" Publishers Weekly A History of Canadian Literature looks at the work of writers and the social and cultural contexts that helped shape their preoccupations and direct their choice of literary form.

As W.H. New's Grandchild of Empire shows, irony is not dead, but has found fresh purpose.

New discusses the ways in which Canadian writing, through images of land and space, expresses various assumptions about social values.

"Along a Snake Fence Riding is a long poem for eight voices, a meditation on time and memory, and on the science of time and memory: rich in allusion and eloquent in imagery, wide-ranging and yet remarkable in its close attention to detail.

"...While the dictionary defines raucous as 'hoarse, rough, or harsh in sound.' New's collection is anything but.