This book offers a comprehensive and engaging introduction to major writers, genres and topics in Canadian literature. Contributors pay attention to the social, political and economic developments that have informed literary events. Broad surveys of fiction, drama, and poetry are complemented by chapters on Aboriginal writing, francophone writing, autobiography, literary criticism, writing by women, and the emergence of urban writing in a country traditionally defined by its regions. Also discussed are genres that have a special place in Canadian literature, such as nature-writing, exploration- and travel-writing, and short fiction.

Probably Canada's best known settlement story, this autobiographical account of frontier conditions in the 1830s is a compelling narrative that emphasizes both the tragedies and the triumphs of a sensible and sensitive woman and her family as they come to terms with their new environment.