New Releases by George Elliott

A vibrant, revealing memoir about the cultural and familial pressures that shaped George Elliott Clarke’s early life in the Black Canadian community that he calls Africadia, centred in Halifax, Nova Scotia. As a boy, George Elliott Clarke knew that a great deal was expected from him and his two brothers. The descendant of a highly accomplished lineage on his paternal side—great-grandson to William Andrew White, the first Black officer (non-commissioned) in the British army—George felt called to live up to the family name. In contrast, his mother''s relatives were warm, down-to-earth country folk. Such contradictions underlay much of his life and upbringing—Black and White, country and city, outstanding and ordinary, high and low. With vulnerability and humour, George shows us how these dualities shaped him as a poet and thinker. At the book’s heart is George’s turbulent relationship with his father, an autodidact who valued art, music and books but worked an unfulfilling railway job. Bill could be loving and patient, but he also acted out destructive frustrations, assaulting George’s mother and sometimes George and his brothers, too. Where Beauty Survived is the story of a complicated family, of the emotional stress that white racism exerts on Black households, of the unique cultural geography of Africadia, of a child who became a poet, and of long-kept secrets.

Reproduction of the original: A History of Matrimonial Institutions by George Elliott Howard

Middlemarch, A Study of Provincial Life is a novel by English author George Eliot, first published in eight volumes during 1871-2. The novel is set in the fictitious Midlands town of Middlemarch during 1829-32, and it comprises several distinct (though intersecting) stories and a large cast of elaborately depicted characters. Significant themes include the status of women, the nature of marriage, idealism, self-interest, religion, hypocrisy, political reform, and education. Although containing comical elements, Middlemarch is a work of realism that refers to many historical events: the 1832 Reform Act, the beginnings of the railways, the death of King George III, and the succession of his brother, the Duke of Clarence (the future King William IV). In addition, the work incorporates contemporary medical science and examines the deeply reactionary mind-set found within a settled community facing the prospect of unwelcome change. Middlemarch it is now widely regarded as her best work and one of the greatest novels ever written in English.

The latest work from pioneering scholar George Elliott Clarke, Directions Home is the most comprehensive analysis of African-Canadian texts and writers to date. Building on the discoveries of his critically acclaimed Odysseys Home, Clarke passionately analyses the beautiful complexities and haunting conundrums of this important body of literature. Directions Home explores the trajectories and tendencies of African-Canadian literature within the Canadian canon and the socio-cultural traditions of the African Diaspora. Clarke showcases the importance of little-known texts, including church histories and slave narratives, and offers studies of autobiography, crime and punishment, jazz poetics, and musical composition. The collection also includes studies of significant contemporary writers such as George Boyd and Dionne Brand, and trailblazing African-Canadian intellectuals like A.B. Walker and Anna Minerva Henderson. With its national, bilingual, and historical perspectives, Directions Home is an essential guide to African-Canadian literature.

"Romola" is an intense, gripping historical novel set in 15th-century Italy. Penned by George Eliot, it deals with a broad spectrum of emotions and issues including love, betrayal, parenthood, revenge, greed, spirituality, and deception. Remarkably modern in her approach, Eliot has treated various facets of the human psyche with great discernment and sensitivity. A true classic!

A novel loosely based on the lives of two African Canadian brothers in Nova Scotia who were convicted and executed for murdering a cab driver.

Gaspereau Press'' best-selling title, Execution Poems, is George Elliott Clarke''s complex lament for his late cousins, George and Rue - two Black men who were hanged for the murder of a taxi driver. After the overwhelming interest generated by the original limited letterpress edition of Execution Poems, Gaspereau Press released this trade edition which went on to win Canada''s highest literary honour in 2001. The jurors of the Governor General''s Literary Award called this book "raging, gristly, public - and unflinchingly beautiful," and remarked on Clarke''s "explosive, original language." In 1949, George and Rufus Hamilton were hanged for the murder of a taxi driver in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Fifty years later, Clarke has written, in his abundant style, a series of poems that embody both damnation and redemption, offering convoluted triumphs alongside tragedy and blurring the line between perpetrator and victim. What Clarke presents in Execution Poems is uncomfortable. He reminds us of racism and poverty; of their brutal, tragic results. He reminds us of society''s vengefulness. He blurs the line between the perpetrator and the victim - a line we''d prefer remain simple and clear. At the heart of it, Clarke is frustrating the notion that society deals any better with these issues today than it did in the 1940s.