AUTHENTIC LETTERS FROM UPPER CANADA

Macmillan Company of Canada, Toronto, 1953, reprint.  Hard cover, 207 pages including Appendix.  Very good; brown cloth with gilt lettering and illustration on front board, gilt lettering on spine.  Boards have a bit of shelf, corner and spine end wear; binding sound.  Dust jacket flaps laid in with remainder missing.  Gift inscription to their teacher from class 9A dated 1952-53; remainder of interior clean and unmarked with lightly tanned pages; full-page black & white illustrations.  Including an account of Canadian Field Sports by Thomas William Magrath; The whole edited by The Rev. Thomas Radcliff; Illustrated by Samuel Lover and Introduced by James John Talman.  ‘This, the first of the Pioneer Books (see back flap), was originally published in 1833 … The letters tell the story of the settling of two families in Upper Canada in the 1820’s and early 1830’s, and they tell it with vividness and truthfulness and, above all, with a sense of humour.  The Magrath family settled at Erindale, near York (Toronto), in 1827, and the Radcliffs at Adelaide, near London, in 1832.  The letters describe the hardships of crossing the Atlantic, the roughness of the roads, the ways of travelling, and the Spartan first days of settlement.  Next they turn to a description of Upper Canada as they found it, its people, and its institutions.  And a final section is made up of letters by Thomas Wm. Magrath describing the field sports, hunting, shooting and fishing, of those days.’ (from front flap)