Various Miracles
by Shields, Carol
Born in Oak Park, Illinois, in 1935, Carol Shields moved to Canada at the age of twenty-two, after studying at the University of Exeter in England, and then obtained her M.A. at the University of Ottawa. She started publishing poetry in her thirties, and wrote her first novel, Small Ceremonies, in 1976. Over the next three decades, Shields would become the author of over twenty books, including plays, poetry, essays, short fiction, novels, a book of criticism on Susanna Moodie and a biography of Jane Austen. Her work has been translated into twenty-two languages.In addition to her writing, Carol Shields worked as an academic, teaching at the University of Ottawa, the University of British Columbia and the University of Manitoba. In 1996, she became chancellor of the University of Winnipeg. She lived for fifteen years in Winnipeg and often used it as a backdrop to her fiction, perhaps most notably in Republic of Love. Shields also raised five children — a son and four daughters — with her husband Don, and often spoke of juggling early motherhood with her nascent writing career. When asked in one interview whether being a mother changed her as a writer, she replied, “Oh, completely. I couldn’t have been a novelist without being a mother. It gives you a unique witness point of the growth of personality. It was a kind of biological component for me that had to come first. And my children give me this other window on the world.”The Stone Diaries, her fictional biography of Daisy Goodwill, a woman who drifts through her life as child, wife, mother and widow, bewildered by her inability to understand any of these roles, received excellent reviews. The book won a Governor General’s Literary Award and a Pulitzer Prize, and was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize, bringing Shields an international following. Her novel Swann was made into a film (1996), as was The Republic of Love (2003; directed by Deepa Mehta). Larry’s Party, published in several countries and adapted into a musical stage play, won England’s Orange Prize, given to the best book by a woman writer in the English-speaking world. And Shields’s final novel, Unless, was shortlisted for the Booker, Orange and Giller prizes and the Governor General’s Literary Award, and won the Ethel Wilson Prize for Fiction.Shields’s novels are shrewdly observed portrayals of everyday life. Reviewers praised her for exploring such universal themes as loneliness and lost opportunities, though she also celebrated the beauty and small rewards that are so often central to our happiness yet missing from our fiction. In an eloquent afterword to Dropped Threads, Shields says her own experience taught her that life is not a mountain to be climbed, but more like a novel with a series of chapters.Carol Shields was always passionate about biography, both in her writing and her reading, and in 2001 she published a biography of Jane Austen. For Shields, Austen was among the greatest of novelists and served as a model: “Jane Austen has figured out the strategies of fiction for us and made them plain.” In 2002, Jane Austen won the coveted Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-fiction. A similar biographical impulse lay behind the two Dropped Threads anthologies Carol Shields edited with Marjorie Anderson; their contributors were encouraged to write about those experiences that women are normally not able to talk about. “Our feeling was that women are so busy protecting themselves and other people that they still feel they have to keep quiet about some subjects,” Shields explained in an interview.Shields spoke often of redeeming the lives of people by recording them in her own works, “especially that group of women who came between the two great women's movements…. I think those women’s lives were often thought of as worthless because they only kept house and played bridge. But I think they had value.”In 1998, Shields was diagnosed with breast cancer. Speaking on her illness, Shields once said, “It’s made me value time in a way that I suppose I hadn’t before. I’m spending my time listening, listening to what's going around, what's happening around me instead of trying to get it all down.” In 2000, Shields and her husband Don moved from Winnipeg to Victoria, where they lived until her passing on July 16, 2003, from complications of breast cancer, at age 68.
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Various Miracles: Stories
by Shields, Carol
- Condition
- Used - Good Condition
- Edition
- First Edition
- Published
- 1995
- Binding
- Softcover
- ISBN
- 9781857023305
- Quantity Available
- 1
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King River, Western Australia, AUS
- Item Price
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$6.63
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4th Estate, London, 1995. First Edition. Softcover. Good Condition. Size: 12mo (small). 243 pages. Text body is clean, and free from previous owner annotation, underlining and highlighting. Binding is tight, covers and spine fully intact. Pages are lightly toned throughout. Edges browned slightly. The book has been read and it may have some creases but… Read more about this item Item Price
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Various Miracles
by Shields, Carol
- Condition
- Used
- Binding
- Paperback
- ISBN
- 9780679307785
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Winnipeg, Manitoba, CAN
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$26.25
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Toronto: Vintage Canada [0-679-30778-8] 1985. (Trade paperback) 201pp. Very good plus. Signed with an inscription by the author. The top right corner of the front cover has a minor diagonal crease. "The stories collected here offer an entrancing, intriguing look at some of the various miracles of everyday life, the quirks of chance and… Read more about this item Item Price
$26.25
VARIOUS MIRACLES
by SHIELDS, CAROL
- Condition
- Used
- Edition
- FIRST EDITION
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- PUB 1994
- Binding
- HARDCOVER
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BURLINGTON, Wisconsin, USA
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$25.00
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LONDON: FOURTH ESTATE. FINE IN FINE D.J.. PUB 1994. FIRST EDITION. HARDCOVER. Keywords: STORY COLLECTION, INVISIBLE, ABCDEF. Item Price
$25.00
Various Miracles (Signed First Edition)
by SHIELDS, Carol
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- Published
- 1994
- ISBN
- 9781857022490
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Wadsworth, Illinois, USA
- Item Price
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$45.00
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London: Fourth Estate, 1994. First British edition. Hardcover. First printing. A collection of short stories from the Pulitzer Prize winning author of "The Stone Diaries." A fine copy in a fine dust jacket. Signed by Shield on the title page. Item Price
$45.00
Various Miracles
by Carol Shields
- Condition
- Used - Very Good Condition
- Jacket Condition
- As New
- Edition
- Later Edition
- Published
- 1994
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- Hardcover
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Katoomba, New South Wales, AUS
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Fourth Estate, London, 1994. Later Edition. Hardcover. Very Good Condition/As New. Cloth Boards & Dust Jacket, 8vo, 243 pages, very good condition Dust Jacket has mild wear, clean Cloth Boards, pages clean and white. Size: Octavo (standard book size). Text body is clean, and free from previous owner annotation, underlining and highlighting. Binding is tight,… Read more about this item Item Price
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Various Miracles.
by SHIELDS, Carol.
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Tamworth, Ontario, CAN
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$30.00
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London: Fourth Estate, (1994). First English and first hardcover edition. Signed by Shields. Tiny bumps to upper corners of covers and another light bump to edge of front board, else very near to fine in dust jacket.. Item Price
$30.00
Various Miracles - 1st Edition/1st Printing
by Shields, Carol
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- Used - Fine in Fine dust jacket
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- First Edition; First Printing
- Published
- 1994
- Binding
- Hardcover
- ISBN
- 9781857022490
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Summerville, South Carolina, USA
- Item Price
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$110.00
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London: Fourth Estate. Fine in Fine dust jacket. 1994. First Edition; First Printing. Hardcover. 1857022491 . A handsome first edition/first printing in unread Fine condition in Fine dust-jacket; This book tells the story of a young girl, Tessa, who is trying to find her place in the world. She is faced with many challenges, but she finds… Read more about this item Item Price
$110.00
Various Miracles
by SHIELDS, Carol
- Condition
- Used
- Published
- 1994
- ISBN
- 9781857022490
- Quantity Available
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Wadsworth, Illinois, USA
- Item Price
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$15.00
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London: Fourth Estate, 1994. First British edition. Hardcover. 242 pages. A collection of short stories from the Pulitzer Prize winning author of "The Stone Diaries." A fine copy in a fine dust jacket. Item Price
$15.00
Various Miracles
by Shields, Carol
- Condition
- Used
- Published
- 1996
- Binding
- Paperback
- ISBN
- 9780679307785
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Winnipeg, Manitoba, CAN
- Item Price
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$6.75
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Toronto: Random House of Canada, 1996. Paperback. 8vo. Shelfworn; good+. Item Price
$6.75
Various Miracles
by SHIELDS, CAROL
- Condition
- Used - Good +
- Jacket Condition
- No Jacket
- Edition
- First Edition
- Published
- 1985
- Binding
- Trade Paperback
- Quantity Available
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Toronto, Ontario, CAN
- Item Price
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$29.64
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Don Mills: Stoddart, 1985. First Edition. Trade Paperback. Good +/No Jacket. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Somewhat of a well-read copy, with a crease to the front and rear cover and a little fading to the spine; some light wear to the outer extremities of the wrappers. Lightly scred throughout in pencil, with some notes in… Read more about this item Item Price
$29.64
Various Miracles
by Shields, Carol
- Condition
- Used - Near Fine
- Jacket Condition
- Fine
- Edition
- First Edition
- Published
- 1994
- Binding
- Hardcover
- ISBN
- 9781857022490
- Quantity Available
- 1
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Austin, Minnesota, USA
- Item Price
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$40.00
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Fourth Estate, 1994. Book. Near Fine. Hardcover. Signed by Author(s). First Edition. Hardcover in fine jacket.. Item Price
$40.00
Various Miracles.
by SHIELDS, Carol.
- Condition
- Used
- Edition
- First UK edition.
- Published
- (1994).
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Berkeley, California, USA
- Item Price
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$30.00
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London: Fourth Estate, (1994).. First UK edition.. 243 pp. Fine in fine dust jacket. A collection of seventeen short stories. Item Price
$30.00
Various miracles (Stoddart short fiction)
by Shields, Carol
- Condition
- Used - Collectible - Very Good
- ISBN
- 9780773750364
- Quantity Available
- 1
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Frederick, Maryland, USA
- Item Price
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$19.99
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Stoddart. Collectible - Very Good. First edition copy. Collectible - Very Good. In protective mylar cover. Item Price
$19.99
Various Miracles
by Shields, Carol
- Condition
- Used - Very Good
- Published
- 1985
- Binding
- Soft cover
- ISBN
- 9780773750364
- Quantity Available
- 1
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Winnipeg, Manitoba, CAN
- Item Price
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$11.50
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Don Mills, ON, Canada: Stoddart, 1985. Soft cover. Very Good. Clean, tight, unmarked; very minimal wear; "In these short stories, Shields draws us into the lives of a broad range of sharply observed characters, from the brilliant young violinist being smothered by an overprotective family, to the fat, elderly widow, mowing her lawn while, unknown to passerby, a… Read more about this item Item Price
$11.50
Various Miracles
by Carol Shields
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- Used
- ISBN
- 9780773750364
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Winnipeg, Manitoba, CAN
- Item Price
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$22.00
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Toronto: Stoddart, 1985. Paper bound in red wrappers, flat signed by author on title page, Pp183. Tight and unmarked - a very good copy. 220 grams. We welcome all reasonable offers on our books and also offer local curbside pick-up. All books in stock and available for immediate shipment from Winnipeg, Manitoba. Item Price
$22.00
Various miracles (Stoddart short fiction)
by Shields, Carol
- Condition
- Used - Near Fine
- Published
- 1985
- Binding
- Paperback
- ISBN
- 9780773750364
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Seller
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Montreal, Quebec, CAN
- Item Price
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$20.00
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Stoddart, 1985. Book. Near Fine. Soft cover. Signed by Author(s). SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR. Item Price
$20.00
Various Miracles
by Shields, Carol
- Condition
- As New
- Published
- 1996
- Binding
- Soft cover
- ISBN
- 9780679307785
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Seller
-
Winnipeg, Manitoba, CAN
- Item Price
-
$9.50
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Don Mills, ON, Canada: Stoddart, 1996. Soft cover. As New. As New; "In these short stories, Shields draws us into the lives of a broad range of sharply observed characters, from the brilliant young violinist being smothered by an overprotective family, to the fat, elderly widow, mowing her lawn while, unknown to passerby, a long passionate life buzzes… Read more about this item Item Price
$9.50
VARIOUS MIRACLES.
by Shields, Carol.
- Condition
- Used - Fine
- Edition
- First British Edition
- Published
- 1994
- Binding
- Hardcover
- ISBN
- 9781857022490
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Seller
-
Santa Monica, California, USA
- Item Price
-
$35.00
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LONDON: 4TH ESTATE.. Fine. 1994. First British Edition. Hardcover. 1857022491 . First Edition in hardcover. Fine in a fine dj. (LRC) . Item Price
$35.00
Various Miracles
by Shields, Carol
- Condition
- UsedVeryGood
- Published
- 1996
- Binding
- Paperback
- ISBN
- 9781857023305
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Seller
-
Chelsea, Michigan, USA
- Item Price
-
$7.00
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Description:
1996. Paperback. UsedVeryGood. Item Price
$7.00
Various Miracles
by Carol Shields
- Condition
- Used - Fair
- ISBN
- 9781857023305
- Quantity Available
- 1
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Wellington, Greater Wellington, NZL
- Item Price
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$7.94
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Fourth Estate 1996 Paperback. Fair. Item Price
$7.94