Jalna (novel series)

Jalna is a 16 book series of novels by the Canadian writer Mazo de la Roche.

Jalna
AuthorMazo de la Roche
CountryCanada
LanguageEnglish
SeriesJalna (or Whiteoaks)
PublisherLittle, Brown and Company
Publication date
June 1927
Media typePrint
ISBN0-316-18000-9

Jalna is the name of the fictional manor house in which the Whiteoak family lives. The name comes from Jalna, a city in west-central India, where there was a British garrison. In a prequel novel, the house is built by a retired officer of the British army who served in India. Jalna is partly based on Benares, a house in Mississauga, Canada. Benares was built in the late 1850s for a retired officer of the British army who had served in India, James B. Harris. It once occupied a larger estate, upon which de la Roche lived for a time. "Benares" is an alternate name of Varanasi, a city in India which had a British garrison.

Production

Jalna, first published in 1927, won the Atlantic Monthly Press's first $10,000 Atlantic Prize Novel award. De la Roche went on to write about the Whiteoak family for the next 30 years, establishing a place for herself in popular Canadian literature. The Jalna series has been translated into many languages and was adapted for stage, radio, and television. John Cromwell directed a 1935 film adaptation, Jalna. In 1972, it was filmed for television as The Whiteoaks of Jalna.

The story

The series tells the story of one hundred years of the Whiteoak family covering from 1854 to 1954. The novels were not written in sequential order. Each can be read as an independent story.

There are similarities and as well as differences in the experiences of the Whiteoak family and de la Roche's. While the lives and successes of the Whiteoaks rise and fall, there remained for them the steadiness of the family manor, known as Jalna. De la Roche's family endured the illness of her mother, the perpetual job searches of her father, and the adoption of her orphaned cousin while being moved 17 times. Her family did work a farm for a few years for a wealthy man who owned the farm for a hobby. Several critics believe that Finch from Finch's Fortune (1932) is a reflection of de la Roche herself. The names of many of the characters were taken from gravestones in a Newmarket, Ontario cemetery.

The Jalna series has sold more than eleven million copies in 193 English and 92 foreign editions. In 1935, the film Jalna, based on the novel, was released by RKO Radio Pictures and, in 1972, a CBC television series was produced based on the series.

The books
TitleOrderPublisherYearISBNNotes
Building of Jalna 1 Little, Brown 1944 ISBN 0-316-17996-5
Morning at Jalna 2 Little, Brown 1960 ISBN 0-333-03933-5
Mary Wakefield 3 Little, Brown 1949 ISBN 0-333-07652-4
Young Renny 4 Little, Brown 1935 ISBN 0-333-01371-9
Whiteoak Heritage 5 Little, Brown 1935 ISBN 0-333-05090-8
Whiteoak Brothers 6 Little, Brown 1953 ISBN 0-333-08809-3
Jalna 7 Little, Brown 1927 ISBN 0-316-18000-9
Whiteoaks of Jalna 8 Little, Brown 1929 ISBN 0-316-18014-9 Published as Whiteoaks, Macmillan, 1929
Finch's Fortune 9 Little, Brown 1932 ISBN 0-333-09966-4
The Master of Jalna 10 Little, Brown 1933 ISBN 0-316-18002-5
Whiteoak Harvest 11 Little, Brown 1936 ISBN 0-333-07404-1
Wakefield's Course 12 Little, Brown 1941 ISBN 0-316-18010-6
Return to Jalna 13 Little, Brown 1946 ISBN 0-333-04842-3
Renny's Daughter 14 Little, Brown 1951 ISBN 0-333-08561-2
Variable Winds at Jalna 15 Little, Brown 1954 ISBN 0-333-02280-7
Centenary at Jalna 16 Little, Brown 1954 ISBN 0-316-17997-3

Film and television adaptations
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