From the publication of his first novel, The Mountain and the Valley, in 1952 until his death in 1984, Ernest Buckler occupied a unique position in the field of Canadian fiction. His richly textured prose style, sensitively developed protagonists, and vividly realized sense of place achieved a tone of intimacy and lyricism uncharacteristic of the work of many of his contemporaries. Now considered a classic of Canadian literature, The Mountain and the Valley is a poetical tour de force set in Buckler's native Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia. Its depiction of a pastoral childhood world being eroded by contemporary urban values transcends regionalism and introduces a Buckler concern later developed in the pastoral idylls Ox Bells and Fireflies (1968) and Nova Scotia: Window On the Sea (1973).

Ernest Buckler, the son of Appleton Buckler (a farmer) and Mary Swift Buckler, was born of English and Loyalist stock in Dalhousie West, a small...