Hopes and Dreams: The Diary of Henriette Dessaulles 1874-1881

More than a century ago, a young French-Canadian girl, Henriette Dessaulles, romantic, idealistic, witty, chose a series of notebooks to be her private 'confidant' over a period of seven years.

In 1874, beginning at the age of fourteen, she entrusted her hopes and fears, doubts and dreams, to her precious 'confidant' until eight weeks before she married at the age of twenty-one.

And what a joy it is! Henriette's diary is a revelation: moving, absorbing, ironic, it chronicles the joys and sorrows of a bright, thoughtful, outspoken girl who, like Anne of Green Gables, retreats from loneliness into a dreamworld of books, music and the beauty of nature.

With a rare literary talent, Henriette writes delightful descriptions of her convent schooldays, enriched by wickedly funny and perceptive observations of the nuns and priests who taught her; she vividly captures the sparkling fun and theatricals and balls, sleigh rides and picnics, as well as the stifling restrictions and protocol that frustrated the imaginative and unconventional young girl; touchingly, she reveals her struggle to understand a stern, cold stepmother, painfully conveying the icy loneliness of a young girl denied the affection she craves.

But above everything else, this is a love story -- an entrancing account of how Henriette's childhood admiration and adoration for 'the boy next door' -- Maurice Saint-Jacques -- blossomed into an enduring and passionate love.