According to the title page the author was “formerly Queen Victoria’s cuisiniere,” as well as instructor in domestic science in the University of Virginia summer school and for the United States navy. The present volume contains her best recipes, set forth, as she says, not in the heavy cook book style, but in a more intimate manner “as if housewife and author were conversing upon the dish in question.” The recipes follow one another without arrangement or order but an index provides a guide to the contents.
+ Springf’d Republican p9a O 3 ’20 130w
WILSON, MAY (ANISON NORTH, pseud.). Forging of the pikes. *$1.90 (1½c) Doran
20–4710
The pikes are forged for the rebels of the Upper Canadian rebellion of 1837. The hero Alan’s sympathies are with the rebels the while his whole being is in the toils of his love for Barry. Barbara Deveril, the supposed daughter of the tavern-keeper is Indian in appearance and in her love for the forest and Indian traditions. She is Alan’s “Oogenebahgooquay”—the wild rose woman. One day, soon after the appearance of a dazzlingly handsome stranger, an Englishman, she disappears from the woods and the countryside, leaving Alan with his grief and his suspicion. While the rebellion and its dangers, and a brief sojourn in Toronto engage Alan, Barry is living through her short and sorrowful romance as the Indian-wed wife of the handsome Englishman. But they were meant for each other and the sick, disillusioned and widowed Barry finds herself still linked to life by her love for Alan.
“The description of country life, of the woods and of nature is vivid. The historical portions, on the other hand, are unsatisfactory.”
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“The story part of the book is an entirely secondary affair, conventional and not particularly interesting. To the average American reader the best of the tale will be the picture it gives of Canadian life at the time.”