Culled from the handwritten pages in old-fashioned scribblers and almost-forgotten typescripts amid drafts for her published stories, Unvarnished features among the last unpublished and highly personal writings of the iconic Canadian author and artist Emily Carr.

This highly readable manuscript?edited by Royal BC Museum curator emerita Kathryn Bridge and illustrated with sketches and photographs from the BC Archives'spans nearly four decades, from 1899 to 1944. In an almost stream-of-consciousness outpouring of stories, Carr chronicles her early years as an art student in England, her life-altering sojourn in France and subsequent travels to Indigenous villages along the coast, her encounters with the Group of Seven, conversations with artist Lawren Harris, and her sketching trips in the "Elephant" caravan in the company of a quirky menagerie. Also included are stories written in hospital recovering from a stroke, a particularly vulnerable time in her life.

Emily Carr's books have remained in nearly continuous print since the 1940s. Unvarnished is a fresh addition to her enduring oeuvre, to be enjoyed as a complement to her other writings or as a jewel in its own right.

Beloved Canadian artist and writer Emily Carr (December 13, 1871—March 2, 1945) was born in Victoria, British Columbia. She studied art in the U.S., England and France until 1911, when she moved back to British Columbia. Carr was most heavily influenced by the landscapes and First Nations cultures of British Columbia and Alaska. In the 1920s she came into contact with members of the Group of Seven and was later invited to submit her works for inclusion in a Group of Seven exhibition. They named her The Mother of Modern Arts about five years later.

Emily Carr's profile page

Kathryn Bridge, PhD, is an archivist and historian who has curated exhibitions and written about Emily Carr for several decades. Her research is focused on the body of Carr's art and writings held in the BC Archives collections. Exhibitions include Emily Carr: Artist, Author, Eccentric Genius (2001) and The Other Emily (2010) at the Royal BC Museum, Victoria; and Intimate Glimpses: The Early Life of Emily Carr (2011) at the Wing Sang Gallery, Vancouver. Writings include the introduction to Carr's Klee Wyck (2004) and the forewords to Wildflowers by Emily Carr (2003) and Sister and I: From Victoria to London, an illustrated manuscript journal by Carr published in 2011. Bridge's Emily Carr in England is to be published by the Royal BC Museum in 2014.

Kathryn Bridge's profile page

"The BC Archives hold drawings and sketches by Carr that go back to the 1880s, and, in two inserted signatures of colour plates, Bridge has curated a range of handsomely reproduced images rarely or never seen before. Some are youthful works, comical drawings with funny, awkwardly rhyming poems; political cartoons; and sketches that often poke fun at herself and her sisters. ...Kathryn Bridge has done us all a great service, bringing a more fully realized Emily Carr to life; here she is, unvarnished and alive."
--Colin Browne, writer and documentary filmmaker, in The BC Review