A Journey Through Invasion Narratives: 30 Books surveys a capacious and compelling literary mode: the imagining, reporting, and mythologizing of incursions across borders. Ranging from historical romance and imperial adventure to satire, speculative fiction, military alarm, travel writing, and popular suspense, the volume reveals invasion as both event and metaphor. Its juxtaposition of dramatic campaigns, threatened homelands, clandestine plots, and encounters between cultures makes visib...

The rain of the forenoon had been followed by an outburst of heat and the sunshine beat with fierce intensity on the narrow square that formed the yard of the barracks at Montreal. There was a milkiness in the atmosphere which, conjoined with the low bank of black cloud that hung over the St Lawrence where it rolled out of sight, indicated a renewal of the downpour. The yard was deserted. Dinner was over and the men lounged and snoozed indoors until the sun abated his fervor, always except...

In "Gleaner Tales," Robert Sellar crafts a poignant exploration of rural life, illuminating the nuances of community and resilience through a series of interwoven narratives. The book employs a lyrical style rich in imagery, reflecting on themes of nature, nostalgia, and the often unrecognized labor that sustains the fabric of rural existence. Set against the backdrop of a changing agricultural landscape, Sellar's prose resonates with authenticity, inviting readers to ponder the delicate i...

"Well-written narrative of the American campaign of 1813." - United Empire, 1916Robert Sellar (1841-1919) emigrated to Upper Canada from Scotland in 1856 where he secured employment as a printer's apprentice.In order to chronicle the heroism of the region's original British settlers and to refute the growing notion that the only true "children of the soil" were French Canadian, Sellar wrote a collections of simple stories of backwoods life. Other l...

In "The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825," Gordon Sellar offers a captivating autobiographical account of his journey from Scotland to the New World, vividly illustrating the hopes and hardships faced by 19th-century emigrants. The prose is marked by an earnest and reflective style, drawing on Sellar's rich personal experiences and keen observations of both the landscapes crossed and the myriad cultural interactions encountered. Through detailed descriptions and a...

Excerpt: "A glance at the map shows the south-western extremity of the province of Quebec to be a wedge shaped bit of territory; the St. Lawrence on one side, the United States on the other. All that is related in the following pages is associated with this corner of Canada. The name of the book comes from the newspaper in which most of the tales first appeared. There is a purpose in the book. It attempts to convey in a readable form an idea of an era in the life of Canada which has passed...

A compilation of letters originally written to her mother over the course of two and a half years, Catharine Parr Traill’s The Backwoods of Canada is an intimate and telling look at pioneer life in Upper Canada.Originally published in 1836, Traill’s memoir details her journey with genuine charm and good cheer, even during difficult times. Thanks to its remarkable observations on Canadian class and economy, Traill’s story remains an important and essential telling of Canadi...

What if you could remember another life? What if you could re-live it and find love again?Professor Ross Sinclair has everything he could ever want. Reunited with childhood sweetheart Claire Forbes, Ross can finally begin to heal the pain of his childhood and live in the present. A honeymoon in Scotland is the perfect beginning.But when tragedy threatens Claire's life, Ross's dreams come to a crashing halt. He must now face the possibility of a future without her. ...

When the Free Grants and Homestead Act was first introduced in 1868, fierce debates erupted in Ontario's Legislature over whether land in the Muskoka region should be opened to settlement or reserved for the Aboriginal population. From the beginning, many people vented serious doubts about the free grant scheme, citing the district's poor agricultural prospects. In the end, such caution was ignored by overeager boosters.The story in Hardscrabble also takes readers to Brita...

For fans of The Tudors comes a captivating drama about the only woman who could defy Henry VIII -and keep her life.Mary Tudor, the headstrong younger sister of the ruthless King Henry VII, has always been her brother's favorite-but now she is also an important political bargaining chip. When she is promised to the elderly, ailing King Louis of France, a heartbroken Mary accepts her fate, but not before extracting a promise from her brother: When the old ki...

As war looms in Europe, Richard Hannay returns from Rhodesia to his home in London. His neighbor, an American freelance spy named Franklin Scudder, claims to know of an assassination plot to destabilize Europe. When Hannay finds Scudder dead in his flat he is drawn into a fast-paced labyrinthine adventure that takes him from the hills of Scotland to an unassuming location by the sea. The progenitor of the classic man-on-the-run thriller, The Thirty-Nine Steps first appeared as a s...

A historical eBook about Blanche, the White Queen of France, the manipulative mother-in-law of Marguerite in Sherry Jones’s Four Sisters, All Queens.A woman's power lies in her beauty. For years, Blanche de Castille, the White Queen of France, has lived by this maxim—passed on by her grandmother, Eléonore d'Aquitaine, as she took the girl to marry King Louis VIII. When her husband dies unexpectedly, however, Blanche finds that beauty is not enough...