The Porcupine's Quill
Celebrating forty years on the Main Street
of Erin Village, Wellington County
BOOKS IN PRINT
Baldoon by James Reaney and C H Gervais
Baldoon is a two-act play written by Governor-General’s award winning author James Reaney in collaboration with Windsor area poet and journalist C.H. Gervais. This is the original edition of this title, which was honoured with an Award of Merit in the 1977 Design Canada / Look of Books competition.
Baldoon is one of only two Porcupine’s Quill publications from the 1970s that are still available in the original edition, at the original price.
‘Readers will recognize this as a typical Reaney play. In the 1830s at Baldoon settlement near Wallaceburg, Ontario, a house was haunted by various phenomena: the sound of marching, bullets and stones which passed through walls without leaving holes, pots and pans that flew about the kitchen. This bit of history is the basis for Reaney’s tale of John McTavish who forsook his love, Jane Pharlan, for a rich widow. But old Mrs Pharlan prostituted Jance to him, resulting in a baby girl. Jane died; the child was taken from Mrs Pharlan who was excommunicated as a witch; and unknown to anyone but McTavish, the child has grown up in his home as an adopted orphan. When his house becomes haunted and the local religious authorities cannot help, McTavish, with the threat of excommunication now over his head, visits Dr Troyer -- a Dutch witchfinder. He forces McTavish to see that unless the truth is revealed, he and his family will have no peace. To complicate matters, the solution is tied up with a rivalry between two conflicting religious attitudes: dour repressive Presbyterians, of whom McTavish and Mrs Pharlan are part, and the joyous love of God characteristic of the Tunkards, whom Troyer represents. Finally Troyer wins out; Mrs Pharlan is exposed as a witch; McTavish confesses his past.’
1977—Design Canada / Look of Books,
Commended
Review quote
The basic ingredient, as in Reaney’s trilogy about the Donnellys, is local history. In Baldoon, near Wallaceburg, Ontario, a nineteenth-century farm family suffered a long series of supernatural visitations, ranging from the usual poltergeist tricks to fires and visions. Various efforts at exorcism failed. Finally, driven nearly to despair, the farmer obtained the services of a doctor and his psychic daughter from Long Point on Lake Erie and, following instructions, shot the wing of the stray goose in his flock with a silver bullet, thus causing the witch who was the source of the trouble to break her arm and be both identified and rendered powerless. It’s a good yarn, and Reaney, a vigorous opponent of soulless modernity, likes to believe it is true.
—Canadian Book Review Annual
James Reaney was born on a farm in South Easthope near Stratford, Ontario in 1926. He has won the Governor General’s Award three times for his poetry, though he is perhaps better-known as a playwright, especially for his landmark Donnelly trilogy (1974-75). Reaney’s theatrical adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking-Glass returned to the stage at Stratford in the summer of 1996.
His work includes: The Red Heart, poems, 1949; A suit of Nettles, poems, 1958; Twelve Letters to a Small Town, poems, 1962; The Killdeer & Other Plays, drama, 1962; Colours in the Dark, drama, 1969; Collected Poems, 1972; Listen to the Wind, drama, 1972; The Donnellys, a trilogy of plays, 1974-75; Baldoon (with C.H. Gervais), 1976; The Boy With an R in His Hand, young adult, 1980; Take the Big Picture, young adult, 1986; Alice Through the Looking-Glass, stage adaptation, 1994. James Reaney died in 2008.
For more information please visit the Author’s website »
C.H. (Marty) Gervais was born in Windsor in 1946. He received his B.A. from the University of Guelph and his M.A. from the University of Windsor where he studied writing under Morley Callaghan. He is a poet, playwright, historian, editor and publisher. He has been a journalist at the Windsor Star for many years.
The Porcupine's Quill would like to acknowledge the support of the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. The financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) is also gratefully acknowledged.
