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In
1947, Macmillan Canada introduced a "shining new talent to the world of
letters" with the publication of Who Has Seen the Wind. With his
unique blend of poetry and humour, Mitchell created an unforgettable account
of a young boy growing up on the Saskatchewan prairie. But it is more than
this: it is the ageless story of childhood told with tenderness and humour
and without sentimentality; it is the picture of a small town anywhere,
drawn with realism and understanding and without malice. Canadian and American
reviewers gave high praise to Mitchell's first novel. Robertson Davies
described it as "the best novel about life in Canada that has come my way in
a long time." Other reviewers enthused, "nothing like this book...has ever
before come from a Canadian pen," it contains "some of the most exquisite
descriptive writing" yet seen, and "Brian O'Connal is destined to join the
boy immortals of American literature." This 1997 edition commemorates the
novel and its author. It also includes, in an appended essay, the intriguing
story of Mitchell's struggle with his American editors to retain many key
elements of his book. W.O. Mitchell's daughter-in-law, Barbara Mitchell,
discovered in 1988 that Macmillan's original edition of Who Has Seen the
Wind had been forgotten, and that all subsequent editions up to 1991
were based on the shorter American edition. Here is the fully restored
classic in its entirety, featuring the author's preferred text.
“One of the finest
Canadian novels ever written,” a work of "complete naturalism of presentation
coupled with the insight of an uninhibited imagination" (William Arthur
Deacon, Globe and Mail).
“Mitchell…has so thoroughly captured the feeling of Canada and the Canadian
people that we feel repeated shock of recognition as we read” (Robertson
Davies).
To purchase this book email womitchell@womitchell.ca
Since its publication in 1947, Who Has Seen the
Wind has established itself in the hearts and minds of millions as a
Canadian classic. The reasons for the book’s classic status are not hard to
find. As readers enter the world of four-year-old Brian O’Connal and his family
and friends, they find characters that radiate life so convincingly that the
book has a life of its own. No ordinary simple novel, it is the ageless story of
childhood told with tenderness and humour and without sentimentality, and the
picture of a small town anywhere, drawn with realism and understanding.
This handsome edition marries W.O. Mitchell’s prose with the inspired
illustrations of one of Canada’s finest and most popular artists, the late
William Kurelek. The 8 full-colour paintings he produced, like the 32
black-and-white sketches that adorn the first page of every chapter, all come
specifically from the text, and are illustrations in the very best sense. This
edition is a collector's piece, a beautiful book that is also a joy to read,
again and again.
To purchase this book email womitchell@womitchell.ca
Jake and his friend, the Kid, on their Saskatchewan farm are part of our history. By way of the pages of Maclean’s, through episode after episode on CBC Radio and later on TV, the lively boy and his cranky old yarn-spinning hero have found their way into the hearts of millions of Canadians. Margaret Laurence wrote about the impact on her: “These stories were among the first that many of us who lived on the prairies had ever read concerning our own people, and our own place and our own time. When grain elevators, gophers, or the sloughs and bluffs of the ‘bald-headed prairie’ were mentioned, there was a certain thrill of recognition....l–that’s us; he writing about us.” Laughter and tears, a Christmas Eve blizzard, a lost puppy, and “The Day Jake Made Her Rain” are all to be found in these tales of Crocus, Saskatchewan, along with as richly eccentric a cast of small-town characters as you will meet in a month of Prairie Sundays. Winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour.
“There is a deceptive
simplicity about W.O. Mitchell’s writing that is actually extreme sophistication
and touches the hem
of genius. He is devoid of cliché, his narrative is as smooth as corn syrup, his
plot is rarely predictable, while his talent for inventing situations fraught
with humour seems limitless” (Joan Walker, Globe and Mail).
To purchase this book email womitchell@womitchell.ca
In 1953 W.O. Mitchell spent a year as teacher on the Eden Valley Stoney reserve 75 miles southwest of Calgary, an experience that lies at the heart of The Vanishing Point. He worked for many years on this book, polishing what was to be a complexly serious, and controversial, novel about white-native relations. Carlyle Sinclair is a white teacher in a one-room school on the Paradise Valley Reserve. For nine years he has worked hard with the Stoneys to help them cope with the impact of white civilization. Frustrated by white bureaucracy and native indifference, he has pinned his hopes on his star pupil Victoria, the first Stoney to matriculate and enter the nursing program in the city. When Victoria goes missing--alone on the city streets? holed up in the mountains?--Carlyle begins a frantic search that takes him into his own past. As we follow Carlyle's outer and inner journeys, we encounter a fine range of Mitchell characters--the unforgettable Archie Nicotine, the dying Esau Rider, the Methodist Stoney preacher Ezra Powderface, Carlyle's prim Aunt Pearl, his fierce teacher Old Kacky, and the flamboyant faith-healer, the Reverend Heally Richards. And, like Carlyle, we come to appreciate both of his worlds.
“Mitchell’s honesty and compassion make
The Vanishing Point a superb book about Indians, and a painful exploration
of the desert areas in the white Canadian soul.” (Saturday Night)
“Full of the masterly and elliptical Mitchell humour.” (Quill & Quire)
To purchase this book email womitchell@womitchell.ca
This is a novel of small-town life. The town where roses are difficult is Shelby, in the Alberta foothills, and the time is the 1950s. Matt Stanley, the editor of the local paper, relishes the range of people he meets, from Willie MacCrimmon, the local shoemaker and demon curler, to the oldest resident, Daddy Sherry, all the way to the disreputable Rory Napoleon and his wife, Mame, who once conceived at the top of a ferris wheel “because there was nothing else to do.” But when a sociologist arrives to study the town, Matt takes her under his wing, which produces unexpected results. From scenes of high comedy (as when Santa comes to Shelby, or when Rory Napoleon’s goats invade the town) to gentle sadness, this 1990 novel shows W.O Mitchell at his traditional best.
“This is a helluva book” (Globe and
Mail).
"With Roses Are Difficult Here, [Mitchell] again displays the
entertaining and insightful prose that has earned him two Stephen Leacock awards
(The Toronto Star).
“Mitchell’s newest novel is a classic, capturing the richness of the small town,
and delving into moments that really count in the lives of its people” (Windsor
Star).
“Vintage Mitchell” (London Free Press).
To purchase this book email womitchell@womitchell.ca
Colin Dobbs, a salty-tongued professor, is
recovering in a hospital bed. In a review of his past, we learn about the
grizzly hunt that went wrong and how his life has changed since the incident
at Daisy Creek. But the really central issues of his life emerge as Dobbs is
prodded back to health by his estranged daughter. Gradually, as he learns to
face the world again, we come to see the deep
disappointments that led him on his strange quest up Daisy Creek, where Archie
Nicotine saved his life.
“Since Daisy Creek is everything we have come to expect of W.O. Mitchell; it is an irreverent, touching, life-affirming novel” (W. P. Kinsella, Books in Canada).
"Yet another
demonstration of Mitchell's priceless, irreverent humour, which briskly skewers
pretensions in lively dialogue (Quill & Quire).
“W.O. Mitchell’s satirical gifts are as sharp as ever in Since Daisy Creek,
his homespun characters fully felt – and life-affirming in their attempts to
‘keep on trying to say yes to humans’ because ‘they’re the only game in town’” (Victoria
Times Colonist).
"a rich, complex novel
which shows Mitchell, at seventy, at the height of his artistic powers
(Catherine McLay).
To purchase this book email womitchell@womitchell.ca
At last, a book about curling, the noble sport that every winter turns otherwise sane Canadian men and women into broom-waving fanatics. When Wullie MacCrimmon, a shoemaker in the 1930s foothills town of Shelby, muses aloud that he would give anything to skip his curling team in the MacDonald Brier, the Devil (a travelling salesman who deals in “wholesale souls and retail sin) suddenly appears and makes him an offer. Wullie makes a counter offer, and one of the greatest matches in curling history is on—the “Black Bonspiel.” When the Devil appears with his curling team--Guy Fawkes (lead), Judas Iscariot (second), and Macbeth (third)--Wullie and his team are in for one hell of a match. Illustrated with ten full-page wood engravings by Wesley Bates.
"Illustrated with charmingly detailed black-and-white engravings, this odd tale...bristles with puckish humor" (Publishers Weekly).
To purchase this book email womitchell@womitchell.ca
When Arthur Ireland loses his teaching position in the Fine Arts Department of Livingstone University, he turns his ranch into a haven for other artists. Charlie, a sculptor, Darryl, a poet, and Win, an actor, are all down-and-out “victims of a materialistic, commercial, money-motivated society.” Ireland develops a plan to get revenge on the Dean who fired him, and to "liberate" the art hidden away by private owners that should really be on view in public galleries. They will steal targeted paintings from private collections, stash them at his art colony, wait for the insurance pay-back option to expire, then drop them off in Europe to be rediscovered and put on the block at auction. Ireland assures his co-thieves that the moral point of these heists would then be achieved, for the art would assuredly be purchased by public art galleries throughout the world. Will their Robin Hood caper (based on an actual art heist of Albrecht Durer prints from the University of Calgary Art Gallery) succeed? Or have they underestimated the police, especially Constable Kate Tait? Read on, and enjoy tragedy and comedy, wisdom and farce (you won't foget the hot-air balloon race), thrown together in the usual Mitchell mixture.
To purchase this book email womitchell@womitchell.ca
If you ever saw one of W.O. Mitchell's public readings you will know why they were described as unforgettable. Unruly white hair flying, fist raised, voice husky or thundering, eyes wide in innocent astonishment at a double entendre raising a laugh, W.O. Mitchell did not give readings from his work; he performed them. In contrast to the lonely life of the writer, he loved "the immediate thrust of a live audience as it responds to story magic," and the audiences loved him, laughing until they were sore. This wonderful selection of 31 pieces shows his writing at its best, while the in-performance photographs catch some of the charm of the man whose own character was perhaps his finest creation. Some pieces come from his novels, such as Who Has Seen the Wind and The Vanishing Point. We also hear the distinctive voices of both Jake and the Kid. "Melvin Arbuckle's First Course in Shock Therapy" is here, as are "The Day I Sold Lingerie in a Prairie Whore House" and the sad tale of "Santa Comes to Shelby." Old favourites are mixed with many new pieces, some never before published in book form, such as "Stopping Smoking" and "The Day I Caught Syphilis" (at the age of twelve). There are also serious pieces on censorship, and, finally, his inspiring 1996 speech in Winnipeg to the Writers' Union of Canada that moved his audience to tears. This book is a worthy tribute to a wonderful man.
“A welcome addition to the already
outstanding body of work from one of this country’s best writers” (Winnipeg Free Press).
“The book serves wonderfully well as an anthology of his most representative
writing” (Globe and Mail).
To purchase this book email womitchell@womitchell.ca
"When W.O. Mitchell died
in February 1998, government buildings across Canada flew their flags at
half-mast for a man celebrated and mourned as the nation's best-loved writer. It
was not just the remarkable body of work that was remembered, it was also the
man himself. He was loquacious, generous, humorous, and courageous.
He was known as an inspiring teacher of creative writing, as the author of the
comic and touching Jake and the Kid stories, as a talented performer of his
own work, and as the creator of a dozen novels including the Canadian classic,
Who Has Seen the Wind. In all his work, W.O. Mitchell evoked themes and
images that have become part of Canada's common iconography. He wrote
brilliantly of the alternating harshness and sweetness of life on the prairie,
and of the dark undercurrents that stirred beneath the proper veneer of
small-town life. Perhaps most memorably, he portrayed with uncanny precision a
child's view of the world around him. In this volume, Barbara and Ormond
Mitchell--W.O. 's daughter-in-law and oldest son--describe the writer's early
years, from his childhood in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, through his adventures in
the Great Depression, to his settling in High River, Alberta. The book concludes
on a triumphant note, with W.O. 's first great literary success, the publication
in 1947 of Who Has Seen the Wind.
“I predict a good life for this biography. If you read enough of those unforgiving memoirs by children of dysfunctional families, you might yearn for a literary biography filled with love” (Globe and Mail).
“A delicate tapestry of Mitchell’s life as a writer and an individual” (Winnipeg Free Press).
“Orm and Barbara Mitchell have succeeded in producing an exemplary model of a biography which appeals to both the general reader and the literary scholar” (University of Toronto Quarterly).
“Intelligent, lucid, and very readable – it’s a great tribute to one of the deservedly Beloveds” (National Post).
“For fans of W.O. Mitchell, this one’s required reading” (Calgary Herald).
To purchase this book email womitchell@womitchell.ca
For the millions who remember him with head-shaking affection, this is a fine biography of Canada’s wildest — and best-loved — literary figure. After the publication of Who Has Seen the Wind in 1947, W.O. Mitchell was a national figure, living his life in the limelight and loving it. He knew everyone: He worked alongside Pierre Berton at Maclean’s; mentored Ernest Buckler, Farley Mowat, Hugh Garner, and Frances Itani; taught alongside Alistair MacLeod at the University of Windsor and at the Banff Centre; and Brian Mulroney made him an honorary member of the Privy Council. His life as an inspiring teacher, playwright, writer for radio and TV (Jake and the Kid), and author of many bestsellers, including How I Spent My Summer Holidays, is fully detailed here — along with accounts of his unforgettable dramatic exploits, both on- and offstage. An inspiration to generations of Western writers, he was an unforgettable figure, whose life was perhaps his greatest achievement. This book reminds us of what we have lost, and why Peter Gzowski once wrote that when he grew up he wanted to be W.O. Mitchell. This unique biography will teach you about an amazingly rich life. It will also make you laugh and, in the end, may make you cry. A remarkable biography of a remarkable man.
"A book so engaging and sprawling with life that I read it all in a two-day binge" (David Carpenter, (Globe and Mail).
"Candid and lively….the book succeeds on both academic and popular grounds" (Stewart Brown, (The Hamilton Spectator).
"The first virtue of this excellent biography is that it gives us the writer as well as the person in all of his complexity and contradictions" (Neil Besner, Winnipeg Free Press).
"Thoughtful and tender of heart" (Bill Richardson, The National Post).
To purchase this book email womitchell@womitchell.ca
When W.O. Mitchell died in February 1998, Canadians all across the country mourned the death of a much-loved writer. But it was in the West that his loss was felt most keenly. For he was one of them, a Westerner, a man who had grown up in Weyburn, gone to University in Winnipeg and then spent most of his life in High River and in Calgary. His writing – in Who Has Seen The Wind, Jake and the Kid, The Vanishing Point, How I Spent My Summer Holidays, and many other books – brought their part of the world alive on the page, so that millions of readers seemed to breathe fresh Western air as they turned the pages of his works. His family – represented by his son Orm and daughter-in-law Barbara – were pleased by the idea of an illustrated book that would show W.O. Mitchell country, provided that it included prairie and foothills and mountains. This book carefully gives full weight to both parts of what we affectionately call W.O. Mitchell country. And from the outset the Mitchells knew that the excerpts of W.O.’s landscape writing that they would select deserved to be matched by superb photographs produced by an artist of equal skill and sensitivity. Enter Courtney Milne, the justly famed photographer of landscapes around the world but especially of his beloved prairies. Prairie boy and long-time admirer of W.O.’s work, he jumped at the chance to produce this book. With the help of the Mitchell family he tracked down sites that W.O. had known and written about. In addition he combed through his vast treasure store of photographs, to try to find the single image that perfectly matched a chosen piece of W.O.’s prose. In the end, from over 18,000 photographs – over 18,000! – he and the group assembling this book chose the best 200, none of them published before. The result is a magical blend of text and pictures that is greater than the sum of its parts. This classic volume sets a new standard for illuminating a writer’s words and bringing alive “the poetry of earth and sky.” Open the book. Read it. You will see.
To purchase this book email womitchell@womitchell.ca
W.O. Mitchell's critically acclaimed novel, The Kite, is a humorous yet touching story of a journalist's worst nightmare. Set in the Prairie backwater of Shelby, Alberta, seasoned reporter and minor television celebrity David Lang arrives to write a magazine feature on the town's oldest living citizen, the 111-year-old curmudgeon Daddy Sherry. Still recovering from the disappointments of a fatherless childhood, the uptight David just wants to file his story as quickly as possible and hightail it back to Toronto. But he hasn't reckoned on the cantankerous cunning of Daddy Sherry. As David chases his recalcitrant subject all over town, he begins to understand the meaning of life and finds love and happiness for the first time. This superb recording of the classic novel by one of Canada's best-loved writers coincides with the publication of a new edition of The Kite from Goose Lane Editions.
“Daddy Sherry seems to me to be quite the best and most complete character Mitchell has yet created. I am grateful for the existence of this one old man, who strikes me as a genuine holy terror” (Margaret Laurence, Canadian Literature).
“The memory of Daddy Sherry, the smell of wolf willow and the excitement of a goose hunt will remain with the reader long after he has laid this book down” (Tom Saunders, Winnipeg Free Press).
“As unpretentious and refreshing as lemonade on an Indian-summer day, The Kite firmly establishes W.O. Mitchell as Canada’s pre-eminent chronicler of the whistle-stop west” (Time).
To purchase this book on line, click HERE
When Ma, the Kid, her twelve year old son, and Jake, the hired man, first appeared on the pages of Maclean's and shortly after on CBC Radio, the lively boy and his cranky hero found their way into the hearts of thousands of readers. Now, in this new edition of Jake and the Kid, Crocus, a prairie town in the forties and fifties, comes alive once again. In these lovingly rendered stories, we encounter the glorious minutia of small town life on the Canadian prairie. In all, W. O. Mitchell created about eighty richly eccentric characters to populate the Crocus community, including old Sam Gatenby, a rival to Jake and just as cantankerous; Miss Henchbaw, the stern and proper Rabbit Hill schoolteacher; Mayor MacTaggart, the owner of the town's General Store; Daddy Johnson, the oldest man in Canada; Repeat Golightly, the philosophizing barber; and Professor Noble Winesinger, a conman with a heart. Touching and laugh-out-loud funny in equal measure, this classic Canadian story collection epitomizes the magic of W.O. Mitchell's storytelling. Pitting tall tale against reality, Mitchell delivers a vibrant setting, a compelling cast of characters, and everyday events that speak directly to what it means to be human. Winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour.
“W.O. Mitchell’s writing…touches the hem of genius. He is devoid of cliché, his narrative is as smooth as corn syrup, his plot is rarely predictable, while his talent for inventing situations fraught with humour seems limitless.” (Globe and Mail)
“These stories were among
the first that many of us who lived on the prairies had ever read concerning our
own people, and our own place and our own time. When grain elevators, gophers,
or the sloughs and bluffs of the ‘bald-headed prairie’ were mentioned, there was
a certain thrill of recognition. The same applied to the characters who
inhabited Crocus. A prevalent feeling on the subject was, as I recall–that’s us; he writing about us.”
To purchase this book on line, click HERE
W.P. Kinsella has called Who Has Seen the Wind, the quintessential novel of growing up on the Prairies, "Canada's Catcher in the Rye." W.O. Mitchell, who was born and grew up in small-town Saskatchewan, evokes the immensity of the landscape with a lyrical prose style, from the ferociousness of the wind to the far reaches of the bright blue sky. It's probably the most important Canadian novel of boyhood. Mitchell used memories of his own childhood to create the world of Brian O'Connal, balancing a finely drawn sense of humour with a delicate nostalgia for a world that had already been lost even as Mitchell wrote about it in the aftermath of the Second World War. Like children everywhere, Brian is curious about everything, and the author allows him to freely explore his prairie world, taking in everything from gophers to God, from his feisty Irish grandmother to his friends Ben and Saint Sammy, the town's local madman. Mitchell gives readers a most memorable glimpse into the ins and outs of small-town life during the Depression years, always through Brian's eyes, and in doing so creates a poignant and powerful portrait of childhood innocence and its loss. (Jeffrey Canton)
“One of the finest Canadian novels ever
written” (Globe and Mail)
“Mitchell…has so thoroughly captured the feeling of Canada and the Canadian
people that we feel repeated shock of recognition as we read” (Robertson Davies).
“One of the finest Canadian novels ever written,” a work of "complete naturalism of presentation coupled with the insight of an uninhibited imagination" (William Arthur Deacon, Globe and Mail).
To purchase this book on line, click HERE
W.P. Kinsella has called Who Has Seen
the Wind, the quintessential novel of growing up on the Prairies, "Canada's
Catcher in the Rye." W.O. Mitchell, who was born and grew up in small-town
Saskatchewan, evokes the immensity of the landscape with a lyrical prose style,
from the ferociousness of the wind to the far reaches of the bright blue sky.
It's probably the most important Canadian novel of boyhood. Mitchell used
memories of his own childhood to create the world of Brian O'Connal, balancing a
finely drawn sense of humour with a delicate nostalgia for a world that had
already been lost even as Mitchell wrote about it in the aftermath of the Second
World War. Like children everywhere, Brian is curious about everything, and the
author allows him to freely explore his prairie world, taking in everything from
gophers to God, from his feisty Irish grandmother to his friends Ben and Saint
Sammy, the town of Arcola's local madman. Mitchell gives readers a most
memorable glimpse into the ins and outs of small-town life during the Depression
years, always through Brian's eyes, and in doing so creates a poignant and
powerful portrait of childhood innocence and its loss (Jeffrey Canton).
“One of the finest Canadian novels ever
written” (Globe and Mail)
“Mitchell…has so thoroughly captured the feeling of Canada and the Canadian
people that we feel repeated shock of recognition as we read” (Robertson Davies).
To purchase this book on line, click HERE
Set in the forties and fifties, these stories take us back to a simpler, gentler world, the one we all like to think we grew up in. The Kid at the centre of the stories is a boy on a Saskatchewan farm “down Government Road from Crocus, which is on the CNR line between Tiger Lily and Conception.” Jake is the hired hand who helps the Kid’s mother run the farm (and who played a huge role in Canadian history, what with capturing “Looie Riel” and all), and who now keeps the Kid abreast of events in the greater world and in Crocus. This is no easy matter, for the stories reveal that Crocus is a town in constant ferment. The Kid’s teacher, Miss Henchbaw, is unfairly dismissed by the school board until her friends fight back in “Will of the People”; Chet Lambert of the Crocus Breeze is hauled into court for comparing George Solway with Malleable Brown’s goat in “The Face Is Familiar,” resulting in a courtroom confrontation unrivalled in the history of Canadian jurisprudence; and “Political Dynamite” shows the men terrified by women curlers threatening to vote en bloc in the upcoming town election to gain equal curling time. The town, of course, is rich not only in disputes but characters, from Repeat Golightly in the barbershop (“One ahead of you, Jake. I say there's one ahead of you”) to Old Man Sherry, the town’s Oldest Inhabitant, who wavers between tributes to Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria. Then there’s Old Man Gatenby, brought from death’s door by prolonged exposure to romantic purple prose in “Love’s Wild Magic.” Adding to this rich mixture are the entertainers who come through town: Belva Taskey, the sweet songstress (“Lo! The Noble Redskin!”) and her memorable poetry reading; The Great Doctor Suhzee, the hypnotist; and Professor Noble Winesinger, whose snake-oil remedies have been known to turn his customers black. There are also stories of prejudice against Indians, or against “foreigners” named Kiziw, that in the end remind us of the core of decency at the heart of this collection. Whether the stories are told by Jake or by the Kid, they always speak to our hearts, and provide us with W.O. Mitchell's usual magical mixture of tears and laughter.
Winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour.
“Classic Mitchell.
Humorous, gentle, wistful” (Saskatoon Star Phoenix).
“He is the consummate storyteller” (Windsor Star).
“His latest collection of short stories is a little jewel” (Regina
Leader-Post).
To purchase this book on line, click HERE
When How I Spent My Summer Holidays was first published in 1981 a reviewer wrote: “If Who Has Seen the Wind told the story of a young boy’s coming to terms with death, How I Spent My Summer Holidays tells of a young man’s attempt to come to terms with his own sexuality and that of the world around him.” The twelve-year-old young man is Hugh, and in small-town Saskatchewan it is the hot summer of 1924. When Hugh and his friend dig a secret cave out on the Prairie, they soon find it occupied by an escaped patient from the mental hospital. Defying the adult world, the boys become involved with a former war hero and current rum-runner, King Motherwell, in sheltering and feeding the runaway. When passions aroused by sex explode into murder, Hugh leaves his boyhood behind him for ever.
Book of the Month and Literary Guild selection.
"Funnier and more powerful than Who Has Seen the Wind" (Winnipeg Free Press).
“Moving, vivid and exciting…a beautiful, rich and utterly fascinating novel.” (Windsor Star)
"a tightly plotted and
morally complex book (Quill & Quire).
“Bawdy and raunchy…an uncannily accurate feel for the emotional viewpoint of a
12-year old boy.” (The Globe and Mail)
“Astonishing.…Mitchell turns the pastoral myth of prairie boyhood inside out” (Robert
Fulford, Toronto Star)
To purchase this book on line, click HERE
OUP Canada's The Devil is a Travelling Man brings two of W.O. Mitchell's stage plays, The Black Bonspiel of Wullie MacCrimmon and The Devil's Instrument, back into print. The introduction, footnotes, production histories, and 26 production photographs give the two plays a rich context for the general reader as well as for students of Canadian drama. When Wullie MacCrimmon, a shoemaker in the 1930s foothills town of Wild Rose, muses aloud that he would give anything to skip his curling team in the MacDonald Brier, the Devil (a travelling salesman who deals in “wholesale souls and retail sin) suddenly appears and makes him an offer. Wullie makes a counter offer, and one of the greatest matches in curling history is on—the “Black Bonspiel.” When the Devil appears with his curling team--Guy Fawkes (lead), Judas Iscariot, (second), and Macbeth (third)--Wullie and his team are in for one hell of a match. In The Devil's Instrument, Jacob Schunk, a sixteen-year old Hutterite boy, is given a mouth organ by a stranger. His love of creating music and his love for Marta, a Hutterite girl, inevitably clash with the puritan, patriarchal society of the Hutterites. In the view of the stern powerful “Bosses,” music and moon-light meetings by the straw stack are the Devil’s work. They condemn Jacob and Marta to a one-month shunning, smash Jacob’s mouth organ on an anvil, and arrange for Marta to marry some one else—all of which lead to Jacob’s final rebellion.
To purchase this book on line, click HERE