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Life changes dramatically for suffragist Anne Brown after her husband's death.
In the spring of 1880, wealthy politician and Globe editor George Brown was at the height of his career when he was shot by a disgruntled poet who worked in the newspaper's boiler room. Brown left an undeniable legacy as a founder of the modern Liberal Party, fierce abolitionist, industrialist, and preeminent Father of Confederation. Yet he was not without his flaws: Brown infamously disliked the Irish and arrogantly declared that women should not vote.
In this deeply imagined work of historical fiction, narrated through the perspective of characters most impacted by his formidable presence, readers witness the struggle of a motherless Irish domestic in fear and awe of Brown; his wife, Anne, a suffragist who is caught between devotion and defiance of her husband's authority; and the world-weary poet who seethes with resentment, harbouring notions of revenge. Immersive, epic, and emotionally moving, Unto the Day is an intelligent, captivating literary feat.
In the spring of 1880, wealthy politician and Globe editor George Brown was at the height of his career when he was shot by a disgruntled poet who worked in the newspaper's boiler room. Brown left an undeniable legacy as a founder of the modern Liberal Party, fierce abolitionist, industrialist, and preeminent Father of Confederation. Yet he was not without his flaws: Brown infamously disliked the Irish and arrogantly declared that women should not vote.
In this deeply imagined work of historical fiction, narrated through the perspective of characters most impacted by his formidable presence, readers witness the struggle of a motherless Irish domestic in fear and awe of Brown; his wife, Anne, a suffragist who is caught between devotion and defiance of her husband's authority; and the world-weary poet who seethes with resentment, harbouring notions of revenge. Immersive, epic, and emotionally moving, Unto the Day is an intelligent, captivating literary feat.
Price: $19.99
Pages: 328
Publisher: Dundurn Press
Imprint: Dundurn Press
Publication Date:
13 October 2026
Trim Size: 8.50 X 5.50 in
ISBN: 9781459757127
Format: Paperback
BISACs:
FICTION / Historical / 19th Century / General, Historical fiction, FICTION / World Literature / Canada / Colonial & 19th Century, FICTION / Women, FICTION / Biographical & Autofiction, Fiction: literary and general non-genre, Fiction based on or inspired by true events
Tracing the entangled fates of doppelganger pair George Bennett, an alcoholic labourer with literary aspirations, and George Brown, newspaper magnate and founding father of Canada, Dayle Furlong sketches a sensitive, finely detailed portrait of an early Canada wracked with the tension of uneasy political union and gaping class, gender, and religious inequities. Unto the Day joins Alias Grace and The Colony of Unrequited Dreams as some of this country's best-researched and most compelling historical fiction.
If you love historical fiction and perfect prose, be prepared to enter a world filled with rebel suffragists, poet-assassins, and high drama. Set in a wonderfully realized 1880s Toronto, this is the book for everyone who's tried to walk that razor-thin line between absolute loyalty and undeniable treason. Or even just felt the weight of someone else's shadow. A heart-pounding literary page-turner you won't be able to put down.
A young housemaid fleeing a traumatic past. A poet dreaming of celebrity from his job in a sooty boiler room. A respectable lady navigating the realms of power in the hopes of a better future for her daughters. In 1880s Toronto, these characters come together around the charismatic George Brown. Dayle Furlong's Unto the Day is a richly detailed, compassionate page-turner invoking the yeasty air of the tavern, the urine-soaked walls of the flop-house, the worn-out boots, starchy potato peelings, chapped hands, tight-laced stays, voluminous skirts and laboriously polished silver behind a city and a nation in transition.
If you love historical fiction and perfect prose, be prepared to enter a world filled with rebel suffragists, poet-assassins, and high drama. Set in a wonderfully realized 1880s Toronto, this is the book for everyone who's tried to walk that razor-thin line between absolute loyalty and undeniable treason. Or even just felt the weight of someone else's shadow. A heart-pounding literary page-turner you won't be able to put down.
A young housemaid fleeing a traumatic past. A poet dreaming of celebrity from his job in a sooty boiler room. A respectable lady navigating the realms of power in the hopes of a better future for her daughters. In 1880s Toronto, these characters come together around the charismatic George Brown. Dayle Furlong's Unto the Day is a richly detailed, compassionate page-turner invoking the yeasty air of the tavern, the urine-soaked walls of the flop-house, the worn-out boots, starchy potato peelings, chapped hands, tight-laced stays, voluminous skirts and laboriously polished silver behind a city and a nation in transition.
Dayle Furlong is the author of Lake Effect & Other Stories, the novel Saltwater Cowboys, and a collection of poetry, Open Slowly. She has a M.A. in creative writing from the University of Edinburgh and works as a librarian. Originally from Newfoundland, Dayle lives in Toronto.