Vancouver Island Letters of Edmund Hope Verney

Allan Pritchard is Professor Emeritus of English,University of Toronto. He was born and grew up in Comox and now divideshis time between Victoria and Galiano Island.

Trivial or traumatic, everything went into the letters home ... Allan Pritchard's satisfying introduction and notes brief us on who-was-who and what-happened-next in both historical and human contexts. - Phyllis Reeve (British Columbia Historical News, Vol 31, No. 2) Allan Pritchard has discovered a remarkably revealing source and used it to create a book that is both useful and interesting ... Vancouver Island Letters makes accessible an archival source that is valuable not only for historians of British Columbia but also for scholars of nineteenth-century colonialism ... The sizeable introduction ... is well documented, thoughtful, and articulate ... A rare and fine book. It makes a revealing primary source easily accessible to anyone interested in British Columbia and colonial life ... Verney's letters are an important reflection of British Columbia in the 1860s, and a telling testament to the peculiar perspectives and inner life of one foot-soldier of nineteenth-century colonialism. (The Canadian Historical Review) Allan Pritchard ... Has made an excellent job of preserving and editing them for posterity ... A very useful and entertaining source for researchers into the maritime history of the Northwest Coast of America during a crucial phase of its political and economic evolution. (The Mariner's Mirror)

• Illustrations AcknowledgmentsAbbreviationsIntroduction 1. Family and Early Life2. Letters of Sir Harry and Lady Verney3. The Voyage Out: England to Vancouver Island4. Naval Activites5. Other Activities6. People and Politics7. Native Indians8. Coastal Scenes and Scenery9. The Return Journey: Vancouver Island to England10. Later Life NotesLettersNotes to LettersIndex