Flint And Feather

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

A graceful biography that was a #1 national bestseller, Flint & Feather confirms Charlotte Gray’s position as a master biographer, a writer with a rare gift for transforming a historical character into a living, breathing woman who immediately captures our imagination. In Flint & Feather, Charlotte Gray explores the life of this nineteenth-century daughter of a Mohawk chief and English gentlewoman, creating a fascinating portrait of a young woman equally at home on the stage in her “Indian” costume and in the salons of the rich and powerful. Uncovering Pauline Johnson’s complex and dramatic personality, Flint & Feather is studded with triumph and tragedy, mystery and romance—a first-rate biography blending turn-of-the-century Canadian history and the vibrant story of a woman whose unforgettable voice still echoes through the years.

Flint and Feather (1913) is a collection of the complete poems of E. Pauline Johnson. Revered as one the foremost Canadian poets of her time, Johnson was a prolific writer whose works explored her Mohawk heritage while shedding light on the racism and persecution faced by indigenous peoples across North America. “The lyrical verse herein is as a ‘Skyward floating feather, / Sailing on summer air.’ And yet that feather may be the eagle plume that crests the head of a warrior chief; so both flint and feather bear the hall-mark of my Mohawk blood.” So states Johnson in the foreword to her complete poems, Flint and Feather, a collection that captures not only her range as a poet in tune with the Romantic tradition, but her dualistic sense of identity as a woman of Mohawk and English heritage. Choosing to emphasize the former, Johnson, who also went by Tekahionwake, her great-grandfather’s name, adopts the persona of an Indian wife who, watching her love depart, wonders what he will “suffer from the white man’s hand.” In fear, in anger, in desperation, she proclaims “By right, by birth we Indians own these lands, / Though starved, crushed, plundered, lies our nation low...” In the face of defeat, she offers a poetry in tune with the “ghost upon the shore,” the voices one hears “when the Northern candles light the Northern sky.” Johnson’s voice is thus both one of resistance and mourning, her song one of a land of plains and rivers, of fields that await the harvest despite the “prying pilot crow” whose “thieving raids” descend “[a]t husking time.” With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of E. Pauline Johnson’s Flint and Feather is a classic of Canadian literature reimagined for modern readers.

Details the career of one writer from published pieces to novels written to date.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Readable poems about the Mohawk Indians. Includes a biographical sketch.

"Flint And Feather" from Pauline Johnson. Canadian writer and performer popular in the late 19th century (1861-1913).