This follow-up to Valerie Knowles’ first edition of Capital Lives is a welcome addition to the growing literature concerning Ottawa’s more interesting inhabitants. In short, lively sketches feature well-known early settlers, such as Braddish Billings (1783-1864), to more modern, but little-known personalities like Isabel Percival (1903-1998), an astute businesswoman who devoted considerable time and effort to a number of worthy local causes. Along the way, Knowles introduces a fascinating cast of characters that will leave readers looking forward to a third volume.
Three cheers and a tiger to Valerie Knowles for the marvelous array of former Ottawa citizens she has brilliantly unveiled to us in these snapshot vignettes of their lives.
– Grete Hale, CM, LLD, GCLJ, FCGS, FRHSC, Chair Emeritus, Morrison Lamothe Inc.
It is a book to delight a reader anywhere who finds human animals the natural quarry of the historian, as well as a reader who ponders the places shaped by them.
– John Taylor, Prof. Emeritus, History, Carleton University, author of: Ottawa: An Illustrated History