Montreal
Stephen Leacock taught economics at McGill for most of his career and wrote comic books in the summers. Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town is set in a fictional Ontario town, but its tone, dry and affectionate at once, belongs to the Montreal academic world he came from.
McGill's library holds Canadian literary and historical collections, including Leacock's papers. Montreal was the centre of English-language publishing in Canada for much of the nineteenth century, and the city's archives record a print culture that was closely tied to Boston and London.
A library to check
- McGill University Library — catalogues and digital collections, open to readers online
Books connected to Montreal
- Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town — Stephen Leacock, 1912. Gentle, perfectly timed comedy about a town that thinks it is the centre of the world.
- Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich — Stephen Leacock, 1914. Leacock with his claws out, satirising the people who fund culture without reading it.
A note on accuracy
We describe literary connections and public collections, not street addresses, opening hours or ticket prices. Those change and we cannot verify them for every reader. Follow the institution's own site for current visiting information.