About the Book:

This trilogy is among a handful of Canadian works listed in the 1,000 most significant plays of all time by the Oxford Dictionary of Plays.

Based on the true story of an Irish family with seven sons and one daughter immigrating to Biddulph Township near London, Ontario, in 1844, The Donnellys tells a tale of mystery and truths stranger than fiction.

It is the story of a secret society and a massacre that shocked the Canadian public, a story overlooked by the artistic community until James Reaney's plays elevated the events to the level of legend. First published in 1975, this collection takes its place among other true Canadian classics on university and college course listings and in the hearts of drama lovers everywhere.

The Donnellys is a trilogy comprised of Sticks & Stones, St. Nicholas Hotel and Handcuffs, three tense and mythic tragedies that garnered critical praise at the 1973 Tarragon Theatre opening and continue to acquire accolades from professors, actors and artistic directors across the country. As with the drama of Yeats, Eliot, O'Neill, Brecht and Beckett, this rendering of a generation of Irish settlers presents a piece of Canadian history with "Reaney's unerring sense of the theatrical," according to the Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia.

About the Author:

James Reaney (1926-2008) was one of Canada's finest poets and dramatists. The three time winner of the Governor General's Award, he was the author of numerous plays and poetry collections and taught at the University of Manitoba and the University of Western Ontario for a total of forty years. He received his doctorate with Northrop Frye.