LEACOCK: A BIOGRAPHY. Moritz, Albert and Theresa Moritz. Don Mills (Ont.), Stoddart, c1985. 363pp, paper-bound boards, $26.95, ISBN 0-7737-2027-8. CIP Grades 10 and up Reviewed by Volume 13 Number 5 1985 September The persona of the loveable, rumpled sage of Brewery Bay was by no means an accurate representation of the real-life Stephen Butler Leacock (1869-1944). Best remembered for his classic Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, a loving fictional portrait of his own Orillia, Leacock was no countrified corner-store raconteur. He was the author of many best-selling books, a long-time professor of economics at McGill University, a teacher of note and a celebrated lecturer. While some of his attitudes, notably those regarding the fading British Empire, the equality of women (including that of his own female students), and races other than European, are not such as are considered acceptable today, his work in general has far outlasted that of most of his contemporaries. This account of Leacock's difficult early years, his family life, his writings and lecture tours, and his enduring effect upon the world of humorous literature, is painstakingly thorough, but little of the charm the man undoubtedly possessed in abundance shines through, and almost none of his legendary humour. This is a useful but unexciting source for material on a great Canadian writer, illustrated with family photographs, annotated, and complete with bibliography not only of Leacock's own writings, but of books about the writer as well. Joan McGrath, Toronto Board of Education, Toronto, Ont.