The Imperialist

In the small Ontario town of Elgin, at the dawn of Canada's twentieth century, two dreamers chase incompatible visions of the good life. Lorne Murchison, young and fervent, stakes his political future on "the Imperialist idea" , a grand scheme to rejuvenate the British Empire and, by extension, his insignificant corner of it. His sister Advena pursues her own impractical devotion: an unworldly young minister who exists in altitudes far above ordinary human reach. Sara Jeannette Duncan, one of Canada's earliest novelists to take society itself as her subject, constructs a marvelously ironic portrait of how idealism meets reality in a nation still inventing itself. The prose is sharp, the social observations precise, the comedy gentle but unrelenting. This is a novel about the art of compromise, about how empires of the imagination must eventually confront the petty machinery of getting things done. For readers curious about the roots of Canadian political culture, or anyone who has ever watched conviction collide with circumstance, Duncan offers a specimen preserved in amber: the precise moment when a young nation's illusions were still fresh enough to break your heart.