From the author of the bestselling Jalna series. This is essentially a novel of contrast – a story of light and shade, a contrast of Sicilian exuberance with the restraints of life in a Massachusetts fishing village. It finds beloved author Mazo de la Roche in a new vein. Here is a narrative lighter in quality than those which have to do with the turbulent Jalna scene, but no less sure in its characterization; no less picturesque in its detail ...
From the author of the bestselling Jalna series. Shaw Manifold is a born forester, of hardy stock. A fatherless boy of nine, he was brought up in the rugged environment of his grandfather’s farm, a lonely youngster in the midst of callous elders. His only ally was his mother, Cristabel, whose work removed her to a distant city. Mother and son lived for their reunions: their private world was a tortured and nostalgic place, but its love braced ...
From the author of the bestselling Jalna series! Writing in isolation was never trickier than in this full house. In this short but poignant tale, Mazo de la Roche tells the story of a small boy from an orphan home who has come to work for two sisters – Mrs Morton and Lydia Dove – who are, in old age, suffering greatly reduced circumstances. They have rented out half of their house to a writer, Lindley, who has sought out this isolated spot fo ...
From the author of the bestselling Jalna series, a story of one small thing that creates a lot of beauty. Bill and Coo were two pigeons who built their nest in the shelter of the gable of the Dullards’ house. Mr. and Mrs. Dullard hated all birds, especially pigeons. Mr. Dullard even tries to hit Bill with a rock, but the rock bounced back from the roof and hit Mr. Dullard instead. After that they let the pigeons alone, but they grumbled about ...
The Town Below changed the face of Quebecois literature. The Town Below takes place in St. Joseph Parish of Quebec City’s Saint-Sauveur suburb. Saint-Sauveur is a parochial and provincial place where narrow piety and corruption can be found in every corner, and Denis and Lise, two adolescents in love, scandalize the town with their affair. Scheming politicians and clergymen and grasping social climbers mix with salt-of-the-earth citizens in ...
Valancy lives a drab life with her overbearing mother and prying aunt. Then a shocking diagnosis from Dr. Trent prompts her to make a fresh start. For the first time, she does and says exactly what she feels. As she expands her limited horizons, Valancy undergoes a transformation, discovering a new world of love and happiness. One of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s only novels intended for an adult audience, The Blue Castle is filled with humour and roma ...
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 Sla ...
An curious gem of 19th-century gothic fiction Cecil Dreeme is one of the queerest American novels of the 19th century. This edition, which includes a new introduction contextualizing the sexual history of the period and queer longings of the book, brings a rare, almost forgotten, sensational gothic novel set in New York’s West Village back to light. Published posthumously in 1861, the novel centers on Robert Byng, a young man who moves back t ...
