PagineAnne Shirley of Green Gables, Leacock’s sunny small town, Robert Service’s Yukon ballads, Munro’s stories and Atwood’s dystopias — Canadian classics (“CanLit”) are some of the most loved books in English and French. Here are 52 essential Canadian books, from pioneer memoirs to the 21st century, with short guides to the great Canadian authors and many free to read online.
New to Canadian literature? Begin with one of these — or follow our step-by-step guide, What to Read for Canadian Classics →
Full books, free in the Pagine e-reader on any phone, tablet or computer — no download.
Short biographies, what to read first, and every book of theirs on this list.
Susanna Moodie emigrated from England to Upper Canada in 1832 and struggled to farm the backwoods north of Peterborough. Roughing It in the Bush (1852), her frank, funny and often bitter account of pioneer life, is a founding text of Canadian literature; her sister Catharine Parr Traill wrote The Backwoods of Canada. Margaret Atwood reimagined her in The Journals of Susanna Moodie.
Where to start: Roughing It in the Bush
On this list: Roughing It in the Bush
Lucy Maud Montgomery was raised by her grandparents in Cavendish, Prince Edward Island, and worked as a teacher and journalist. Anne of Green Gables (1908), about a talkative, imaginative orphan sent by mistake to an elderly brother and sister who wanted a boy, became an instant bestseller and has sold tens of millions of copies. Seven sequels followed, along with Emily of New Moon and The Blue Castle.
Where to start: Anne of Green Gables
On this list: Anne of Green Gables · Anne of Avonlea · Anne of the Island · Rilla of Ingleside · Emily of New Moon · The Blue Castle
Stephen Leacock was a professor of economics at McGill University and, in his day, the best-known humorist in the English-speaking world. Literary Lapses (1910) and Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (1912), affectionate stories of the fictional Ontario town of Mariposa, remain classics. Canada’s prize for humour writing, the Leacock Medal, is named after him.
Where to start: Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town
On this list: Literary Lapses · Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town · Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich
Gabrielle Roy, a Franco-Manitoban teacher, wrote The Tin Flute (Bonheur d’occasion, 1945), a portrait of a poor family in Montreal’s Saint-Henri district during World War II. It won France’s Prix Femina — the first Canadian book to do so — and helped launch modern Quebec literature. Where Nests the Water Hen and Street of Riches draw on her prairie childhood.
Where to start: The Tin Flute
On this list: The Tin Flute
Margaret Laurence set five books in Manawaka, a fictional prairie town modelled on her birthplace. The Stone Angel (1964), narrated by the proud, unbending 90-year-old Hagar Shipley, is one of the most taught Canadian novels; The Diviners (1974) completes the cycle.
Where to start: The Stone Angel
On this list: The Stone Angel · The Diviners
Alice Munro wrote almost only short stories — set mostly in small-town southwestern Ontario — that hold as much life as a novel. From Dance of the Happy Shades (1968) to Runaway (2004) and Dear Life (2012), she was hailed as a “master of the contemporary short story” when she won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013.
Where to start: Runaway
On this list: Dance of the Happy Shades · Lives of Girls and Women · Runaway
Margaret Atwood is Canada’s most famous living writer — poet, novelist, critic and environmentalist. The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), set in a theocratic future America, became a global symbol of women’s rights; Alias Grace (1996) reimagines a real 1843 murder; and The Blind Assassin (2000) and The Testaments (2019) both won the Booker Prize.
Where to start: Alias Grace
On this list: The Edible Woman · Surfacing · The Handmaid’s Tale · Alias Grace · The Blind Assassin
7 of these are free to read in Pagine right now (📖 Read free). The rest link to a free public-domain edition or to Open Library, where many can be borrowed free.
Print it, save it as a PDF, email it to yourself or share it with a friend, book club or class. Every copy links back to pagineapp.com, and the free Pagine app tracks every book you finish.
iPhone & iPad
Android26 free books by Canadian authors in Pagine — including titles beyond this list.
Every title on the list links to the free sources that may have it. Public-domain books are free to read and download; newer books can often be borrowed free.
Canadian works published in 1930 or earlier — Moodie, Traill, Montgomery’s Anne books, Leacock, Seton, Service and McCrae — are free to read online, and many are in Pagine. Track your reading of the whole Anne series in the free Pagine app.
Anne of Green Gables, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, The Stone Angel, Alice Munro’s Runaway and Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace or The Handmaid’s Tale.
CanLit is short for Canadian literature — books by Canadian writers in English, French and Indigenous languages, often about place, identity and the land.
Alice Munro, in 2013. Saul Bellow (1976) was born in Lachine, Quebec, but is usually counted as an American writer.
Yes. Anne of Green Gables (1908) and many of its sequels are in the public domain and free to read in Pagine.
Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol, Mikhail Lermontov and more
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