Hello, my name is Finn, and I'm going to help you understand this book.
Here it is, explained like you are 10:
This book makes fun of other books, in the nicest way. A parody is a copy of something that is changed to make people laugh. Stephen Leacock wrote ten short stories that copy the popular kinds of stories from his time: detective stories, ghost stories, sea stories and love stories. Each one starts out sounding very serious, then slowly goes completely silly. It is like watching a friend act out a play and keep tripping over the furniture on purpose.
Each of the ten stories takes a popular kind of fiction and runs it off the rails. There is a detective story called Maddened by Mystery, a ghost story, a sea story, a society romance and a historical adventure, among others. Every hero is absurdly heroic, every villain absurdly wicked, and every plot twists far past the point where sense gives up. Nothing in them is safe from his cheerful logic.
The book is built as a set of perfect imitations. Leacock copies each genre's voice, habits and stock scenes exactly, lets the machinery run seriously for a page or two, then quietly removes one bolt at a time until the whole thing collapses into nonsense.
It works because the parody is affectionate. Leacock clearly loved these stories himself, so the jokes feel like teasing among friends rather than an attack. Readers who know the originals laugh at the recognition, and readers who do not still laugh at the escalating silliness, delivered in the driest possible voice.
Stephen Leacock, the Canadian economist who wrote like a born humorist, aims this little book at the popular fiction of 1911 and hits every target. Its ten stories parody the detective tale, the ghost story, the sea story, the society romance and the historical adventure, each taking its genre's machinery perfectly seriously for a page or two, then letting it run cheerfully off the rails, all in Leacock's deadpan, buttoned up voice.
Stephen Leacock, the Canadian economist who wrote like a born humorist, aims this little book at the popular fiction of 1911 and hits every target. Its ten stories parody the genres readers of the day devoured: the detective tale in Maddened by Mystery, the ghost story, the sea story, the romance of high society, the historical adventure. Each one takes its genre's machinery perfectly seriously for a page or two, then lets it run cheerfully off the rails into absurdity, all in Leacock's deadpan, buttoned up voice. The parodies are affectionate rather than cruel, which is why they still work: you can feel he loved the books he is teasing.
Nonsense Novels made Leacock's international reputation, and Starvard carries it as the quickest route into one of the great comic writers in English, alongside his other book on this shelf. It also works as a guided tour of the storytelling habits of its age, shown up by imitation. Readers who enjoy parody, short fiction and dry wit will finish it quickly and remember it for years, and laugh out loud.
Edition: Text: Project Gutenberg ebook 4682.
The first chapter
PREFACE
I. Maddened by Mystery: or, The Defective Detective
II. “Q.” A Psychic Pstory of the Psupernatural
III. Guido the Gimlet of Ghent: A Romance of Chivalry
IV. Gertrude the Governess: or, Simple Seventeen
V. A Hero in Homespun: or, The Life Struggle of Hezekiah Hayloft
VI. Sorrows of a Super Soul: or, The Memoirs of Marie Mushenough
VII. Hannah of the Highlands: or, The Laird of Loch Aucherlocherty
VIII. Soaked in Seaweed: or, Upset in the Ocean (An Old-fashioned Sea Story.)
IX. Caroline's Christmas: or, The Inexplicable Infant
X. he Man in Asbestos: An Allegory of the Future
Source: Project Gutenberg. Published 1911. Author died 1944. Public domain. Share this book: WhatsApp
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