ety of birds not of their species, they period. The pattern offhomas's criti- her a model to emerging feminist choose "the notes and cadences that, cism is descriptive and chronologi- scholars. Most ofall, whenThomas is combined with their own attempts, cal-a reminder of the text under writing as an archivist, we glimpse completed their species song." scrutiny, then an assessment and ap- her friendship with Margaret preciation, making these essays acces- Laurence in quotations shared from sible in the positive sense by their letters, and learn much about contextualizingwith her strong sense the writing process Laurence devel- of cultural history. Hers is a literary- oped towards the end of her oeuvre. historical approach, sometimes even Readers accustomed to a diet of a sociological one (apt because some critical theory readings may be impa- ALL MY SISTERS: ESSAYS writers, like Sara Jeannette Duncan, tient with linear commentaries, with ON THE WORK OF are so keenly interested in social types notes on a book's publishing history CANADIAN WOMEN themselves), and a biographical one, and an author's popularity in her day, WRITERS as befits a biographer ofAnna Jameson or with the moral undertaking which and William Arthur Deacon; the sub- Thomas elucidates in the religious title might have reflected the fact that and spiritual convictions oflaurence, Clara Thomas. Ottawa: The most essays are equally on the lives as Frye and others. But Thomas is a Tecumseh Press Limited, 1994. well as the work of the Canadian senior scholar who can continue writ- women writers under discussion. ing what she wants to write without by SyZvia M. Priestby- As this collection is meant to crown being constrained by current fash- Brown Thomas's considerable scholarly ions. As in the dark ages before the achievement, its value is multifari- sixties' boom of nationalist and femi- ous: to those who know Thomas as an nist sentiment, Canadians still tend inspiring teacher, it records her sur- to forget, devalue or be indifferent to vey of from pio- their own literary history. Clara Just under half of the essays in this neer writers to the brink of the post- Thomas's example as a friend to Ca- collection first appeared when Cana- modern era. It is dadyvaluable nadian writers, their literature and dian cultural nationalism was at its for her autobiographical introduc- our culture is a corrective to such height; there is something anoma- tion on teaching and research during amnesia and neglect. lous about their publication in book an intense rediscovery period in our form in the mid-1 990s when, regret- culture. The unabashed thread of tably, nationalism is waning and nationalism and sense of difference when, in the name of greater from Americans, which Thomas sig- inclusiveness, critics often reject the nals in writers such as Sara Jeannette culture ofoneofthe dominant found- Duncan, and PIONEERING WOMEN: ing nations and feel compelled to , makes these essays SHORT STORIES BY write criticism in keeping with con- significant for students of interdisci- CANADIAN WOMEN. voluted, nearly impenetrable, Euro- plinary Canadian Studies. The book pean-derived elite discourse. Schools can also be recommended to new- BEGINNINGS TO 1880 of critical thought have changed comers to Canadian literature as a greatly since Clara Thomas's literary more intensive reference work on a Lorraine McMullen and Sandra thinking was first formed; this book more specific group of writers than Campbell, Eds. Ottawa: University returns us to the optimism and ex- John Moss's A Readcri Guidr. of Ottawa Press, 1993. citement of a burgeoning female- Thomas is one of the earliest critics centered and nationalist critical per- to focus on women writers as unique, ASPIRING WOMEN: spective in Canada. thus her essays are those of a SHORT STORIES BY Her adherence to earlier critical groundbreaker, appreciated by ensu- CANADIAN WOMEN methods made Thomas a particu- ing feminist critics, that can be read 1880-1900 larly sensitive critic to the seventies' from the vantage point of cross-cul- focus on female characters whose tural women's studies (namely, com- Lorraine McMullen and Sandra "opportunitiesand.. .future.. .arecir- parative studies between L.M. Campbell, Eds. Ottawa: University cumscribed." Thomas concentrates Montgomery and Gene Stratton Por- of Ottawa Press, 1993. on themes, motifs, and on types of ter, Margaret Laurence and Willa fictional women, on evolving female Cather, and Laurence and Gabrielle figures from Canadian romantic fic- Roy). Thomas's reclaiming, through NEW WOMEN: SHORT tion of the nineteenth century to archaeological work on buried au- STORIES BY CANADIAN realism up to the end of the modern thors such as Evelyn Eaton, makes WOMEN 1900-1920

VOLUME 15, NUMBER 4 Sandra Campbell and Lorraine to more general historical themes. European immigrant groups. Sisters McMullen, E&. Ottawa: University There is little critical apparatus; the Edith Eaton (Sui Sin Far) (1867- of Ottawa Press, 1991. stated purpose of the project is to 19 14) and Winnifred Reeve (Onoto recover and contextualize short sto- Watanna) (1 877- 1954), whose by Miriam jones ries by women, many ofwhich until mother was Chinese and whose fa- now had not been republished since ther was English, are notable excep- their initial appearance in various tions in a singularly homogeneous "But events do not constitute the ephemeral literary magazines, long group. Pauline Johnson is the only whole of history; it is also written out of print. There are the expected Native Canadian represented in the in the lives of those who make it." figures in Canadian letters, though collection. That these latter three Annie Fowler Rothwell, some may not be known for short- women were successful is indicative "How It Looked At Home: A story story writing, such as Sara Jeannette of the shift that McMullen and of685"(1893). Duncan, E. Pauline Johnson, Isabella Campbell see at the turn of the cen- Valancy Crawford, and Susanna tury, from the idea of two cultures to I read these collections in the order Moodie, but there are also writers that of multiculturalism. Race is rep- that they were published, that is to who many readers will be encoun- resented with considerable ambigu- say, backwards; first I read the sto- tering for the first time. ity throughout the collections, rang- ries of the 'new womenn at the turn Most of these are commercial sto- ingfrom paternalism to displacement of the century, then the group from ries, originally published in maga- to activism. The European Canadian the jin-dc-si>c&, and finally the ear- zines and periodicals. The two largest writers frequently depict Native Ca- lier Victorian pieces. This double- groupings appeared in the Literary nadians with sympathy, yet their lan- process of regression, editorial and Garkznd(l838-185 l) and the Cana- guage is peppered perversely with readerly, could be said to reproduce dian Magazine at the turn of the terms like "squawn andUduskymaid." the dynamics of unearthing--or rec- century, both important venues for Edith Eaton writes explicitly about reating-the history of women's women writers. The earlier writers, the injustices faced by Chineseimmi- writing, both in this country and particularly, published broadly in grants, yet her sister Winnifred Reeve more generally. The project of his- British and American periodicals as felt obliged to adopt a Japanese pseu- torical reclamation is foregrounded Canadian journals did not pay well, if donym in order to shield herselffrom by editors Lorraine McMullen and they paid at all, but most of the texts the racism directed at Chinese-Cana- Sandra Campbell, and exemplified reproduced here were first published dians at the turn of the century. by the narrative of continuity cre- in Canada. Collectively, these texts Women writers in 19th-century ated by the titles of the three vol- can tell us a lot about what women Canada seem also for the most part to umes. The above quotation from were writing and reading, and about have shared similar class backgrounds. Rothwell's story about the North- who had access to ~ublishing,even Though many of them wrote profes- west Rebellion exemplifies a dynamic literacy. They evoke the movement sionally due to economic pressures, consistent throughout these texts: ofsettlers across the country: the first especially in the earlier period when that women writers have long taken volume presents writers based in women felt obliged to justify their the combined limitations of literary Upper and Lower Canada, and in the incursions into the public realm by genre, the marketplace, and gender, second and third volumes, there are evoking necessity, all but a few came and used them to validate a multi- voices fromacross the country, though from relatively privileged back- plicity of feminine interests and per- remains the best represented grounds, at least in terms oftheir class spectives. Often normative and heav- region. Less well represented is the positions and education if not their ily inflected by literary convention, diversity ofCanadian settlers, though financial situations. If working these texts frequently display ambi- given the parameters of their project, women were publishing, it does not guity about women's roles. this is not because ofany oversight on seem to have been in the literary Between them the collections the part of the editors: upon reading periodicals. Despite the ostensible present fifty-three stories by forty- these volumes it becomes clear that privilege of most of the writers repre- five writers, arranged chronologically until very recently access to commer- sented here, however, economic hard- from 1839 to 1919. Each of the vol- cial publishing in Canada was strictly ship is a constant theme in the bio- umes has a general introduction, as limited by class and ethnicity. Almost graphical notes, especially those of well as shorter introductions and bib- all the writers whose backgrounds are the Victorian writers whose career liographic references for the indi- indicated were either born in Britain options were more strictly limited. vidual writers. The introductory or descended from British immi- For example Isabella Valancy material gives a concise history of grants. Adeline M. Teskey (c. 1855- Crawford, whose literary reputation women's publishing in English in 1924), of Irish, English- and German is established today, never achieved Canada, and links the texts to femi- descent, is the only writer even par- financial stability or much recogni- nist issues, such as temperance, and tially descended from any ofthe other tion in her own lifetime.

CANADIAN WOMAN STUDlESlLES CAHIERS DE L4 FEMME In Pioneering Women, the editors (1882) and Agnes Maule Machar's uniform, however; as in the preced- trace the beginnings ofthe short story highly religious "Parted Ways" ing volumes, a number of the texts form. They discuss the sketch, which (1891). However, a paradigm shift engage with "the woman question" blurs the line between fiction and could be said to have occurred by the by affirming traditional gender roles. non-fiction and was used by writers end of the century. Many of these There are mixed messages about ca- to "imaginatively occupy the new later texts indicate that women were reer women in Alice Jones's "At the country." Even the more conven- aspiring beyond the domestic sphere: Harbour's Mouthn (1905): Julia, the tional fictive narratives, however, such Crawford's "Extradited" (1886), for heroine, has owned her own success- as those that use inherited themes example, presents a chilling portrait ful business in cosmopolitan Boston, and tropes from popular British fic- of an angel of the hearth, "hedged in but she returns to her native Nova tion such as the country-house ro- by the prim fence of routine knowl- Scotia "thin and peakedn from the mance, indicate a desire to negotiate edge." Ella S. Atkinson's comic "The strain and is only too happy to resume a subject position in what for many Widowed Stranger" (1897) subverts an earlier romance. In Kathleen "Kit" of the writers was a new country, the stereotype of the devout widow Coleman's "A Pair of Grey Gloves" even as these same texts were simul- by characterising her as a con-artist (1 903), the heroine cannot combine taneously presenting the Canadian who embezzles church funds. Other a career as a successful journalist with wilderness, and Native Peoples, as texts are less satiric and more sympa- a love affair. A number of the texts exotica for a readership that was fre- thetic to women trapped in impossi- more explicitly play out the contrast, quently British. The pieces present a ble lives. In Lily Dougall's "Thrift" sometimes the rivalry, between a do- vast divergence of experience, from (1895), the wifeofan alcoholic main- mestic woman and a "new" woman. sophisticated urban life in Montreal tains "I knew I'd be strong if it wasn't In Ethelwyn Wetherald's claustro- to harsh tales of the lives of immi- for the babies, and I knew, too, that phobic "Jealousy" (1 9 12) the wife of grants, and although they are gener- I'd do a kinder thing for each child I a university professor is made miser- ally restricted to the domestic realm, had, to strangle it at its birth than to able by her husband's friendship with within that space they frequentlyplay bring it on to know nothing and be an intellectual youngwoman. In Jean with the conventions of the romance nothing but a poor wretched thing Blewett's comic "The Experiences of plot or critique gender relations. In like [her husband]." The writers of a Woman Bachelor" (1905) the tra- Susanna Moodie's "A Walk to these texts were themselves partici- ditional and the career woman are Dummer" (1847), an alcoholic Cap- pants in the explosion of publishing close friends, but the latter is gently tain abandons his family to starva- at the turn of the century, and unlike domesticated by the end of the tale. tion. The narrator explicitly con- their predecessors they were frequently McMullen and Campbell have cludes that women should not put up journalists or combined other careers given us three valuable collections of with such ill-treatment, and thus flies with their fiction writing. By rewrit- short stories that are, for the most in the face of conventional messages ing the literary heroine, they simulta- part, unavailable elsewhere. The texts of feminine fortitude. Mary Agnes neously rewrote their own social role are usefully contextualizedwithin the Fleming's "My Folly" (1863) rewrites within Canadian culture. history ofwomen's commercial pub- the conventional romance: her hero- The editors characterize the first lishing in English in Canada, and the ine is pragmatically engaged to one decades of the 20th century as a pe- project marks a significant contribu- man, in love with another, and mar- riod of transition, both in terms of tion to the ongoing historical project ries neither. Alternately, other stories literary form as well as in women's ofreconstructing a tradition ofwom- present a more normative feminine lives. Until now it has been an under- en's writing. The stories themselves ideal, as in Eliza Lanesford Gushing's represented period in anthologies of complement and contradict each "Grace Morley: A sketch from lifen Canadian writing, and New Women other, tangible markers of the com- (1839) when the childlike heroine is seeks to address this absence. The plexities of seeking, and finding, a compared suggestively to a rosebud modern short story emerges in these voice. while her vain and impatient rival is texts. More than by technical innova- identified with "a half blown rose." tion, however, the stories in this last In Crawford's "A Rose in his Gracen volume are characterised by their en- (C.1880), published here for the first gagement with new roles for women, Correction: time, the purity of the long-suffering domestically and in the workplace. heroine redeems the hero by inspir- The final text, for example, J.G. A film review of Speaking Out ing him to abstain from drinking. Simes's "Munitions!" (191 9), is an Against Vioknce, which appeared in CWSIcfs issue "Women's Rights Aspiring Women also contains sto- engaging story about a former do- are Human Rights," was incor- ries on the traditional theme of mestic worker who experiences the rectly attributed to Susan Nosov. women bringingout the best in men, heady freedom of working in a fac- The author of the review is Nora such as Ethelwyn Wetherald's "How tory during wartime. This embrace of Currie. the Modern Eve Entered Eden" expandingpossibilities is by no means

VOLUME I S, NUMBER 4