Welcome to Poplar Lane Press
Poplar Lane Press publishes and distributes books by Margaret Derry. It also publishes work by Douglas Derry
Margaret Derry is a historian who writes on two different themes. The first is her Life and Living series of books which address a range of topics central to people’s lives. The second series on Animals and Culture builds on her experience as a leading historian of genetics and its relationship to culture.
In the Life and Living Series, Margaret has written three books on northern Georgian Bay, the most recent being Manitoulin and Region: Voices from the Past which provides insight into the story of Manitoulin as expressed by the people who experienced it over time. Georgian Bay Jewel: The Killarney Story, winner of the Ontario Historical Society’s Fred Langdon award for regional history, is a fascinating story of the history of Northern Georgian Bay. It is complemented by Killarney Memoir: Summers over a Century, which describes holidays in a remote Georgian Bay fishing village, as experienced by a family over five generations. Also as part of this series, Pathway: Life as Art, Science and History builds on Margaret’s experience as a painter in watercolours and oils to reveal the art in science and the science in art.
Her Animals and Culture series of books address the history and culture of purebred animal breeding, with a focus on various breeds of horse, cattle and dog. Her three books addressing this theme are Horses in Society, Bred for Perfection: Shorthorn Cattle, Collies and Arabian Horses since 1800, and Ontario’s Cattle Kingdom.
Forthcoming in 2011 is Practice and Science in Livestock Breeding: Creating Better Chickens. This book explores the interaction of practical know-how and scientific knowledge in animal breeding.
Douglas Derry is the author of Making It Big In Canada: The Life of William Ramsay of Bowland, the biography of a Scot who arrived with little in Toronto in 1854, and became established as a wholesale grocer when wholesalers were central to business in the country. He was involved in the development of railways and banks, and retired at less than fifty years of age with a considerable fortune, to build another life over thirty years in Scotland.
