Mrs. Bentley's dream of establishing a second-hand bookstore there as a means of escape from their unappealing life in a small town is patently absurd. Judith, who mysteriously has become pregnant, dies shortly after giving birth and the Bentleys adopt her child. Characters Mrs. Bentley - a Protestant minister's wife Rev. Philip Bentley - her husband, the reserved minister Steve - the Catholic child temporarily adopted by the Bentleys Mr. Kulanich, his hard-working immigrant father, probably from Romania Paul Kirby - the local schoolteacher and philologist Judith West - a young woman who befriends the Bentleys Not named "Philip" - Judith West and Philip Bentley's illegitimate child Mrs. Finley - a leader among the women in Horizon George and Stanley - Mrs. Finley's brutal sons Mrs. Wenderby - a prominent member of the community Mrs. Ellingson - a friendly neighbour of Norwegian origin Josephine Bird - the wife of the local doctor Stanley Kirby - Paul's brother, at whose ranch the Bentleys stay for a short vacation Laura Kirby - Stanley's rancher wife Annie - Metis maid at ranch Joe Lawson - farmer in nearby village The town of Horizon is populated by an Anglo majority, and minority groups from Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. Its community betrays a social stratification along ethnic lines typical of the region. At the top stratum of society there are well-off middle-class families of British origin and Protestant belief that operate their own businesses in town. At the bottom there is the immigrant underclass of unskilled railway labourers including Steve Kulanich's father. In between there are foreign-born settlers like Mr. and Mrs. Sven Ellingson, the Norwegian neighbours of the Bentleys, or country-bred people like Paul Kirby and Judith West, who have come to town for work. Literary significance and reception Claims have been made about its significance, including M&S's own claim in 1957 that this book was a "classic." Although the novel experienced poor initial sales in 1941, its courted ambiguity and classically unreliable narrator make it an object for boundless speculation and argument. As For Me And My House is popularly thought of (and studied) as a Canadian novel, as it was written by a Canadian author, but there is nothing in the novel that definitively states that either the setting or the characters are Canadian, and "Horizon" could conceivably located in one of the Canadian prairie provinces OR in any number of northern