Born in England, this great writer of humour came to Canada with his family in 1876, settling on a farm north of Toronto ON. After schooling and a decade as a schoolteacher, Leacock studied for his PhD at the University of Chicago. (His dissertation, "The Doctrine of Laissez-faire," was published for the first time in 1998.) Then he was appointed lecturer in the Department of Economics and Political Science at McGill University, Montréal QC.

While his best-selling book was a textbook of political economy, Leacock is famous for his books of humorous sketches. The first of more than thirty was published in 1910. The best-known of these is Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (1912), which concerns the threat to community of capitalist greed, and its sequel, Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich (1914). In these and many of his other works, a dark note mingles with a modest humour.

Pathos and sympathy are often the reader's response to Leacock's characters: we laugh at them but we also laugh with them. Leacock valued the community over the individual, and gradual change over sudden and extreme developments in society.

He admired the writing of USAmerican humorist, Mark Twain, and he anticipated the humour of USAmerican film maker, Charlie Chaplin. As well, he was famous for a strong speaking voice in his narrator. Readers come to think of the narrator as a person with a keen gift for storytelling, and insight into the lives of people who lived under the threat of materialism.

He remained faithful to his belief in the progress of humanity, a belief that seems misplaced today. Canada's national annual prize for the best humorous writing by a Canadian is named the Leacock Medal for Humour. It has been awarded yearly since 1947. Leacock's home in Orillia ON is now a national monument and museum.