In a Canadian Canoe; The Nine Muses Minus One, and Other Stories

Chapter 2: PREFACE.

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About This Book

The volume compiles comic essays and short stories that alternate breezy, observational pieces with fantastical sketches. The first section offers a sequence of reflective, tongue-in-cheek meditations framed by a leisurely canoe outing, touching on art, solitude, self-deception, and small absurdities. A following cycle reimagines mythic inspirations as brief fables tied to the nine classical muses, each tale blending irony and pathos. The collection closes with standalone fantasias and macabre-humorous stories that move between whimsy and satirical moral commentary, pairing clever wordplay with moments of quiet melancholy.

TO

A. N. L.

PREFACE.

MY thanks are due to the Editor of “The Granta” for permission to reprint “In a Canadian Canoe,” “The Nine Muses Minus One,” and “The Celestial Grocery.” They have been carefully revised, and considerable additions have been made. The rest of the volume has not appeared before, so far as I know.

Although this book appears in a “Library of Wit and Humour,” I have not tried to make it all witty and humorous: I wanted there to be some background. I am not sure that I have not made it all background.

B. P.

Clement’s Inn,
July 1891.