John Robert Colombo – författare

Few people have read as widely in the field of Canadiana as has John Robert Colombo. The curiosity of this Toronto writer, editor, and anthologist knows few if any bounds when it comes to the lore, literature, history, culture, and character of Canada. He has an inquiring mind and he seems able to find national and even international twists to subjects of interest or importance.

Fascinating Canada, his latest book, is the product of over half a century of research, reading, writing, and thinking. Some years ago the author produced a trilogy of question-and-answer books 1,000 Questions about Canada, 999 Questions about Canada, 1,000 Questions about Canada. The first two were published by Doubleday Canada, the third one in 2001 by Dundurn Press. The same format is adapted to the material in the present book, but this time the majority of the questions are short whereas a good many of the answers are quite long discussions of the subjects at hand: concise questions followed by considered answers.

Here is a book about the Canadian past, present, and future. The information in Fascinating Canada is organized under four headings (People, Places, Things, Ideas) and there is a detailed Index for ready reference. This book may serve as a work of popular reference, but it has been written to stimulate inquiry and spark the sense of surprise in the minds of readers who know something about this amazing country but perhaps not as much as the author. Open this book and begin to read … and match wits with author and researcher John Robert Colombo.

Here are over 40 scary, hair-raising, and frightening stories of the supernatural and the paranormal. These are first-person narratives that are unexplained and possibly inexplicable. All of them have been reported to John Robert Colombo, Canada’s Master Gatherer of the Arcane, by men and women from various parts of the country, and they’re published here in the words of the informants themselves, the witnesses to these wonders.

Here, you will have the opportunity to read about:

Here is a list of three dozen of the top literary locales in the country. The selection of sites is necessarily subjective, yet it attempts to represent geographical, historical, social, and cultural concerns as well as strictly literary interests. Had this list been prepared by the editors of Michelin Guide, they would have added asterisks or stars to the entries:

It is the opinion of the author of Canadian Literary Landmarks that all thirty-six sites are "Worth a journey." It is recognized that the average person is unlikely to visit No. 1, not to mention No. 36, but as these sites happen to be the first and last entries in the book, they mark a convenient and symbolic beginning and ending. (No. 1 being L’Anse aux Meadows, Epaves Bay, Nfld. and No. 36 being the North Pole, NWT).

A collection of quotations from Canada’s greatest literary theorist. "There is no Canadian writer of whom we can say … that their readers can grow up inside their work without ever being aware of a circumference." Northrop Frye came to that conclusion after a detailed study of the imaginative achievements of Canada’s writers from the earliest period to 1965, when that sentence from his study first appeared in print. Over the decades since then, the statement has come to be regarded as a benchmark of individual and national literary achievement. The Northrop Frye Quote Book is a specialized dictionary of quotations on all subjects that is based on the thoughts and writings of one person. It is the handiwork of a single contributor, albeit the cogitations of a remarkable one. It is also evidence that there is a Canadian writer of whom it may be said that we can grow up inside his work "without ever being aware of a circumference."

John Robert Colombo has written, translated, edited, or compiled over two hundred books, including seven dictionaries of quotations. He is a graduate of the University of Toronto and a Fellow of the Frye Centre at Victoria University.

Jean O’Grady, a graduate of the University of Toronto, served as the associate editor of The Collected Works of Northrop Frye. She is also the author of the biography of Margaret Addison, the first dean of women at Victoria College.

A collection of quotations from Canada’s greatest literary theorist. "There is no Canadian writer of whom we can say … that their readers can grow up inside their work without ever being aware of a circumference." Northrop Frye came to that conclusion after a detailed study of the imaginative achievements of Canada’s writers from the earliest period to 1965, when that sentence from his study first appeared in print. Over the decades since then, the statement has come to be regarded as a benchmark of individual and national literary achievement. The Northrop Frye Quote Book is a specialized dictionary of quotations on all subjects that is based on the thoughts and writings of one person. It is the handiwork of a single contributor, albeit the cogitations of a remarkable one. It is also evidence that there is a Canadian writer of whom it may be said that we can grow up inside his work "without ever being aware of a circumference."

John Robert Colombo has written, translated, edited, or compiled over two hundred books, including seven dictionaries of quotations. He is a graduate of the University of Toronto and a Fellow of the Frye Centre at Victoria University.

Jean O’Grady, a graduate of the University of Toronto, served as the associate editor of The Collected Works of Northrop Frye. She is also the author of the biography of Margaret Addison, the first dean of women at Victoria College.

Terrors of the Night is a collection of more than 100 accounts of eerie events and weird experiences that have been recorded by Canadians over the last 400 years. These incredible accounts come from all parts of the country and concern witchcraft, peculiar weather conditions, wild beasts, hardly human creatures, omens, prophecies, powers beyond ours, miraculous cures, and bizarre behaviour generally. The narratives, often in the words of witnesses themselves, are taken from the columns of old newspapers, journals, and correspondence. It is an engrossing and unsettling experience to read these stories because the reader keeps asking the question, "Could such things happen?"

UFOs Over Canada presents in highly readable style sixty eye-witness accounts of UFO activity over Canada. For the first time, in one book, contributors from accross the country recount their personal experiences in their own words.

When did you last have a psychic experience? Are you in the habit of seeing – or sensing – the presence of spirits and ghost? Have you ever spotted a lake monster or sighted a UFO? When did you last consult a fortune-teller, approach a medium work an Ouija board, or read an astrology column? Have you ever had a premonition that some odd event would occur, and then witnessed it actually occurring? Did you ever experience a sense of déjà vu or a moment of pure bliss?

Extraordinary Experiences: Personal Accounts of the Paranormal in Canada is a collection of over seventy short yet curiously gripping accounts of experiences and events that may be regarded as abnormal or paranormal. Colombo has collected highly readable accounts of unusual experiences from the past and the present. The supernatural practices of the Indians of the 18th and 19th centuries are described by Samuel Hearne and Paul Kane. From the turn of the century come accounts of "crisis apparitions," poltergeists, and haunted houses, as reported by spiritualists and other observers. But the majority of the personal narratives derive from letters sent to the editor in response to his requests featured in daily newspapers across the country, for first-hand accounts of the supernatural and the paranormal. Over one hundred readers responded; here are some of there responses…

Extraordinary Experiences is an extraordinary reading experience. No book quite like it has ever before appeared in Canada.

Here is a book to thrill and chill you!

It brings together sixty-nine stories of haunted houses, ghosts, poltergeists, apparitions, and other eerie events and experiences.

What is amazing is that all the stories are true - they actually happened - and they happened in Ontario!

Did Sir John A. Macdonald give advice from the dead?

Did William Lyon Mackenzie King engage in a friendly conversation with a veteran newspaperman at Kingsmere two years after his death?

Is Ottawa’s Laurier House haunted?

What happened in Toronto’s Mackenzie House?

Did an apparition of Walt Whitman appear in Bon Echo Provincial Park?

Does a beautiful lady in white haunt old stone houses in the north Woodstock area?

What was behind the Baldoon Mystery and the Dagg Poltergeist?

Do such things happen? Are they happening today?

In these pages there are ghosts aplenty. They appear in the villages, towns, and cities of Ontario - among them: Goderich, Hamilton, London, Toronto, Niagara-on-the-Lake, North Bay, Oakville, Oshawa, St. Catharines, and Sarnia!

Perhaps there is a ghost near you…

Toronto has hosts of ghosts that go as far back as the War of 1812…and others as recent as the Nineties. From the spirit of the Keeper of the Gibraltar Point Lighthouse to the four spectres that haunt the stairwells and corridors of Queen’s Park, our most conspicuously ghostly presences and sites are all revealed in Haunted Toronto.

Sixty-six haunts and paranormal locales are captured in dramatic detail. Arranged like a guidebook for walking or driving tours, this richly illustrated book is the perfect companion for spectre-seeking urban adventurers. Whether or not you spot a ghost or two in Toronto, you’ll encounter the fascinating, sometimes morbid lore of the city’s past, and you’re guaranteed never again to look at its historic sites in quite the same way.

Mysteries of Ontario brings together, for the first time, some five hundred accounts of strange events and eerie experiences, each keyed to one of 250 places in the province. It turns out that, far from being a humdrum part of the planet in which to live and work, Ontario is a province that is alive with ghosts and spirits, mysterious disappearances, and peculiar happenings enough to make your hair stand on end, turn your blood cold, and send shivers up and down your spine! John Robert Colombo has been collecting materials for this book since 1967. Even so, more than two years were devoted to researching, writing, copy-editing, and photo editing Mysteries of Ontario. The reader is invited to peruse the great historical mysteries that have moved Canadians in the past from LaSalle’s missing Griffon to the peculiar disappearance of Ambrose Small, from the spiritualistic legacy of the Fox Sisters of Consecon to the appearance in the 1990s of "ghost walks," "haunted hayrides," and "boo barns." This is a book that unites folklore and scholarship, the supernatural and the speculative, culture and mysticism, the occult and the peculiar, the psychical and the cultural, the human and the non-human.

When did you last have a psychic experience? Are you in the habit of seeing – or sensing – the presence of spirits and ghost? Have you ever spotted a lake monster or sighted a UFO? When did you last consult a fortune-teller, approach a medium work an Ouija board, or read an astrology column? Have you ever had a premonition that some odd event would occur, and then witnessed it actually occurring? Did you ever experience a sense of déjà vu or a moment of pure bliss?

Extraordinary Experiences: Personal Accounts of the Paranormal in Canada is a collection of over seventy short yet curiously gripping accounts of experiences and events that may be regarded as abnormal or paranormal. Colombo has collected highly readable accounts of unusual experiences from the past and the present. The supernatural practices of the Indians of the 18th and 19th centuries are described by Samuel Hearne and Paul Kane. From the turn of the century come accounts of "crisis apparitions," poltergeists, and haunted houses, as reported by spiritualists and other observers. But the majority of the personal narratives derive from letters sent to the editor in response to his requests featured in daily newspapers across the country, for first-hand accounts of the supernatural and the paranormal. Over one hundred readers responded; here are some of there responses…

Extraordinary Experiences is an extraordinary reading experience. No book quite like it has ever before appeared in Canada.

UFOs Over Canada presents in highly readable style sixty eye-witness accounts of UFO activity over Canada. For the first time, in one book, contributors from accross the country recount their personal experiences in their own words.

Here is a book to thrill and chill you!

It brings together sixty-nine stories of haunted houses, ghosts, poltergeists, apparitions, and other eerie events and experiences.

What is amazing is that all the stories are true - they actually happened - and they happened in Ontario!

Did Sir John A. Macdonald give advice from the dead?

Did William Lyon Mackenzie King engage in a friendly conversation with a veteran newspaperman at Kingsmere two years after his death?

Is Ottawa’s Laurier House haunted?

What happened in Toronto’s Mackenzie House?

Did an apparition of Walt Whitman appear in Bon Echo Provincial Park?

Does a beautiful lady in white haunt old stone houses in the north Woodstock area?

What was behind the Baldoon Mystery and the Dagg Poltergeist?

Do such things happen? Are they happening today?

In these pages there are ghosts aplenty. They appear in the villages, towns, and cities of Ontario - among them: Goderich, Hamilton, London, Toronto, Niagara-on-the-Lake, North Bay, Oakville, Oshawa, St. Catharines, and Sarnia!

Perhaps there is a ghost near you…

Toronto has hosts of ghosts that go as far back as the War of 1812…and others as recent as the Nineties. From the spirit of the Keeper of the Gibraltar Point Lighthouse to the four spectres that haunt the stairwells and corridors of Queen’s Park, our most conspicuously ghostly presences and sites are all revealed in Haunted Toronto.

Sixty-six haunts and paranormal locales are captured in dramatic detail. Arranged like a guidebook for walking or driving tours, this richly illustrated book is the perfect companion for spectre-seeking urban adventurers. Whether or not you spot a ghost or two in Toronto, you’ll encounter the fascinating, sometimes morbid lore of the city’s past, and you’re guaranteed never again to look at its historic sites in quite the same way.