George Stephen Jones’s diary chronicles his romance with Honorine Tanswell. The two youths fell in love in the fall of 1845 and the diary traces in touching detail the course of George’s love for Honorine, her answering love, her parents’ opposition to the match, and Honorine’s accesptance of their dictates.

Peter Ward, who has been researching the history of courtship and marriage in Canada for many years, sets this tender love story in context in his introduction. As he details, the diary includes all the great themes of the history of courtship in nineteenth-century English Canada: youthful passion, parental opposition, religious differences, and the practical problems of securing an income sufficient to wed.