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Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich
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Product Description
Arguably Stephen LEACOCK's funniest book (1914), Arcadian Adventures is certainly one of his best and most popular works. It was published two years after SUNSHINE SKETCHES OF A LITTLE TOWN (1912), and numerous parallels between the two books in overall structure and detail make it a companion piece. The short story cycle portrays the full flowering in a large, unnamed American city (actually based on Montréal) of the seeds of corrupt materialism and individualism already detected in smalltown Mariposa. The plutocrats who inhabit Plutoria Avenue pursue money and power, and unrestricted capitalism corrupts the city's social, religious, educational, and political institutions. Arcadian Adventures exposes to laughter and ridicule the human greed, hypocrisy and pride behind such things as stock-market scams, the rage for mystical experience, the back-to-nature vogue, financially expedient ecumenism and muck-raking politics.
Unlike Sunshine Sketches, Arcadian Adventures shows sympathy not for those it satirizes but only for their hapless victims. In its bitter satire of the "conspicuous consumption" and leisure of the "idle rich," it shows the influence of The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) by Thorstein Veblen, Leacock's teacher at the University of Chicago. As the book proceeds it becomes progressively darker; in its final chapter, "The Great Fight for Clean Government," the triumph of plutocratic totalitarianism grimly foreshadows the violence and tyranny of the 1920s and 1930s. (Quote from thecanadianencyclopedia.com)
About the Author
Stephen Butler Leacock, Ph.D , FRSC (30 December 1869 - 28 March 1944) was a Canadian writer and economist.
Born in Swanmore, Hampshire, England, at age six Leacock and his family moved to Canada, settling on a farm in Egy
Unlike Sunshine Sketches, Arcadian Adventures shows sympathy not for those it satirizes but only for their hapless victims. In its bitter satire of the "conspicuous consumption" and leisure of the "idle rich," it shows the influence of The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) by Thorstein Veblen, Leacock's teacher at the University of Chicago. As the book proceeds it becomes progressively darker; in its final chapter, "The Great Fight for Clean Government," the triumph of plutocratic totalitarianism grimly foreshadows the violence and tyranny of the 1920s and 1930s. (Quote from thecanadianencyclopedia.com)
About the Author
Stephen Butler Leacock, Ph.D , FRSC (30 December 1869 - 28 March 1944) was a Canadian writer and economist.
Born in Swanmore, Hampshire, England, at age six Leacock and his family moved to Canada, settling on a farm in Egy
About the Author
Stephen Leacock was born in Swanmore, Hampshire, England, in 1869. His family emigrated to Canada in 1876 and settled on a farm north of Toronto. Educated at Upper Canada College and the University of Toronto, Leacock pursued graduate studies in economics at the University of Chicago, where he studied under Thorstein Veblen.
Even before he completed his doctorate, Leacock accepted a position as sessional lecturer in political science and economics at McGill University. When he received his Ph.D. in 1903, he was appointed to the position of lecturer. From 1908 until his retirement in 1936, he chaired the Department of Political Science and Economics.
Leacock’s most profitable book was his textbook, Elements of Political Science, which was translated into seventeen languages. The author of nineteen books and countless articles on economics, history, and political science, Leacock turned to the writing of humour as his beloved avocation. His first collection of comic stories, Literary Lapses, appeared in 1910, and from that time until his death he published a volume of humour almost every year.
Leacock also wrote popular biographies of his two favourite writers, Mark Twain and Charles Dickens. At the time of his death, he left four completed chapters of what was to have been his autobiography. These were published posthumously under the title The Boy I Left Behind Me.
Stephen Leacock died in Toronto, Ontario, in 1944.
From the Paperback edition. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Even before he completed his doctorate, Leacock accepted a position as sessional lecturer in political science and economics at McGill University. When he received his Ph.D. in 1903, he was appointed to the position of lecturer. From 1908 until his retirement in 1936, he chaired the Department of Political Science and Economics.
Leacock’s most profitable book was his textbook, Elements of Political Science, which was translated into seventeen languages. The author of nineteen books and countless articles on economics, history, and political science, Leacock turned to the writing of humour as his beloved avocation. His first collection of comic stories, Literary Lapses, appeared in 1910, and from that time until his death he published a volume of humour almost every year.
Leacock also wrote popular biographies of his two favourite writers, Mark Twain and Charles Dickens. At the time of his death, he left four completed chapters of what was to have been his autobiography. These were published posthumously under the title The Boy I Left Behind Me.
Stephen Leacock died in Toronto, Ontario, in 1944.
From the Paperback edition. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
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Inside This Book
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Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs):
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higher indifference, clean government Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Idle Rich, Arcadian Adventures, Forgotten Books, Plutoria Avenue, Mausoleum Club, Lucullus Fyshe, Plutoria University, Ram Spudd, New York, Grand Palaver, Castel Casteggio, Dick Overend, Wizard of Finance, Miss Snagg, Fareforth Furlong, Cahoga County, President Boomer, Peter Spillikins, United States, Erie Auriferous Consolidated, Duke of Dulham, Tomlinson's Creek, Captain Cormorant, Lake Erie, Sunday School Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
higher indifference, clean government Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Idle Rich, Arcadian Adventures, Forgotten Books, Plutoria Avenue, Mausoleum Club, Lucullus Fyshe, Plutoria University, Ram Spudd, New York, Grand Palaver, Castel Casteggio, Dick Overend, Wizard of Finance, Miss Snagg, Fareforth Furlong, Cahoga County, President Boomer, Peter Spillikins, United States, Erie Auriferous Consolidated, Duke of Dulham, Tomlinson's Creek, Captain Cormorant, Lake Erie, Sunday School Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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77% buy the item featured on this page: Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich (Forgotten Books) $8.24 |
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12% buy Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (Broadview Literary Texts) $12.71 |
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8% buy My Financial Career and Other Follies (New Canadian Library Series) $5.95 |
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3% buy Nonsense Novels $24.99 |
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