The question is often whether humour is of all times and of all places -- well, it isn't. Stephen Butler Leacock may have been one of the funniest authors in his time, to readers today his prose, particularly the humour in it, appears as old hat and humbug.

The short stories of Stephen Butler Leacock are all set during the first quarter of the Twentieth Century, around 1912, or thereabout. Automobiles were a novelty back then, and life ticked at a slower pace. Leacock's humour is wordy and bawdy. His prose relies heavily on dialogue, so the conversational parts of the stories are similar to the most stilted dialogues in the early cinema of the 1940s and 50s.

Chinese publishers regularly bring out series of books, particularly such which are now in the public domain. This particular series, by Shanghai Joint Publishing, consists of two volumes each: a volume consisting of the Chinese translation and a companion volume with the English original. These types of publications are often cash cows, and unfortunately Chinese publishers lack the expertise to prepare such publications carefully, and the unwillingness to invest just a little bit more money to get things done properly. This volume of The selected humorous stories of Leacock did not have many errors in the text, but various errors in the titles of the short stories.

Another feature of books by Chinese publishers is that they may have an introduction, but usually omit a critical text history. It is never very clear what you are reading, or where it comes from. The Chinese introduction, in the Chinese volume, mentions that the last five "stories" are in facts chapters 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 from Leacock's novel Sunshine Sketches of a little town. In the index of the English companion volume this is not made clear.

Altogether in interesting sample of the prose of this near-forgotten author. ( )