Fifty Tales of Toronto

Adиle Ashby, a library consultant, is the former editor of Canadian Materials for Schools and Libraries.

On March 6,1884, the 50th anniversary of the City of Toronto, the first
free public library in Canada opened on Church Street. The library’s
goals included preserving, fostering pride in, and spreading knowledge
of the city’s history. Its huge collection, together with many other
city archives, has been the primary source for Jones’s columns in the
Toronto Star over the past two decades. From a thousand, he has selected
50 favourites that tell of the pilot who loaded Canada’s first airmail
flight with smuggled whiskey; of the world’s first female war
correspondent; of the man who helped Sigmund Freud escape from the
Nazis; of the secret reason for Charles Dickens’s visit to the city;
of the nursing student who changed her name to Elizabeth Arden and made
a fortune; of Sarah Bernhardt’s “scandalous performance” in
Toronto; of the true hero of the Battle of Waterloo; and many, many
more.

There are stories here for every taste, all written in a
straightforward, accessible style that is a cut above much contemporary
journalism without being academic.