Maureen Duffus has written books and articles about the early history of Victoria and Vancouver Island. Click on books for more information.
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 Craigflower Country: A History of View Royal, 1850-1950
New Revised Edition 2011
View Royal, formerly known as Craigflower Country, was part of the larger Esquimalt district from the early days of Fort Victoria. Its history is linked to the colonial beginnings of British Columbia and its capital city, Victoria. Craigflower was one of four large farms established by the Hudson's Bay Company when the British government required settlers for the Colony of Vancouver's Island, to safeguard against American hopes of northern expansion. The Company reluctantly financed the first European settlers to encroach in its fur trade domain. The 1856 Craigflower farmhouse, a landmark in View Royal, is one of only five remaining colonial buildings in Victoria. This illustrated history looks back on View Royal's First Nations heritage, it's place in Governor James Douglas's vision for the new colony, its importance to the Royal Navy in Esquimalt Harbour, and its transition from a sparsely populated farming community to a modern residential suburb that still celebrates its past heritage - including two of British Columbia's oldest pubs still thriving on their original sites.
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 Battlefront Nurses in WW I
This is the story of four years in the lives of two Nursing Sisters who enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force in Victoria in the summer of 1915. Both served overseas in England, Salonika and France as lieutenants with British Columbia’s own unit of the Canadian Army Medical Corps. Their war experiences are recorded in the diary of N/S Elsie Collis, a memoir by N/S Ethel Morrison, and their albums of photographs.
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 A Most Unusual Colony:
Vancouver Island 1849-1860
Invented letters by the real Mary Yates and reminiscences of the fictional child Kate Murray combine to give an authentic picture of colonial Fort Victoria.
“The author has done an exceptional job of portraying the life and times of early colonial women, ensconced in the political and economic history of Vancouver Island’s earliest days.”
(Excerpt from British Columbia Historical News, Fall, 1997)
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 Old Langford: An
Illustrated History 1850-1950
For most of the past century Langford was a rural community with a reputation as the underprivileged poor relation of Greater Victoria. A short-lived goldrush in the 1860s; a posh 1880s Goldstream resort; BC’s first hydro electric plant in the forest at Goldstream; the extraordinary life of the controversial Captain Langford and his family, along with other early settlers’ stories, are all part of Langford’s almost forgotten past.
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 Beyond the Blue Bridge:
Stories from Esquimalt
A collection of stories by the Esquimalt Silver Threads Writers group, with additional material by editor Maureen Duffus, includes personal stories as well as glimpses of the naval presence that played a large role in the development of the area from its earliest days. A place “of jollity and laughter,” and “notable houses and notable people,” as early history writer Edgar Fawcett remembered.
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