George Whalley, Death in the Barren Ground: The Diary of Edgar Christian

Michael DiSanto (Algoma University College)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.1.2: Canadian Writing and Culture (Anglophone): The Twentieth Century and beyond, 1900-present.
Vol. editors: Sarah Henzi (Simon Fraser University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Glen Nichols (Mount Allison University), Wendy Roy (University of Saskatchewan), Denis Salter (McGill University), Karis Shearer (University of British Columbia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1980

Places

Canada (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Non-Fiction
- Biography (literary)

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

Originally published in 1980,

Death in the Barren Ground: The Diary of Edgar Christian

was reprinted in 2009 in response to the resurgence of interest in the story of John Hornby that followed upon the publication of Elizabeth Hay’s Giller prize-winning book

Late Nights On Air

(2007). The novel tells a story set in the Canadian north and repeatedly refers to Hornby and two works about him written by George Whalley: a CBC radio drama entitled “Death in the Barren Ground” and a biography entitled

The Legend of John Hornby

The diary of Edgar Christian is a “stark and reticent” record of the harrowing events of a trip three men took to the barren grounds in the Canadian north (Whalley 2009, 3). It begins on October 14, 1926 and ends with two letters Christian wrote to his parents

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

756 words

Citation: DiSanto, Michael. "Death in the Barren Ground: The Diary of Edgar Christian". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 29 November 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=33210, accessed 20 April 2024.]

Save this article