Tuesday, 27 June 2017

Christopher Moore's History News: Book Notes: Miss Confederation, the Mercy Coles d...

First heard of the Mercy Coles Confederation diary on CBC Radio Ideas - I was researching for my novel To the Edge of the Sea and when I heard of Mercy Coles, she immediately became a character in that novel.  I ordered the diary from Library and Archives Canada, read, researched wrote ...   and then I began transcribing every word of Mercy's diary - and was fascinated by all she wrote. And now - here's Miss Confederation: The Diary of Mercy Anne Coles, published by Dundurn Press and out now!

The person on Ideas was Christopher Moore - and here's the lovely things he's got to say about Miss Confederation:

Christopher Moore's History News: Book Notes: Miss Confederation, the Mercy Coles d...: Mercy Anne Coles -- the Jane Austen of confederation, maybe. Newly out from Dundurn Press is Miss Confederation , Anne McDonald's edi...

Miss Confederation

Monday, 19 June 2017

PEI on Flickr thanks to the LAC

Library and Archives Canada has posted some great images of Prince Edward Island on their Flickr page.
   Interesting to preview as Miss Confederation: The Diary of Mercy Anne Coles, published by Dundurn Press is out this week. Mercy Coles was the 26 year old unmarried daughter of the PEI Father of Confederation George Coles. She, along with 9 other unmarried daughters of the Maritime Fathers of Confederation, went to the Confederation Conference in Quebec City - Mercy kept a diary of the events, people and time. Her diary has never been published before - until now!
   It was fascinating to research and I'll write more on that later.
        For now, it's fun to share the images she would have been part of (or some of them) - for example, there's no doubt she would have attended the events for the visit of the Prince of Wales to Government House in 1860  Visit of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales 1860 to Charlottetown, PEI

For all the pictures, click here

Mercy Coles (photo by William Notman) and the Province House Ball (painting by Dusan Kadlec)