Hi, my name is Ross but I go by the moniker rcool. I have been a volunteer with Distributed Proofreaders Canada (DPC), the organization that provides public-domain e-books to Faded Page, since its beginnings in December 2007. I have been involved in many aspects of the DPC community and currently do proofing and posting of eBooks to Faded Page. When you participate in DPC, you get exposed to a wide range of books and publications.

The author I want to speak about today is Mazo de la Roche, from north of Toronto, who wrote a number of books but is well known mostly for a series of 16 books which cover 100 years of the wealthy Whiteoak family history at their estate called Jalna, and it is partly based on de la Roche’s own experiences. Currently we have 19 of her books at Faded Page for your perusal, with many more to follow.

Jalna, written in 1927, was the first written in the series but ended up being seventh chronologically. The critical acclaim inspired the author to produce sequels and prequels, and my advice is to read them in chronological order, not publication date. A 1935 film version of the book, directed by John Cromwell, was, according to Variety, “a nice production of a not very good adaptation.” The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) also made a movie in 1951 and a 5-episode TV series in 1972.

Of course your choices may not match mine, and that’s fine as there are lots of eBooks to choose from! If you want to check out any of our Mazo de la Roche books then go to this page.

If you like what we do here on Faded Page and want to help us add even more public domain books to the site, come join us and proofread a few pages. For more information about how to volunteer, check out our companion site, Distributed Proofreaders Canada.