men, and engineers, instead of being able to grow up as farm labourers. Yet I saw enough of farming to speak exuberantly in political addresses of the joy of early rising and the deep sleep, both of body and intellect, that is induced by honest manual toil.

A short sample. Read the whole book

More to read

Public-domain text from Project Gutenberg, Standard Ebooks or a similar open source. Copyright differs between countries. Rights holder? See our takedown process.