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Showing 1 - 13 of 13 items
After experiencing life in London, the narrator and her brother discover that they are Canadians, not colonials. Their encounters with… Englishmen and Americans demonstrate that there are three distinct countries, each with a character of its own, but sharing common interests. This is an early novel on the eternal theme of identity.
One of the most complex experiences for Canadians was World War 1 and its attendant social upheavals. Because of the… lack of a clear description of the emotional forces of the period, historians have tended to concentrate on the political manifestations of agrarian and working class unrest. There are no well-known sources for social commentary, a lack that makes this novel important as an historical document. Originally published in 1923, The Magpie is an articulate and perceptive work which provides an accurate description of the disillusionment that developed after the war when it became apparent that many of the government's promises of social reform were not going to be fulfilled. Craig Forrester – nicknamed 'The Magpie' because of his terseness in conducting business on the Winnipeg Grain Exchange – is appalled by the greed, hypocrisy, and intolerance of the 'decent' classes and opts for persona morality and social justice. Rejecting urban life, he returns to the farm of his childhood, symbol of the traditional values of honesty and simplicity. By having his hero make this choice, Durkin adopts one of the greatest themes of Canadian literature and intellectual thought – the agrarian myth. A secondary theme, of particular interest today, is the role of women in post-war society and the evolution of moral codes. The three women in 'The Magpie's' life achieve surprising degrees of personal autonomy.
Minnie Smith's (ca. 1874-1933) feminist domestic novel, Is It Just?, is a harsh critique of the injustices perpetuated by male-dominated… society and law. Published in 1911, it tells the tragic story of Mary Pierce, who, through the actions of her selfish and lazy husband, loses her land, her social standing, and ultimately her life.In Is It Just?, the conventions of the domestic novel - episodic presentation, stock characters, contrived plots, and romantic conclusions - illustrate the superiority of female values and argue for expanded social, political, and legal rights for women. A critical introduction by Jenny Roth and Lori Chambers frames Smith's specific references to the laws and social geography of British Columbia, situating the novel in relation to its historic and literary importance. This unique work of domestic literature adds to our limited library of Canadian feminist writings of the first wave.
With tales of a gruesome murder, a typhoid epidemic, corrupt politicians, and a Japanese invasion, The Writing on the Wall… was intended to shock its readers when it was published in 1921. Thinly disguised as a novel, it is a propaganda tract exhorting white British Columbians to greater vigilance to prevent greedy politicians from selling out to the Chinese and Japanese. It was also designed to convince eastern Canada of British Columbia's need for protections against an onslaught of the 'yellow peril.'This novel is not exceptional in its extreme racism; it reiterates almost every anti-oriental cliché circulating in British Columbia at the time of its publication. While modern readers will find the story horrifying and unbelievable, it is in fact based on real incidents. Many of the views expressed were only exaggerated versions of ideas held throughout the country about non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants. The Writing on the Wall is a vivid illustration of the fear and prejudice with which immigrants were regarded in the early twentieth century.
This work cannot be fully understood unless the reader is aware of the writer's motives. The book has a twofold… meaning -- that of a political novel, and that of the portrayal of a great love and a religious drama. As Disraeli in his novels portrayed the political and social conditions of certain eras of his country, in a simple way this work is intended to portray the conditions existing in Canada at an era when the country was in a state of transition, with the idealistic conception of what the government of a country should be, the conception being based upon a knowledge of the inherent principles of Divine Right and upon Plato's Republic of Justice. The scene is laid prior to the last election during Sir John A. Macdonald's administration. There are no great questions at issue, politics are seen in their lowest form; the protective tariff had been adopted, and with the advent of machinery the old order of things was passing away; the new order had not yet brought any great issues before the people, and the election, commonly called the "Old Flag" election, was run merely on a sentiment of loyalty to the motherland. "My Lady of the Snows" is a woman who has been born "great," and one who has based her life on principles rather than the emotions, or Plato's theory that the emotions should remain subservient to the will.
Folktale, memoir, fiction, literary hoax, The Yellow Briar is all of these. Ostensibly the charming remembrance of an Irish orphan… who escapes the Great Famine of 1840s Ireland and comes to the New World to seek a fresh start on the streets of Toronto and in the pioneer hinterland of Canada West (Ontario), the book was actually a fictional humbug perpetrated by John Mitchell, a Toronto lawyer, who first published the tale in 1933. Patrick Slater, the protagonist of the "memoir," is said to have died in 1924 but not before setting his saga down on paper. And what an account it is! The Globe and Mail felt that the book "gives a picture of Ontario to be found in no other work of fiction we know and has won for itself a permanent place in Canadian literature." If nothing else, Slater/Mitchell captures perfectly the lilt of the Irish and the wry wisdom of an old soul to paint an affecting portrait of trials and tribulations in a long-ago time.
Short-listed for the 2007 CBA Libris Awards for Book Design of the Year What do Superman, Prince Valiant, Cerebus the… Aardvark, and Spawn have in common? Their creators Joe Shuster, Harold Foster, Dave Sim, and Todd McFarlane are Canadians. And while many of the cutting-edge talents of contemporary comix and graphic novels are also from Canada artists such as Chester Brown, Seth, Dave Cooper, and Julie Doucet far too few Canadians realize their country had a remarkable involvement with the "funnies" long before. Invaders from the North profiles past and present comic geniuses, sheds light on unjustly neglected chapters in Canadas pop history, and demonstrates how this nation has vaulted to the forefront of international comic art, successfully challenging the long-established boundaries between high and low culture. Generously illustrated with black-and-white and colour comic covers and panels, Invaders from the North serves up a cheeky, brash cavalcade of flamboyant and outrageous personalities and characters that graphically attest to Canadas verve and invention in the world of visual storytelling.
Corey and his family have escaped from slavery and the South and are now living in Canada. They own their… own land, have made new friends, and Corey gets to go to school. But danger still remains across the river in Ohio, where slave-catchers lurk, waiting to capture escaped slaves to bring them back to their former masters.
Flora Lyndsay is Susanna Moodie's prequel to Roughing it in the Bush and Life in the Clearings. It completes her… trilogy on her emigration from Suffolk to Upper Canada that began in 1832. Though Moodie chose to fictionalize herself in the context of this novel, this work remains a close personalized record of her family's experiences in planning their emigration and crossing the Atlantic. Although surprisingly little critical attention has been paid to it, this novel offers its readers the opportunity to appreciate Moodie's style, her sense of form and her distinctive approach to writing female autobiography. This edition, complete with a wide corpus of endnotes, an extensive list of emendations and a critical introduction, should help address this absence and give readers a closer look at the iconic phenomenon that is Susanna Moodie.
Flora Lyndsay is Susanna Moodie's prequel to Roughing it in the Bush and Life in the Clearings. It completes her… trilogy on her emigration from Suffolk to Upper Canada that began in 1832. Though Moodie chose to fictionalize herself in the context of this novel, this work remains a close personalized record of her family's experiences in planning their emigration and crossing the Atlantic. Although surprisingly little critical attention has been paid to it, this novel offers its readers the opportunity to appreciate Moodie's style, her sense of form and her distinctive approach to writing female autobiography. This edition, complete with a wide corpus of endnotes, an extensive list of emendations and a critical introduction, should help address this absence and give readers a closer look at the iconic phenomenon that is Susanna Moodie.
Minnie Smith's (ca. 1874-1933) feminist domestic novel, Is It Just?, is a harsh critique of the injustices perpetuated by male-dominated… society and law. Published in 1911, it tells the tragic story of Mary Pierce, who, through the actions of her selfish and lazy husband, loses her land, her social standing, and ultimately her life.In Is It Just?, the conventions of the domestic novel - episodic presentation, stock characters, contrived plots, and romantic conclusions - illustrate the superiority of female values and argue for expanded social, political, and legal rights for women. A critical introduction by Jenny Roth and Lori Chambers frames Smith's specific references to the laws and social geography of British Columbia, situating the novel in relation to its historic and literary importance. This unique work of domestic literature adds to our limited library of Canadian feminist writings of the first wave.