Description
Book SynopsisThis anthology combines some of the finest writing by such well-known writers as Leacock, Moodie, Ernest Thompson Seton and Lucy Maud Montgomery with fascinating pieces by lesser-known names such as George Copway (the first Canadian native writer to have his work published in English) and Lady Agnes Macdonald (the wife of Canada's first prime minister, and a popular writer of great verve and enthusiasm). In addition to three genres of fiction the anthology includes two important varieties of non-fiction in which early Canadians made a strong and distinctive contribution: Travel and Exploration Narratives and Memoirs and Descriptive Sketches.
Trade Review“A wonderful collection…Moyles has selected a wide variety of writers whose popular and entertaining writing will still resonate with readers today.” — David Marshall, University of Calgary
“Improved by Cultivation brings attractively together a whole range of late 18th- and early 19th-century episodes, stories and sketches that take Canada and Canadians as their subject…a collection that gives a forceful sense of what people did, said and read in the period that ended with World War I.” — Professor John Lennox, English Department York University
Table of ContentsIntroduction
Part One: Travel and Exploration Narratives
Richard Whitbourne - A Discourse & Discovery of Newfoundland
Alexander Henry - The Massacre at Fort Michilimackinac
Samuel Hearne - Transactions at the Coppermine River
Alexander MacKenzie - On the Shore of the Pacific Ocean
Anna Brownell Jameson - Niagara Falls in Winter
Paul Kane - Christmas at Fort Edmonton
J. Ewing Ritchie - Amongst the Cow-Boys
Dillon Wallace - Hubbard’s Last Camp in Labrador
Agnes Deans Cameron - Down the Athabasca River
Part Two: Memoirs and Descriptive Sketches
George Copway - The Ojibway Nation: Plays and Exercises
Catharine Parr Traill - Clearing the Land
Susanna Moodie - Canadian Customs: The Charivari
Francis Beaven - A Native New Brunswicker’s House
Annie Howells Fréchette - Life at Rideau Hall
Lady Agnes MacDonald - By Car and Cowcatcher
John Donkin - The Hanging of Louis Riel
Harriet Jephson - The French Canadian Habitant
Georgina Binnie-Clark - Threshing
Part Three: Satirical and Humorous Sketches
Frances Brooke - The History of Emily Montague
Thomas McCulloch - The Letters of Mephibosheth Stepsure
Thomas Chandler Haliburton - The Clockmaker
E.W. Thomson - The Privilege of the Limits
Stephen Leacock - Borrowing a Match
Robert Barr - How Finley McGillis Held the Pier
Part Four: Animal Stories
Charles G.D. Roberts - Do Seek their Meat from God and The Master of the Golden Pool
Ernest Thompson Seton - The Biography of a Grizzly
Part Five: Short Stories
Gilbert Parker - The Patrol of the Cypress Hills
Lily Dougall - Witchcraft
Duncan Campbell Scott - Paul Farlotte
Norman Duncan - The Fruits of Toil
Sara Jeannette Duncan - The Heir Apparent
L.M. Montgomery - The Quarantine at Alexander Abraham’s
Marjorie Pickthall - Luck
