The Clockmaker (Large Print Edition)

Well, I'd been doin a little business there among the folks, and had jist sot off for the river, mounted on "Old Clay," arter takin a glass of Ezra's most particular handsum Jamaiky, and was trottin off pretty slick, when who should I run agin but Tim Bradley. He is a dreadful ugly cross grained critter, as you een amost ever seed, when he is about half shaved. Well, I stopped short, and says, I, Mr. Bradley, I hope you beant hurt; I'm proper sorry I run agin you, you cant feel uglier than I do about it, I do assure you.

Thomas Chandler Haliburton was born in Windsor, Nova Scotia, in 1796. He studied at King’s College and was called to the bar in 1820. He practised law in Annapolis Royal and represented that constituency in the provincial assembly from 1826 to 1829. Named a judge of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas in 1829, he was elevated twelve years later to the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia.

Haliburton began his writing career as a historian. In the 1830s he turned to humorous and satirical fiction to express his Tory opinions on political and social questions. In 1835 he contributed to Joseph Howe’s journal The Novascotian a series of satirical sketches entitled “Recollections of Nova Scotia.” Their popularity led him to expand them into The Clockmaker; or, The Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick, of Slickville (1836). He published a second series of sketches in 1838 and a third in 1840.

In 1856 Haliburton retired and moved to England, where he represented Launceston in the House of Commons from 1859 to 1865.

Thomas Chandler Haliburton died in Isleworth, Middlesex, England, in 1865.