Mariposa is a fictional Canadian town created by Stephen Leacock as the setting for a series of short stories. Originally commissioned by The Montreal Star newspaper, they were later collected and published in one volume as Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town. Since then, many attempts have been made to expand the canon, present it in a different form or make reference to it. Mariposa has been a subject of academic research in a number of fields, such as small town heritage preservation, and in literary studies of Leacock writings.