Extraordinary Canadians: Maurice Richard
Charles Foran

Maurice Richard represented far more than a high-scoring forward who filled seats in NHL arenas. Beginning with his 50-goal, 50-game season in 1944-45 and through his battles with the league over bigotry toward French-Canadian players, Richard's on-ice ferocity and off-ice dignity echoed the change in Quebec. The March 1955 "Richard Riot," in which fans went on a rampage to protest his suspension, contained the seeds of transformation. By the time Richard retired in 1960, Quebec had begun to reinvent itself as a modern, secular society. Author Charles Foran argues that the province's passionate identification with Richard's success and struggles emboldened its people and changed Canada irrevocably.

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Esther: The Remarkable True Story of Esther Wheelwright, Puritan Child, Native Daughter, Mother Superior
Julie Wheelwright

In 1703, a war party of French soldiers and Abenaki warriors raided the village of seven-year-old Puritan girl Esther Wheelwright, taking thirty-nine captives and killing a handful of men, women and children. That Esther managed to survive the 200-mile journey by foot through swamps and forests to a Jesuit mission in New France is astonishing. That she was adopted, quite happily, into a family of her Abenaki captors, is equally amazing. But for the Wheelwright family, who waited years before they had word that Esther had even survived the raid, this was a tragedy.

When Esther’s release from her Abenaki family was finally negotiated through a French Jesuit who took her to the city of Quebec, it was too late. At the age of fourteen, Esther broke her parents’ hearts by refusing to go home; they never saw her again. Instead, she remained in Quebec, the capital of New France, where, against all odds, she rose through the ranks to become Mother Superior and a pivotal figure after the siege of Quebec in 1759.

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John Guy of Bristol and Newfoundland
Dr. Alan F. Williams

This book relates to the two principal themes of the Cupids 400 Celebrations — the settlement of Cupids in 1610 and the origins of English settlement in Newfoundland and Canada. John Guy was an influential merchant and civic figure in Bristol and West of England history and an important figure in the early history of settlement in Newfoundland through his association with the London and Bristol Company and the colonization of Cupers Cove (Cupids).

This book is the biography of one of the province’s and country’s most significant historical figures. It is the most authoritative source on John Guy: merchant, colonizer, Newfoundland governor, Bristol civic official and West of England landowner.

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Rose Henderson: A Woman for the People
Peter Campbell

The political movements and social causes of the turbulent 1920s and '30s are brought to life in this study of the work and times of feminist, socialist, and peace activist Rose Henderson (1871–1937). Her commitment to social justice led to frequent monitoring and repression by the authorities but her contributions to activist thought continue to pose challenges for interpretations of the history of Canada, leftism, labour, and women.

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Sailor’s Hope: The Life and Times of William Cooper, Agrarian Radical in an Age of Revolutions
Rusty Bittermann

Sailor's Hope provides a moving account of a multi-faceted man, tracking his engagement with the extraordinary changes occurring in the Atlantic and Pacific Worlds in the decades after the American and French Revolutions. William Cooper was born in poverty in industrializing Scotland. Without any formal education, he worked his way up through the British merchant marine to the position of captain on voyages linking Britain with Iberia and North America.

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