This is a collection of the published and previously unpublished short stories by Thomas Murtha, a Canadian writer born and raised in Ontario. Murtha was one of the notable experimental writers of the 1920s, but his work has been largely ignored by literary historians. Thomas Murtha was a classmate and colleague of other notable Canadians including former prime minister Paul Martin, Morley Callaghan, and Raymond Knister. Callaghan, Murtha, and Knister greatly influenced each others' work. Complete with a biographical introduction from Murtha's son, William, this collection provides insight into the work and life of one of Canada's most talented writers.

First-wave feminist, activist, and social reformer, Nellie McClung ranked as one of the most popular Canadian authors and among the liveliest critics of Canada's male-dominated society. Well ahead of her time, McClung was known as a writer who dared to discuss taboo topics, and for her inimitable humour, which rivals that of Stephen Leacock. This selection of her best short fiction includes depictions of difficult rural living conditions in Western Canada as well as "consciousness-raising" stories reflecting the undue restrictions on women and the anti-female laws and attitudes of her day.

The Quebec Anthology: 1830-1990 provides a complete overview of the Quebec short story from its beginnings to the 1990s and offers a unique opportunity for English readers to discover the essence of this fascinating literature. In addition, a detailed biography of each author and an assessment of each story's place in the larger canvas of Quebec literature are included.

Susanna Moodie is, of course, best known for her books Roughing It in the Bush and Life in the Clearings, which are largely comprised of short sketches that she had previously published. What is not widely known, however, is that Moodie had a long and prolific literary career in which short sketches and tales were among her favoured genres. This book offers a selection of these narratives, most of which have been unavailable in print since the 19th century. This collection will give the reader a new understanding of Susanna Moodie's work. Published in French.

Short stories are usually defined in terms of characteristics of modernism, in which the story begins in the middle, develops according to a truncated plot, and ends with an epiphany. This approach tends to ignore postmodernism, a movement often characterized by a negation of objective reality where plots are seemingly abandoned, surfaces are extraordinary, and symbols turn inward on themselves. This book examines postmodern forms and characteristic themes by analyzing a group of short stories that make use of postmodern narrative strategies, including nonfictional fiction, gender profiling, and death as an image. The volume begins with a discussion of the blurred lines between fiction and nonfiction in the short story and imaginative personal essay. It then looks at the role of women in works by such authors as Sandra Cisneros, Leslie Marmon Silko, Joyce Carol Oates, and Lorrie Moore. This is followed by a section of chapters on postmodern masculinity and short fiction. The next section focuses on death as an image and theme in works by Richard Ford, Richard Brautigan, and James Joyce. The final set of chapters considers postmodern short fiction from South Africa and Canada.

Most critics and literary historians have ignored Marxist-inspired creative literature in Canada, or dismissed it as an ephemeral phenomenon of the 1930s. Research reveals, however, that from the 1920s onward Canadian creative writers influenced by Marxist ideas have produced a quantitatively substantial and artistically significant body of poetry, drama, fiction, and non-fiction. This book traces historically and evaluates critically this tradition, with particular emphasis on writers who were associated with, or sympathetic to, the Communist Party of Canada. After two chapters surveying the work of anti-capitalist writers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the book concentrates on the development of Marxist-inspired writing from the 1920s to the end of the twentieth century. Besides devoting attention to both social and theoretical backgrounds, this study provides critical commentary on work by prominent writers who spent part of their literary careers as Communist Party members, including Dorothy Livesay, Patrick Anderson, Milton Acorn, and George Ryga, as well as less well known but more fervent Communists such as Margaret Fairley, Dyson Carter, Joe Wallace, Stanley Ryerson, and Jean-Jules Richard. Although primarily concerned with the older generation of Marxists who flourished between the 1920s and the 1970s, the book also includes a chapter on the post-1970s “New Left.”