Sinclair Ross, The Lamp at Noon and Other Stories

Andrew Lesk (University of Toronto)

Ed. by Wendy Roy, University of Saskatchewan
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.1.2: Canadian Writing and Culture (Anglophone): The Twentieth Century and beyond, 1900-present.
Vol. editors: Sarah Henzi (Simon Fraser University), Kerry Myler (Newman University), Glen Nichols (Mount Allison University), Wendy Roy (University of Saskatchewan), Denis Salter (McGill University), Karis Shearer (University of British Columbia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1968

Places

Canada (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Story Collection

Resources

It is rare that any English Canadian child will complete his or her formal education without encountering a short story by Sinclair Ross. The Lamp at Noon, a 1968 collection of Ross’s stories written between 1935 and 1952, contains some of the most frequently anthologized tales in Canada. The initial impression of these stories is drought and dust, similar to that for Ross’s major work, As For Me and My House. Yet these stories, like Ross’s novel, powerfully illuminate the condition of human isolation and fractured communication.

The most significant entries in the collection – “The Lamp at Noon”, “The Painted Door”, “A Field of Wheat”, “Cornet at Night”, and “One’s a Heifer” – …

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1146 words

Citation: Lesk, Andrew. "The Lamp at Noon and Other Stories". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 June 2005 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=9268, accessed 21 November 2024.]

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