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    Winsome Winnie and Other New Nonsense Novels
    Winsome Winnie and Other New Nonsense Novels
    Winsome Winnie and Other New Nonsense Novels
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    Winsome Winnie and Other New Nonsense Novels

    By Stephen Leacock

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    This volume contains Stephen Leacock's collection of short stories, "Winsome Winnie And Other New Nonsense Novels" (first published in 1920). These wonderful and comical tales will appeal to fans of Leacock's work, and would make for worthy additions to any literary collection. The stories of this compendium include: "Thrown on the World", "A Re-encounter", "Friends in Distress", "A Gambling Party in St. James's Close", "The Abduction", "The Unknown", "The Proposal", "Wedded at Last", "John and I; Or, How I Nearly Lost my Husband", and more. Stephen P. H. Butler Leacock (1869 - 1944) was a Canadian writer, humourist, and teacher. He was amongst the most widely read English-speaking authors in the world during the early-twentieth century, and is best remembered for his humourous novels. Many vintage texts such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive, and it is with this in mind that we are republishing this book now, in an affordable, high-quality, modern edition. It comes complete with a specially commissioned biography of the author.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRead Books Ltd.
    Release dateJun 8, 2015
    ISBN9781473375680
    Author

    Stephen Leacock

    Award-winning Canadian humorist and writer Stephen Leacock (1869-1944) was the author of more than 50 literary works, and between 1915 and 1925 was the most popular humorist in the English-speaking world. Leacock’s fictional works include classics like Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich, and Literary Lapses. In addition to his humor writings, Leacock was an accomplished political theorist, publishing such works as Elements of Political Science and My Discovery of the West: A Discussion of East and West in Canada, for which he won the Governor General's Award for writing in 1937. Leacock’s life continues to be commemorated through the awarding of the Leacock Medal for Humour and with an annual literary festival in his hometown of Orillia, Ontario.

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      Book preview

      Winsome Winnie and Other New Nonsense Novels - Stephen Leacock

      WINSOME WINNIE

      AND OTHER NEW NONSENSE NOVELS

      BY

      STEPHEN LEACOCK

      Copyright © 2013 Read Books Ltd.

      This book is copyright and may not be

      reproduced or copied in any way without

      the express permission of the publisher in writing

      British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      Contents

      Stephen Leacock

      I. WINSOME WINNIE OR, TRIAL AND TEMPTATION

      CHAPTER I

      CHAPTER II

      CHAPTER III

      CHAPTER IV

      CHAPTER V

      CHAPTER VI

      CHAPTER VII

      CHAPTER VIII

      II. JOHN AND I

      OR, HOW I NEARLY LOST MY HUSBAND

      III. THE SPLIT IN THE CABINET OR, THE FATE OF ENGLAND

      CHAPTER I

      CHAPTER II

      CHAPTER III

      CHAPTER IV

      CHAPTER V

      CHAPTER VI

      IV. WHO DO YOU THINK DID IT? OR, THE MIXED-UP MURDER MYSTERY

      CHAPTER I

      CHAPTER II

      CHAPTER III

      CHAPTER IV

      CHAPTER V.

      CHAPTER VI

      CHAPTER VII

      CHAPTER VIII

      CHAPTER IX

      CHAPTER X

      V. BROKEN BARRIERS

      VI. THE KIDNAPPED PLUMBER

      VII. THE BLUE AND THE GREY

      CHAPTER I

      CHAPTER II

      CHAPTER III

      CHAPTER IV

      CHAPTER V

      VIII. BUGGAM GRANGE

      Stephen Leacock

      Stephen Butler Leacock was born at Swanmore, Hampshire, England in 1869. His family emigrated to Canada in 1876 and settled on a farm near the village of Sutton, Ontario. Leacock enrolled at the University of Toronto in 1887, studying modern and classical languages and literature and graduating in 1891with a Bachelor of Arts degree.

      During the 1890s, Leacock had some success as a humorist, publishing articles in magazines such as Truth, Life, and Toronto’s Grip magazine. In 1899, he enrolled in graduate studies at the University of Chicago, and during his third year accepted the position of special lecturer in political science and history with McGill University in Montreal, Quebec.

      In 1903, Leacock completed his dissertation The Doctrine of Laissez-faire and received his Ph.D. magna cum laude. He became a full-time assistant professor with McGill and began public lecturing, primarily about the British Empire. His first book, Elements of Political Science (1906) was a landmark work which became a standard university textbook for the next two decades. Leacock was appointed full-time professor at McGill in 1908.

      Leacock published Literary Lapses – a compendium of his previously published writings – in 1910. It sold well and saw Leacock become one of the most popular authors in the English-speaking world. The book was followed by Nonsense Novels (1911) and his satirical masterpiece, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (1912). Over the next thirty years, Leacock produced a string of well-received works, including The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice (1920), Humour: Its Theory and Technique (1935), Canada: Foundations of Its Future (1941) and Canada and the Sea (1944).

      In 1921, Leacock was a founding member of the Canadian Authors’ Association. He retired from McGill in 1936, and a year later his book My Discovery of the West: A Discussion of East and West in Canada won the Governor General’s Award. Leacock was diagnosed with throat cancer and died in 1944, aged 74. Since his death, the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour for the best humorous book by a Canadian author.

      I. WINSOME WINNIE OR, TRIAL AND TEMPTATION

      (Narrated after the best models of 1875)

      CHAPTER I

      THROWN ON THE WORLD

      Miss Winnifred, said the Old Lawyer, looking keenly over and through his shaggy eyebrows at the fair young creature seated before him, you are this morning twenty-one.

      Winnifred Clair raised her deep mourning veil, lowered her eyes and folded her hands.

      This morning, continued Mr. Bonehead, my guardianship is at an end.

      There was a tone of something like emotion in the voice of the stern old lawyer, while for a moment his eye glistened with something like a tear which he hastened to remove with something like a handkerchief. I have therefore sent for you, he went on, to render you an account of my trust.

      He heaved a sigh at her, and then, reaching out his hand, he pulled the woollen bell-rope up and down several times.

      An aged clerk appeared.

      Did the bell ring? he asked.

      I think it did, said the Lawyer. Be good enough, Atkinson, to fetch me the papers of the estate of the late Major Clair defunct.

      I have them here, said the clerk, and he laid upon the table a bundle of faded blue papers, and withdrew.

      Miss Winnifred, resumed the Old Lawyer, I will now proceed to give you an account of the disposition that has been made of your property. This first document refers to the sum of two thousand pounds left to you by your great uncle. It is lost.

      Winnifred bowed.

      Pray give me your best attention and I will endeavour to explain to you how I lost it.

      Oh, sir, cried Winnifred, I am only a poor girl unskilled in the ways of the world, and knowing nothing but music and French; I fear that the details of business are beyond my grasp. But if it is lost, I gather that it is gone.

      It is, said Mr. Bonehead. I lost it in a marginal option in an undeveloped oil company. I suppose that means nothing to you.

      Alas, sighed Winnifred, nothing.

      Very good, resumed the Lawyer. Here next we have a statement in regard to the thousand pounds left you under the will of your maternal grandmother. I lost it at Monte Carlo. But I need not fatigue you with the details.

      Pray spare them, cried the girl.

      This final item relates to the sum of fifteen hundred pounds placed in trust for you by your uncle. I lost it on a horse race. That horse, added the Old Lawyer with rising excitement, ought to have won. He was coming down the stretch like blue—but there, there, my dear, you must forgive me if the recollection of it still stirs me to anger. Suffice it to say the horse fell. I have kept for your inspection the score card of the race, and the betting tickets. You will find everything in order.

      Sir, said Winnifred, as Mr. Bonehead proceeded to fold up his papers, I am but a poor inadequate girl, a mere child in business, but tell me, I pray, what is left to me of the money that you have managed?

      Nothing, said the Lawyer. Everything is gone. And I regret to say, Miss Clair, that it is my painful duty to convey to you a further disclosure of a distressing nature. It concerns your birth.

      Just Heaven! cried Winnifred, with a woman’s quick intuition. Does it concern my father?

      It does, Miss Clair. Your father was not your father.

      Oh, sir, exclaimed Winnifred. My poor mother! How she must have suffered!

      Your mother was not your mother, said the Old Lawyer gravely. Nay, nay, do not question me. There is a dark secret about your birth.

      Alas, said Winnifred, wringing her hands, I am, then, alone in the world and penniless.

      You are, said Mr. Bonehead, deeply moved. You are, unfortunately, thrown upon the world. But, if you ever find yourself in a position where you need help and advice, do not scruple to come to me. Especially, he added, for advice. And meantime let me ask you in what way do you propose to earn your livelihood?

      I have my needle, said Winnifred.

      Let me see it, said the Lawyer.

      Winnifred showed it to him.

      I fear, said Mr. Bonehead, shaking his head, you will not do much with that.

      Then he rang the bell again.

      Atkinson, he said, take Miss Clair out and throw her on the world.

      CHAPTER II

      A RENCOUNTER

      As Winnifred Clair passed down the stairway leading from the Lawyer’s office, a figure appeared before her in the corridor, blocking the way. It was that of a tall, aristocratic-looking man, whose features wore that peculiarly saturnine appearance seen only in the English nobility. The face, while entirely gentlemanly in its general aspect, was stamped with all the worst passions of mankind.

      Had the innocent girl but known it, the face was that of Lord Wynchgate, one of the most contemptible of the greater nobility of Britain, and the figure was his too.

      Ha! exclaimed the dissolute Aristocrat, whom have we here? Stay, pretty one, and let me see the fair countenance that I divine behind your veil.

      Sir, said Winnifred, drawing herself up proudly, let me pass, I pray.

      Not so, cried Wynchgate, reaching out and seizing his intended victim by the wrist, not till I have at least seen the colour of those eyes and imprinted a kiss upon those fair lips.

      With a brutal laugh, he drew the struggling girl towards him.

      In another moment the aristocratic villain would have succeeded in lifting the veil of the unhappy girl, when suddenly a ringing voice cried, Hold! stop! desist! begone! lay to! cut it out!

      With these words a tall, athletic young man, attracted doubtless by the girl’s cries, leapt into the corridor from the street without. His figure was that, more or less, of a Greek god, while his face, although at the moment inflamed with anger, was of an entirely moral and permissible configuration.

      Save me! save me! cried Winnifred.

      I will, cried the Stranger, rushing towards Lord Wynchgate with uplifted cane.

      But the cowardly Aristocrat did not await the onslaught of the unknown.

      You shall yet be mine! he hissed in Winnifred’s ear, and, releasing his grasp, he rushed with a bound past the rescuer into the street.

      Oh, sir, said Winnifred, clasping her hands and falling on her knees in gratitude. I am only a poor inadequate girl, but if the prayers of one who can offer naught but her prayers to her benefactor can avail to the advantage of one who appears to have every conceivable advantage already, let him know that they are his.

      Nay, said the stranger, as he aided the blushing girl to rise, kneel not to me, I beseech. If I have done aught to deserve the gratitude of one who, whoever she is, will remain for ever present as a bright memory in the breast of one in whose breast such memories are all too few, he is all too richly repaid. If she does that, he is blessed indeed.

      She does. He is! cried Winnifred, deeply moved. Here on her knees she blesses him. And now, she added, we must part. Seek not to follow me. One who has aided a poor girl in the hour of need will respect her wish when she tells him that, alone and buffeted by the world, her one prayer is that he will leave her.

      He will! cried the Unknown. He will. He does.

      Leave me, yes, leave me, exclaimed Winnifred.

      I will, said the Unknown.

      Do, do, sobbed the distraught

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