Life on the Stage

On a St. Patrick’s Day in Toronto, sunshine gives way to snow, rain, thunder—and a street riot. Just before the constabulary charges the crowd, Clara Morris is born in a quiet house at its heart.

In this lively memoir, the actress looks back on a childhood shaped by poverty, sudden flights, and a mother determined to keep her safe. Clara learns fear before she can name it: the smiling man she dreads is her own father, who threatens to take her away. Hunger brings its own hard lesson when a fallen potato seems like a gift—until her mother insists it must be returned. Even these earliest trials, Morris suggests, teach her to observe closely, and to hold fast to self-respect. What will the watchful child make of the stage—and what will it ask of her?

With centuries of literature, it's inevitable that some will fall through the cracks. We hunt down public domain works and restore them so they're not lost to the world.

Who are we? We're Cairn Press. Our background is in design, publishing, typography, and technology. These skills fuel our mission to create the highest quality Public Domain eBooks available online, at an affordable price. We give them the treatment they deserve; our proprietary process restores books for a better overall user experience in design, readability, and e-reader compatibility.