First published in 1957, Mazo de la Roche's last autobiography is a vivid look at her life in Ontario, and a parting shot at her critics. Mazo de la Roche was once Canada's best-known writer, loved by millions of readers around the world. Her Jalna series is filled with unforgettable characters who come to life for her readers, but she herself was secretive about her own life and tried to escape the public attention fame brought. In this memoir, de la Roche describes her childhood and her relationship with her cousin and life-long companion, Caroline Clement. She confesses her personal connection with her troubled character Finch Whiteoak and details her romantic struggles. Ringing the Changes is the closest view we have of Mazo de la Roche's innermost thoughts and the private life she usually kept hidden.

For this collection John Glassco won the Governor General’s Award in 1971. He intended it as a definitive selection of his best poetry which includes his frequently anthologized poems such as "The Death of Don Quixote", "Brummell at Calais", "Needham Cemetery" and "Quebec Farmhouse". Glassco’s original selection is presented here in its entirety with additional material and excerpts drawn from his later published work and his translations, together with three short prose pieces dealing with the poetic process, poetry readings and the art of translation. A craftsman of unusual care, Glassco was known for his sensitivity and wit as well as for his forthright treatment of love, the nostalgia occasioned by the passage of time and the loss of that which we cherish.

Maria Chapdelaine, the quintessential novel of the rugged life of early French-Canadian colonists, is based on the author's experiences as a hired hand in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean area. A young woman living with her family on the Quebec frontier, Maria endures the hardships of isolation and climate. Maria must eventually choose between three suitors who represent very different ways of life: a trapper, a farmer, and a Parisian immigrant.

Powerful in its simplicity, this novel captures the essence of faith and tenacity, the key ingredients of survivance. Translated into many languages, Maria Chapdelaine is enshrined as a classic of Canadian letters. A new introduction by Michael Gnarowski examines its relevance and provides insights into Louis Hemon's life.

A beautiful new edition of Hugh Hood’s debut story collection. It all started toward the end of the 1930s, when the young Hugh Hood serviced a flourishing Saturday Evening Post delivery route with more than fifty weekly customers. That was where the author-to-be first encountered the short story, in the fiction of the famous magazine writers Damon Runyon, Guy Gilpatric, Arthur Train, and the master of them all, P.G. Wodehouse. Hood would go on to write several novels and short story collections. Perhaps more importantly, he would be a founding member of the now-legendary Montreal Story Tellers group. Reissued here on its 55th anniversary, Hood’s first collection of short fiction, Flying a Red Kite contains some of his most well-known short fiction, from the post-apocalyptic visions of “After the Sirens” to the Faulknerian portrait of rural Ontario in “Three Halves of a House.” Flying a Red Kite is an essential window into the work of a major and unique Canadian talent.

A new edition of Philip Child’s great Canadian novel of the First World War. A horrifying description of war, specifically embodied in the vain and inglorious futility of the First World War, God’s Sparrows is a novel rich in compassion and firm in its faith in the human spirit. Philip Child created a Canadian family saga, a modern pilgrim’s progress in which individuals surmount the corrosive effects of brutality, maintaining their ability to love and endure under the most agonizing circumstances. His book, first published in 1937, remains as a stirring testimony to that ability. It offers profound insight into the experience of the First World War, not just as a catastrophe affecting his characters but as a crucible in which the whole of this nation found itself tried.

Half-Mohawk, half-English author Pauline Johnson astounded Canada with her unique poetry, prose, and presentations. Pauline Johnson was an unusual and unique presence on the literary scene during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Part Mohawk and part European, she was a compelling female voice in the midst of an almost entirely male writing community. Having discovered her talent for public recitation of poetry, Johnson relied on her ancestry and gender to establish an international reputation for her stage performances, during which she appeared in European and native costume. These poems were later collected under the title of Flint and Feather (1912) and form the source of the selections appearing in this volume. Later, suffering from ill health, Pauline Johnson retired from the stage and devoted herself to the writing of prose, collected in Legends of Vancouver, The Moccasin Maker (1913), and The Shagganappi (1913), gleanings from which form part of this collection.

B.C. journalist Stephen Hume has said that fur trader and explorer Simon Fraser should be celebrated as the founder of British Columbia. Certainly, the achievements of the Scottish-descended United Empire Loyalist adventurer were impressive. During three extraordinary years, 1805-1808, Fraser undertook the third major expedition (after Alexander Mackenzie's and Lewis and Clark's) across North America, culminating in his famous journey down the river in British Columbia that now bears his name.

Employed by the Montreal-based North West Company, Fraser was responsible for building many of British Columbia's first trading posts. His exploratory efforts helped lead to Canada's boundary later being declared at the 49th parallel. In this new volume, librarian and archivist W. Kaye Lamb provides a detailed introduction as well as illuminating annotations to Fraser's journals, which were originally published by Macmillan of Canada in 1960.