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Blacks in Canada : a history / by Winks, Robin W.,author.; Clarke, George Elliott,writer of introduction.;
Includes bibliographical references and index.Blacks in Canada journeys from the introduction of slavery in 1628 to the first wave of Caribbean immigration in the 1950s and 1960s. Heralded in the Literary Review of Canada as one of the one hundred most important Canadian books, this enduring work by Yale University's Robin W. Winks offers a wealth of information for fresh interpretation. Now, fifty years from its original printing, this third edition includes a foreword by George Elliott Clarke, E.J. Pratt Professor of Canadian Literature at the University of Toronto. Clarke's contribution adds a necessary critical lens through which twenty-first-century readers should view Winks's research. The longevity of Blacks in Canada is due to an impressive array of primary and secondary materials that illuminate the experiences of Black immigrants to Canada. These experiences include the forced migration of enslaved Black people brought to Nova Scotia and the Canadas by Loyalists at the end of the American Revolution, Black refugees who fled to Nova Scotia following the War of 1812, Jamaican Maroons, and fugitive slaves who fled to British North America. The book also highlights Black West Coast businessmen who helped found British Columbia, particularly Victoria, and Black settlement in the prairie provinces. Crucially, Blacks in Canada investigates the French and English periods of slavery, the abolitionist movement in Canada, and the role played by Canadians in the broader continental antislavery crusade, as well as Canadian adaptations to nineteenth- and twentieth-century racial mores.
Subjects: Blacks; Blacks; Black Canadians; Black Canadians;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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A tale of two cities / by Dickens, Charles,1812-1870,author.; Maxwell, Richard,1948-2010,editor.;
Includes bibliographical references.Presents Dickens' classic tale of love, courage, and sacrifice set against the cataclysmic events of the French Revolution.
Subjects: War fiction.; Historical fiction.; Classics; Literary; French fiction; Executions and executioners; Fathers and daughters; French; Lookalikes;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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In the Upper Country / by Thomas, Kai,author.;
"Young Lensinda Martin is a protegee of a crusading Black journalist and activist in mid-18th century southwestern Ontario, finding a home in a community founded by veterans of the War of 1812 and refugees from the slave-owning states of the American south--whose agents do not always stay on their side of the border. One night, a neighbouring farmer summons Lensinda after a slave hunter is shot dead on his land by an old woman recently arrived via the Underground Railroad. When the old woman, whose name is Cash, refuses to flee before the authorities arrive, the farmer urges Lensinda to gather testimony from her before Cash is condemned. But Cash doesn't want to confess--instead she proposes a barter: A story for a story. And so begins an extraordinary exchange of life stories that reveal the interwoven history of Canada and the United States; of Indigenous peoples from a wide swath of what is called North America and the Black men and women brought here into slavery and their free descendents on both sides of the border. As Cash's time runs out, Lensinda realizes she knows far less than she believed, not only about the complicated tapestry of her people's ancestry, but also of her own family history. And it seems that Cash may carry a secret that could shape Lensinda's destiny. Moving from Virginia to Kentucky, from Montreal to Indigenous communities on the shores of the Great Lakes and Black communties in southern Ontario and a fictionalized version of Owen Sound, these two women's life stories weave together love, tragedy, and survival, to map their own unexpected interconnections onto the history of North America in an entirely new and resonant way."--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Novels.; Slavery;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Thunderer / by Stockwin, Julian,author.;
1812. Arriving back in England after his successes in the Adriatic, Captain Sir Thomas Kydd is showered with honours. Despite Kydd's protests that he's happy with his present command, he's given a bigger ship--HMS Thunderer, a 74-gun ship of the line. But she's old, and is part of a standing fleet. Kydd's chances of further fame and distinction are slim indeed. Winning over his new command is fraught with challenges. A hostile crew, abysmal levels of gunnery and sail-handling capabilities are intolerable to a fighting captain like Kydd. With the ship short of men and no incentives to attract more, can he ever bring Thunderer to a proper state of fighting preparedness? Worse, Kydd is sent to reinforce the Baltic squadron as Bonaparte's vast army invades Russia. News reaches him of French victory at the Battle of Borodino. The road to Moscow is now open. To avert total French victory, Kydd must lead a vital convoy through battle and tempest to the aid of Britain's last ally.
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Sea fiction.; War fiction.; Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, 1769-1821; Battleships; Kydd, Thomas (Fictitious character); Seafaring life;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Sharpe's command : Richard Sharpe and the Bridge at Almaraz, May 1812 / by Cornwell, Bernard,author.;
If any man can do the impossible it's Richard Sharpe ... And the impossible is exactly what the formidable Captain Sharpe is asked to do when he's sent on an undercover mission to a small village in the Spanish countryside, far behind enemy lines. For the quiet, remote village, sitting high above the Almaraz bridge, is about to become the centre of a battle for the future of Europe. Two French armies march towards the bridge, one from the North and one from the South. If they meet, the British are lost. Only Sharpe's small group of men -- with their cunning and courage to rely on -- stand in their way. But they're rapidly outnumbered, enemies are hiding in plain sight, and as the French edge ever closer to the frontline, time is running out.
Subjects: Historical fiction.; War fiction.; Novels.; Sharpe, Richard (Fictitious character); Napoleonic Wars, 1800-1815; Soldiers;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 2
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Yankee mission / by Stockwin, Julian,author.;
"1812. Off the coast of Brazil, HMS Java, a proud British 38-gun frigate, is captured in battle by the American USS Constitution--signaling across the world's oceans a challenge to Britain's naval premiership that cannot be ignored. Back in EnglandCaptainSir Thomas Kydd is enjoying a moment of normal life with his wife and his newborn son. With his Thunderer in dock receiving some well-earned repairs he is, momentarily, without a command. It's a position the Admiralty does not leave him in for long, and he is soon given a mission: engage the young republic in a fair fight, frigate against frigate, and restore the Navy's reputation. And they have just the ship and crew for him ... Tyger. But on reaching the US east coast, Kydd and his trusted Tygers realise that the hardest part of their mission will be drawing out one of the Yankee men-o'-war to engage in battle--especially once the Americans get wind of his purpose. It's a tall order, requiring every ounce of the crew's guile and persistence-and when fortune turns against them, Kydd finds not only his career, but his life, hanging in the balance."--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Sea fiction.; Novels.; Constitution (Frigate); Java (Frigate); Battleships; Great Britain; Kydd, Thomas (Fictitious character); Seafaring life;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The Dickens boy : a novel / by Keneally, Thomas,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."In the late 1800s, rather than run the risk of his under-achieving sons tarnishing his reputation at home, Charles Dickens sent two of them to Australia. The tenth child of Charles Dickens, Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens, known as Plorn, had consistently proved unable 'to apply himself ' to school or life. So aged sixteen, he is sent, as his brother Alfred was before him, to Australia. Plorn arrives in Melbourne in late 1868 carrying a terrible secret. He has never read a word of his father's work. He is sent out to a 2000-square-mile station in remotest New South Wales to learn to become a man, and a gentleman stockman, from the most diverse and toughest of companions. In the outback he becomes enmeshed with Paakantji, colonists, colonial-born, ex-convicts, ex-soldiers, and very few women. Plorn, unexpectedly, encounters the same veneration of his father and familiarity with Dickens' work in Australia as was rampant in England. Against this backdrop, and featuring cricket tournaments, horse-racing, bushrangers, sheep droving, shifty stock and station agents, frontier wars and first encounters with Australian women, Plorn meets extraordinary people and enjoys wonderful adventures as he works to prove himself. This is Tom Keneally in his most familiar terrain. Taking historical figures and events and reimagining them with verve, compassion and humour. It is a triumph."--Publisher's website.
Subjects: Bildungsromans.; Biographical fiction.; Historical fiction.; Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870; Country life; Families; Immigrants; Secrecy;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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