POLIS 210: Canada and the World

When Sir John Thompson was away from his wife, the couple wrote each other every day, a practice that resulted in the richest personal correspondence of any Canadian prime minister. With the help of these letters, Professor Waite has ably and intimately portrayed the private life of a late-Victorian politican: the sacrifice of home comforts, the loneliness of Ottawa, and the sense of public duty that drove Thomson, despite his natural inclinations, to persist in government service.