Afternoons in Utopia: Tales of the New Time

[nice tight copy with minor shelfwear and a touch of dust-soiling to the top edge; the jacket is somewhat faded along the spine, with some edgewear and very shallow paper loss along the top edge, and a tiny scrape-mark near the middle of the front panel]. "These Tales of the New Time are not only laughable to the verge of tears, but at the same time philosophical to the verge of perplexity. They are equally absurd and equally sound economics." Although he also had a significant life as a teacher and political economist, Leacock (1869-1944) is best remembered (to the extent that he's remembered at all) as a humorist; this particular book, per the jacket blurb, reveals "both [his] personalities at once." Although it's been claimed that he was at one time (a few years prior to the appearance of this book) "the best-known English-language humorist in the world" (per Wikipedia) -- "our modern Lewis Carroll," the rear-jacket blurb calls him -- he seems to be little-read or -regarded today -- except perhaps in Canada, where since 1947 an annual award, the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour, has been presented for the best book of humor written in English by a Canadian writer. In this volume, Leacock skewers such topics as communism, the medical establishment, and gender equality -- but maybe the most interesting (and prescient) section of the book is entitled "Grandfather Goes to War," in which he prophesizes "the ghastly slaughter of the War of Desolation in 1950" and beyond that, "the fascinating but quite harmless war in Utopia, all done by clockwork and wireless."

Product Info

Publisher: Dodd, Mead & Company

Year: 1932

Type: Used

Binding: Hardcover

First Edition

Seller Info

ReadInk

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Country: United States