The legendary Emily Carr was primarily a painter, but she first gained recognition as a writer. Her first book, published in 1941, was titled Klee Wyck ("Laughing One"), in honour of the name that the Native people of the west coast gave her as an intrepid young woman. The book was a hit with both critics and the public, won the prestigious Governor General's Award and has remained in print ever since. Emily Carr wrote these twenty-one word sketches after visiting and living with Native people, painting their totem poles and villages, many of them in wild and remote areas. She tells her stories with beauty, pathos and a vivid awareness of the comedy of people and situations. And though Carr wrote Klee Wyck decades after these visits, she said, "The lovely places were as fresh in my mind as they were then, because while I painted I had lived them deep."
A few years after Carr's death, significant deletions were made to the book for an educational edition. This new, beautifully designed keepsake volume restores Klee Wyck to its original published version, making the complete work available for the first time in more than fifty years. Included are full-colour reproductions of the four paintings by Emily Carr that appeared in the first edition of Klee Wyck. Also included are the two original forewords by Carr's friend, Ira Dilworth, to the first edition as well as to the educational edition, that offer insights into Carr's life and writing. And in an intriguing introduction, archivist Kathryn Bridge puts Klee Wyck into the context of Emily Carr's life and reveals the results of her research into the story behind the expurgations.