Ronsdale Press » New Releases

Marvellous Repossessions: The Tempest, Globalization and the Waking Dream of Paradise

ronsdale — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 19:46:07 +0000

Marvellous Repossessions

The Tempest, Globalization and the Waking Dream of Paradise

by Jonathan Gil Harris

$10.95

January 2012
ISBN 978-1-55380-141-2
ebook ISBN 978-1-55380-150-4
5 1/2″ x 9″ Trade Paperback, 56 pages
Literary Criticism
6 maps and photos

For many years now theatre directors have argued about how to present Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Originally, the play was seen as Prospero’s use of magic to reclaim his European heritage against corrupt usurpers. More recently, the play has been produced as a protest against the ongoing colonialism in the new world. In his 2011 Garnett Sedgewick Lecture at the University of BC, Professor Harris explores the play and its historical background to show how it is driven by a waking dream in which progress towards a glorious future shades into recovery of a lost past. Drawing on the logbook of Christopher Columbus in his voyage of discovery, Harris reminds us how Columbus believed that he was travelling to the East and that he had approached the original Garden of Eden. Moreover, the gold that was to be found in the supposed East would be used to create the prosperity of the West. In his examination of contemporary anti-colonialist productions of The Tempest, Harris shows how there remains a move backwards to an original paradise — in fact replicating the movement within The Tempest itself.

Freedom Bound

ronsdale — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 19:27:36 +0000

Freedom Bound

by Jean Rae Baxter

$11.95

Available February 2012
ISBN 978-1-55380-143-6
ebook ISBN 978-1-55380-153-5
5 1/4″ x 7 5/8″ Trade Paperback, 256 pages
YA Novel

In this, the final instalment of Jean Rae Baxter’s best-selling young adult trilogy, eighteen-year-old Charlotte sails from Canada to Charleston in the beleaguered Thirteen Colonies to join her new husband Nick. During these final months of the American Revolution, she must muster all her wit and courage when she has to rescue Nick from being tortured as a spy in an alligator-infested South Carolina swamp. She must also find ways to bring freedom to a pair of teenage runaway slaves she has befriended. Freedom Bound delivers a frank and realistic picture of the slave system and a powerful account of what was at stake for both white and black Loyalists as they prepared to find a new home in the country that was soon to be Canada. Like The Way Lies North and Broken Trail, the two novels that preceded it, Freedom Bound contains a wealth of carefully researched historical details of one of the least known chapters of our history.

Other Ronsdale books by Jean Rae Baxter:

No Ordinary Place

ronsdale — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 19:08:22 +0000

No Ordinary Place

by Pamela Porter

$15.95

Available February 2012
ISBN 978-1-55380-151-1
ebook ISBN 978-1-55380-122-1
6″ x 9″ Trade Paperback, 106 pages
Poetry

Pamela Porter’s poems celebrate a world awaiting discovery. She opens this new collection with a poem entitled “An Offering” in which she brings to the ceremony “poems / for every season — of dreams born, / burning, broken” and, in particular, one that “begins like a perilous grace” to develop as “naked and tender and wanting.” Throughout, one hears and sees images that connect both the poet and reader to other dimensions. Always for Porter, there is the moment tentatively coming into being where the mundane is transformed into something totally unexpected and otherworldly. The image can be one that develops from the natural world as in “Branches, Early Spring,” where she sees how “the trees’ red sap set the sky on fire.” Another poem based in nature is “Naming” in which “small birds life into the sky / holding in their beaks / the words we don’t need to say.” Throughout, Porter’s poems celebrate moments when we experience “the beginning of the world again.”

“Porter’s poems are direct, clear, narrative in intent, yet embedded with dazzling imagery that brings scenes fully alive.” — Canadian Bookseller

Other Ronsdale books by Pamela Porter:

Cathedral

Barclay Family Theatre, The

ronsdale — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 18:47:10 +0000

The Barclay Family Theatre

by Jack Hodgins

$18.95

Available February 2012
ISBN 978-1-55380-144-3
ebook ISBN 978-1-55380-142-9
6″ x 9″ Trade Paperback, 272 pages
Novel

With The Barclay Family Theatre, his second collection of short stories, Jack Hodgins introduces us to a cast of characters who transform the everyday world of Vancouver Island into a wondrous world of human warmth and comic energy. There is Barclay Desmond, caught between the ambitions of his mother, who wants him to become a concert pianist, and his father who wants him to follow in his steps as a logger. There is Mr. Pernouski, a real estate agent and the fattest man to ride a B.C. ferry, who believes he can offer his clients their heart’s desire. Hodgins also takes us abroad to Ireland and Japan to watch as his people attempt to reinvent themselves in new theatres of action. Through it all, Hodgins depicts his people struggling to centre themselves as their world rocks them into new and unforeseen directions.

“It’s unforgettable. . . . The Barclay Family Theatre leaves the reader with the magic and wholeness of extraordinary moments.”
— Windsor Star

“In The Barclay Family Theatre we are reading the work of a major novelist at the height of his powers and fully in control of his material. . . . It’s virtuoso writing.”
— Keith Maillard, Quill & Quire

“Together these characters form a world full of diversity, illustrating the various facets of the tragicomedy of human life. We remember them as we remember the pilgrims of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales: as actors stepping forward and temporarily holding the whole stage to themselves.”
— Jeanne Delbaere, Recherches anglaises et americaines

Other Ronsdale books by Jack Hodgins:

Our Friend Joe: The Joe Fortes Story

ronsdale — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 22:14:36 +0000

Our Friend Joe

The Joe Fortes Story

by Lisa Anne Smith & Barbara Rogers

$21.95

Available February 2012
ISBN 978-1-55380-146-7
ebook ISBN 978-1-55380-142-9
6″ x 9″ Trade Paperback, 170 pages
30 b&w photos
Biography

When a young black man named Seraphim “Joe” Fortes arrived in Vancouver in 1885, with little to his name, no one could have possibly suspected that one hundred years later he would be voted “Citizen of the Century.” Our Friend Joe is the first biography of the West Indian sailor who became a local legend, saving dozens of lives and teaching three generations of Vancouver children how to swim. On a chance rowboat ride not far from the city, he would find his “perfect place” in English Bay, where the untold story truly begins. In 1900, after years of volunteering, Joe was officially hired by the City as lifeguard, swimming instructor and special constable of English Bay beach. Colourful, often poignant details chronicle Joe’s many adventures both on and off shore, his genuine rapport with citizens of all ages and his deeply personal relationship with one Vancouver family. On February 7, 1922, thousands of mourners lined Vancouver’s streets to bid farewell to “our friend Joe.” His legacy continues today, with one of Vancouver’s libraries named after him. Part of the proceeds from this biography are being donated to the Lifesaving Society/Société du Sauvetage, Canada’s national organization for lifeguarding and water safety expertise.

Charlie: A Home Child’s Life in Canada

ronsdale — Mon, 16 May 2011 23:28:10 +0000

Charlie

A Home Child’s Life in Canada

by Beryl Young

$12.95

February 2012
ISBN 978-1-55380-140-5
ebook ISBN 978-1-55380-149-8
8″ x 8″ Trade paperback, 112 pages
60 sepia photos
Young Adult Non-fiction / Crossover Adult

Paperback edition now available!

The story of the 100,000 British children who came to Canada as child immigrants between 1870 and 1938 is not well known. Yet the descendants of these “Home Children” number over four million people in Canada today. The author is one of them. Charlie was her father.

Charlie is a compelling account of an English boy who is sent to an orphanage following the death of his father because his heartbroken mother is too poor to feed her children. Separated from his family, Charlie works his way out of poverty to eventually become a high-ranking member of the RCMP. Charlie’s story, like many others, is an inspiring part of our Canadian heritage, and will fascinate adults as well as children.

Other Ronsdale books by Beryl Young:

Follow the Elephant

REVIEWS & AWARDS

“Beryl Young’s story of her father fills a very necessary gap in Canadian history. That she does so in such an interesting and thoughtful way is a tribute to her skill as a writer. . . It is enjoyable for personal reading and as an interesting biography, as well as in classrooms as an excellent source of background material. Highly recommended.” — CM Magazine

“A warm, candid look back at the life of a man who struggled to secure a place for himself in the new world. Along with the author’s gentle and fluid narrative, the tome is seasoned with a smattering of sepia photographs of days gone by.” — The Chronicle-Herald, Halifax

*Finalist: 2010–11 Ontario Library Association Red Maple Non-fiction Award

*Finalist: 2011–12 Red Cedar Book Award

*Starred selection: Canadian Children’s Book Centre BEST BOOKS for 2010

*Finalist: Chocolate Lily Award (B.C.) 2010–11

*Finalist: Hackmatack Award (Atlantic Canada) 2010–11

*Runner-up for the National Chapter of Canada IODE Violet Downey Book Award, 2010

*Long-listed for the Canadian Literature Roundtable Information Book of 2010

Private Journal of Captain G.H. Richards, The: The Vancouver Island Survey (1860–1862)

ronsdale — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 21:37:32 +0000

The Private Journal of Captain G.H. Richards

The Vancouver Island Survey (1860–1862)

edited by Linda Dorricott & Deidre Cullon

$24.95

Available February 2012
ISBN 978-1-55380-127-6
ebook ISBN 978-1-55380-133-7
6″ x 9″ Trade Paperback, 272 pages
15 colour and 23 b&w photos and maps
Regional History / Memoir

Captain Richards’ journal is an account of three survey seasons on Vancouver Island aboard two British Navy ships, the HMS Plumper and the HMS Hecate. Between 1860 and 1862 Richards and his dedicated crew surveyed and charted the entire coastline of Vancouver Island, creating baseline information for the nautical charts we use today.

This monumental task, faithfully and often humorously recorded, also includes a lively description of California on the eve of the American Civil War as Richards sits in dry dock following the near wreck of the Hecate. Part of the private collection of a direct descendant of Captain Richards, the journal is a little known and untapped resource.

Extensively annotated and supplemented with excerpts from the journals of Second Master John Gowlland, the journal provides a unique and personal view of the aboriginal, colonial, nautical and natural history of Vancouver Island. Richards is revealed as a man of immense energy and diplomacy; the descriptions of the First Nations he encounters are remarkably unbiased for the time and his keen observations are a portal into the social and political life of Vancouver Island during these formative years of the colony.

The journal will appeal to historians, anthropologists, sailors, meteorologists and the general reading public alike.

Opening Act, The: Canadian Theatre History 1945–1953

ronsdale — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 20:23:26 +0000

The Opening Act

Canadian Theatre History 1945–1953

by Susan McNicoll

$24.95

Available February 2012
ISBN 978-1-55380-113-9
ebook ISBN 978-1-55380-122-1
7-1/2″ x 10″ Trade Paperback, 280 pages
30 b&w photos
Canadian Theatre History

The conventional opinion is that professional Canadian theatre began in 1953 with the founding of the Stratford Festival. But Susan McNicoll asks how this could be, when the majority of those taking the stage at Stratford were professional Canadian actors. To answer this question, McNicoll delves into the period to show how in fact the unbroken chain of Canadian professional theatre began just after World War Two, when a host of theatre people decided that Canada needed its own professional theatre groups.

Drawing on personal interviews with many of the actors and directors active in the period after the war, McNicoll explores the role of such companies as Everyman in Vancouver, New Play Society in Toronto, Canadian Repertory Theatre in Ottawa, Théâtre du Nouveau Monde in Montreal, and many more. In 1953 the Stratford Shakespeare Festival ultimately showed the world that Canada was ready for centre stage, but the real birth of professional theatre happened in the years leading up to that moment.

The volume includes over 30 photos of scenes from plays of the time and selections from McNicoll’s interviews with such luminaries as Christopher Plummer, Joy Coghill, Amelia Hall and Herbert Wittaker.

“This is a delightful trip through a time when English Canada’s theatre scene mercifully turned ‘pro’ and brought all us eager young hopeful thespians some dignity and recognition on our own home ground.”
— Christopher Plummer