Stephen Leacock is an unjustly forgotten master of the short-story genre
who was considered the best-known humorist in the world in the early
twentieth century. Although he was a prolific writer, publishing about
fifty novels, memoirs and histories in his lifetime, Leacock was best
known for the humorous articles he published in various magazines, which
he later collected in Literary Lapses, Nonsense Novels and Frenzied
Fiction.
One of his later works, Frenzied Fiction is a collection from a master
of a genre at the height of his game, and contains all the hallmarks of
his earlier work, written in the trademark style which he had refined
over the previous two decades. Containing such gems as 'My Recollections
as a Spy' and 'Simple Stories of Success, or How to Succeed in Life',
this collection demonstrates why he met with such success and earned the
respect of those as far removed as John Lane, A.P. Herbert and Groucho
Marx.