Strawberry Girls is the story of two young women in their teens--Lil and Nan Addington-- who play an essential role in their widowed mother's efforts to sustain her family on the proceeds from their small strawberry garden. Their lives are essentially happy ones, though making enough to live decently is challenging. On the cusp of womanhood, Lil is the most self-conscious about the family's reduced circumstances and the social decline it brings. Her anxiety is soon heightened by an unexpected visit from Mrs. Adelaide Sinclair, a wealthy cousin of her late father who married into the British nobility. Written in the style of the beloved novel Little Women, Strawberry Girls is a lost classic of Canadian fiction.

Born and raised in Nova Scotia, HELEN MILECETE DUFFUS (1868-1936) was the daughter of prominent Halifax merchant Robert Morrow and his wife Helen Stairs, and sister to another Canadian fiction writer, Susan (Morrow) Jones. While one of her obituaries identifies her as a short story writer and the author of several books, lack of clear attribution surrounding her work (her sister, Susan, frequently used "Helen Milecete" as a pseudonym) continues to obscure the extent of her literary contribution.

Helen Milecete Duffus' profile page

JANET B. FRISKNEY is a cultural historian who specializes in Canadian publishing history. The author of New Canadian Library: The Ross-McClelland Years, Dr. Friskney has also edited Thirty Years of Storytelling: Short Fiction by Ethelwyn Wetherald and served as associate editor to volume three of the .

Janet B. Friskney's profile page