An Algonquin Maiden

by Graeme Mercer Adam, Ethelwyn Wetherald

A romance of the early days of northern Canada

152 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1887

About the author

Graeme Mercer Adam (May 25, 1839 – October 30, 1912) was a Canadian author, editor, and publisher.

Born in Scotland Adam moved to Toronto in his early 20s, where he became a prominent figure in the Canadian publishing industry. He is best known for founding what became the John W. Lovell Publishing Company.

Adam served twelve years in the Canadian militia as a captain and a commander. In the mid-nineteenth century, he married Jane Gibson, a daughter of the late John Gibson, of Montreal, one of the founders Lovell and Gibson, printers and editors.

Reviews

[Janice]

Being a researcher means you have to read unbearble things.

[Doris · Rating 3 out of 5]

After some years of absence, young Edward MacLeod is returning to his parents' mansion somewhere in Upper Canada as his mother is dying. There he meets again with his sister Rose and the beautiful Helène De Berczy, a friend of Rose's and a neighbor. While Rose is in love with the ambitious young politician Allan Dunlop whom her father cannot stand for his radical and progresive views, Edward cannot decide whom to love: Blond and cultivated Hélène, the European fragile flower? Or candidate number two, the mysterious and wild Wanda, a girl of Algonquin and Huron descent with "lustruous lips" and "full black hair" who spends her days swimming in lakes, digging her hands into the earth and haunting the woods like an escaping deer?
G. Mercer Adam and Ethelwyn Wetherald have created a microcosm full of clashing stereotypes. There is nothing subversive in this; it is actually rather trashy. The book is still somewhat ok to read for its plot and ideologies.

[Marc Chénier · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although the book was enjoyable, none of the characters were really likable except for Wanda the Algonquin and even her character was not what it could have been.