New notes explain the historical context behind this collection of highly readable stories about Quebec during the years following 1763, when Britain took possession of French Canada after defeating France in the Seven Years War ...

An introduction and notes by Jen Rubio provide key historical context to this collection of short stories exploring Quebec's political, military, and social past, as well as its troubled relationship with English-speaking Canada (then Upper Canada) in the years following the British defeat of France in 1763. While Parker's depiction of French-Canadian social mores is exaggerated and sometimes less than historically accurate-the stories were published originally in mass circulation magazines in the United States and Britain-the stories are well-written and show a little-known side of Canadian literary history. Parker's work is very much in the fin-de-siecle Gothic tradition, in the genre of Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) and Henry James' The Turn of the Screw (1898). Indeed, the stories are at times downright weird, with dark intrigue, degenerate hearts, tortured souls, and desperate violence. Modern critics have wrestled with them, attempted to dismiss them, but they still remain a curious, haunting moment in Canada's literary canon.