Ed. Henry M. Wallace

A first anthology of its kind, A Dark Conspiracy and Other nineteenth-Century Canadian Short Stories in English anthologizes the best stories written by Canadians.

Short fiction is the most modern genre in nineteenth-century Canadian literature. It is perfectly synchronous with short-story developments in the United States and Europe. While they contributed to the establishment of a “national” Canadian literature with their fact-based realism, nineteenth-century short-story writers in Canada also explored new literary forms and tried to capture the fleeting nature of modern life.

The present anthology of nineteenth-century Canadian short stories is the most comprehensive ever published. It is also the most inclusive: of the thirty-five stories selected, eighteen were written by women.