SOURCE: Kelly, Darlene. “Haliburton's International Yankee.” In The Thomas Chandler Haliburton Symposium, edited by Frank M. Tierney, pp. 135-49. Ottawa, Ont.: University of Ottawa Press, 1985.

In the following essay, Kelly suggests that Haliburton's writings, particularly The Clockmaker and The Attaché series, serve as political analyses of the relationship between England, America, and the Canadian colonies and are a social commentary on these cultures. She states that the character of Sam is the personification of Haliburton's satire of America and the means by which Haliburton makes fun of the English.

After the first Clockmaker set in Nova Scotia won surprising acclaim overseas, Thomas Haliburton wrote to a former colleague living in New Brunswick, “I have another volume ready for the press, which is not so local as the other, and I think better suited for English readers.”¹ Consequently, the second and third Clockmaker and the four-volume Attaché feature the...