Another Country, Another Life: Calumny, Love, and the Secrets of Isaac Jelfs

A young law clerk from England falls in love in 19th-century New York and reinvents himself in Canada.

Quiet Isaac Jelfs led many lives: a scapegoated law clerk in England; a soldier in the mad Crimean War; a lawyer on swirling Broadway Avenue in New York. His escape from each was wrapped in deep secrecy. He eventually reached Canada, in 1869, with a new wife and a changed name. In his new home ― the remote wilderness of Muskoka ― he crafted yet another persona for himself. In Another Country, Another Life, his great-grandson traces that long-hidden journey, exposing Isaac Jelfs’ covered tracks and the reasons for his double life.