Dictionary of Manitoba Biography ed. by J.M. Bumsted (review)

humanities 393 rather than fragility, naturalness rather than artifice, and maternal power rather than romantic passivity. The writers differ significantly in their personal circumstances and the extent to which autobiography enters into their fictions. For instance, we find Robinson (known in the dailies of her time as Perdita, the mistress of the Prince of Wales) retelling her own experience and mildly insistent on the rights of women. Alternatively, West, in the assumed character of Prudentia Homespun, and Opie, the one-time radical turned Quaker, both recur to the image of female suffering and recuperative agency. Ty discovers important material in the authors' representation of the mother-daughter relationship, which according to Adrienne Rich is `the great unwritten story.' Ty's work is characterized by frequent reference to scholarship and theory in an often graceful blending of different schools of thought. For instance, Ty has Rich speak to Kristeva, Irigiray, Cixous, Foucault, Derrida, and Lacan, who in turn amplify ideas by Claudia Johnson, Gary Kelly, and Marilyn Butler. By contextualizing her argument thus, Ty reminds us of the enduring applicability of these thinkers while she does some perhaps necessary simplification of the poststructuralist and psychoanalytic theories. At the same time, her inclusion of such an array of authorities suggests the relevance of the themes Ty focuses on in the writings of Robinson, West, and Opie. Given the richness of her sources, it is regrettable that the book lacks an inclusive Works Cited list. It is not a long book, and there is room. The only other drawback worth mentioning is the lack of plot summary. Ty's readings are nuanced and fair, but the reader will sometimes stop to wonder at the order of events described. Because the works are generally little known, a short summary (or reminder) of the plot would make for clearer navigation of the terrain. For all of Ty's careful reading of gender concerns, the works covered remain conservative, but this should not detract from their interest. Ultimately Ty achieves her goals in this book: `to broaden the discussion of the women writers of [the] period in general, and to situate the postrevolutionary debates about women in the works of writers of diverse ideological perspectives.' Additionally, Empowering the Feminine should attract new readers to the novels, memoirs, and essays of Robinson, West, and Opie. (LAURA L. RUNGE) J.M. Bumsted, editor. Dictionary of Manitoba Biography University of Manitoba Press. xii, 276. $24.95 This useful compilation of well-known and less well-known figures from nearly three hundred years of Manitoba history might more accurately have been entitled Who's Who in Manitoba History. For the most part the brief entries are little more than recitals of the basic facts of a given life 394 letters in canada 1999 baldly stated: no context, no interpretation. Even the longer ones B say La Vérendrye at twenty-five lines B are often just potted versions of fuller Dictionary of Canadian Biography studies, with credit given. But these are hardly biographies. (Since J.M. Bumsted relies heavily on the DCB where possible, its general editor must wonder whether his complaints about that publication B some misleading, some silly B in his opening remarks may not arise from our failure to help him more!) The DMB, as it will doubtless soon become, includes more than sixteen hundred figures drawn from a wide swath of Manitoba's past. Here are a few random examples: it opens with the Cree prophet Abishabis, a sixtyfive word summary of Jennifer Brown's thorough fifteen hundred words in volume 7 of the DCB, and ends with Linda Zwicker, a prairie dramatist whose entry has no bibliography. In between there are entries for Letitia Hargrave, a fur trader's letter-writing wife; Joseph-Édouard Cauchon, a Quebecker who became lieutenant-governor of the province in the 1870s; Rodmond Roblin (but not Duff, since entries must be deceased); Cora Hind, superb agricultural journalist and the only person J.W. Dafoe was known to be afraid of; Edith Rogers, social reformer; W.L. Morton, historian; and, of course, Neepawa's Margaret Laurence. (Neepawa, unlike the great majority of Manitoba towns and villages, is included on the utterly...