Hard-headed and Big-hearted: Writing Newfoundland

by Stuart Pierson, Stan Dragland (Editor)

"I am not a 'Newfoundlander,'" Stuart Pierson wrote in "A Diatribe," his controversial review of Historical Atlas of Canada; "it takes a few generations to achieve that." But he had with passion observed and commented on Newfoundland culture for many years before his early death in 2001. To adapt his own words, he was a "terrieresque reader" who sank his teeth into a subject and never let go, a scholar of encyclopedic knowledge in several fields who achieved a plainly eloquent literary style. This book presents all of Stuart Pierson's significant writings on Newfoundland culture-historical, literary, and visual. It is a posthumous gift to his adopted nation/province and to readers everywhere, because in Pierson's spacious thinking Newfoundland culture is a fascinating instance of world culture.

437 pages, Paperback

First published October 24, 2006