Becoming Sui Sin Far: Early Fiction, Journalism, and Travel Writing by Edith Maude Eaton

When her 1912 story collection, Mrs. Spring Fragrance, was rescued from obscurity in the 1990s, scholars were quick to celebrate Sui Sin Far as a pioneering chronicler of Asian American Chinatowns. Newly discovered works, however, reveal that Edith Eaton (1865-1914) published on a wide variety of subjects - and under numerous pseudonyms - in Canada and Jamaica for a decade before she began writing Chinatown fiction under the pen name "Sui Sin Far" for American magazines. Born in England to a Chinese mother and a British father, and raised in Montreal, the author argues that Edith Eaton is a complex transnational writer whose expanded oeuvre demands reconsideration. This book collects and contextualizes seventy of Eaton's early works, most of which have not been republished since they first appeared in turn-of-the-century periodicals. These works of fiction and journalism, in diverse styles and from a variety of perspectives, document Eaton's early career as a short story writer, “stunt-girl” journalist, ethnographer, political commentator, and travel writer. Many of her early works appeared in The Montreal Witness and The Montreal Star newspapers, and in the Dominion Illustrated

Montreal and Kingston

McGill-Queen's University Press

2016

lxxvi-274p.

en

978-0-7735-4722-3