• Our project
  • How to use our site
  • Authors lists
    • Authors completed
    • Authors to be included
    • Author “snapshots”
    • Authors to be evaluated
    • Authors using pseudonyms
    • Resource list
    • Authors not included (for researchers)
  • Comprehensive Index of Contributors to the Crucible Magazine, 1932-1943
  • Index of Female Contributors to The Canadian Poetry Magazine, 1936-1950
  • A series of lists
    • Canadian periodicals online at ECO
    • A complete list of Ryerson Poetry Chapbooks, 1925-1962
      • Ryerson Poetry Chapbook 4: The Captive Gypsy (1926), by Constance Davies-Woodrow
      • Ryerson Poetry Chapbook 5: The Ear Trumpet (1926), by Annie Charlotte Dalton
      • Ryerson Poetry Chapbook 77: Songs, Being a Selection of Earlier Sonnets and Lyrics (1937), by Helena Coleman
    • Pseudonyms: Known and unknown
    • Some anonymous texts online at ECO
    • Women of Canada (1930)
  • Resource websites

Canada's Early Women Writers: Authors lists

~ A growing list of Canada's English-language women writers from the beginning to 1950

Canada's Early Women Writers: Authors lists

Monthly Archives: January 2013

“Lullaby,” by “Miss Baldwyn”

30 Wednesday Jan 2013

Posted by Karyn Huenemann in Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Baldwyn, Miss. “Lullaby.” Selections from Canadian Poets: With Occasional Critical and Biographical Notes, and an Introductory Essay on Canadian Poetry. Ed. Edward Hartley Dewart. [Montreal], 1864. 296.

I’m not sure if this “Miss Baldwyn” is Augusta Baldwyn (1822-1884), who also published in this volume. It seems unlikely that there would be two Miss Baldwyns publishing in the same volume, but also odd that one woman would be listed under two monikers. Augusta Baldwyn is the only Baldwyn we have listed at all, and did remain single throughout her life, so it is quite possible that this poem is hers.

Lullaby

Selections from Canadian Poets. Ed. Edward Hartley Dewart. [Montreal], 1864.

“The Battle Call,” by Constance Ward Harper

25 Friday Jan 2013

Posted by Karyn Huenemann in Poetry

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Harper, Constance Ward. “The Battle Call.” Patriotic and Other Poems. Vancouver, BC: Author, 1916. 10. “In Aid of the Belgian Relief Fund”

We are looking for a book that was purportedly written by this author, entitled By Order of the Kaiser (perhaps published by Northshore Press in 1920).  One of her descendants notes in an email that it “made $850 for the Belgian war relief,” but we cannot find either a copy of the book or a reliable bibliographic reference to it. Harper’s Patriotic and Other Poems itself raised a significant amount for the Belgian Relief Fund; one genealogical website notes that it “realiz[ed] the sum of nearly five thousand francs for these unfortunate children.” Perhaps the newspaper article is referring to this book, not the unverified By Order of the Kaiser. I would love to solve this riddle…

The Battle Call

Harper-Battle Call

“Bells of Montreal,” by Ermina Carpenter Holland

24 Thursday Jan 2013

Posted by Karyn Huenemann in Poetry

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Holland, Ermina Carpenter. “Bells of Montreal.” Montreal in Verse: An Anthology of English Poetry by Montreal Poets. Ed. Writers of the Poetry Group. Montreal; QB: Canadian Authors Association; 1942. 25.

Holland-Bells

Dorothy Livesay at Chatelaine

23 Wednesday Jan 2013

Posted by Karyn Huenemann in Biography, Poetry

≈ 2 Comments

The Magazines, Travel and Middlebrow Culture in Canada 1925-1960 project at the University of Strathclyde, in Glasgow, Scotland, now has their very attractive website up and running. Their mandate overlaps with ours somewhat, so some of our authors will be represented in their pages. Most notably at the moment is their discovery of two poems by Dorothy Livesay published in the pages of Chatelaine. The first, “Dimity in Town,” was published in the first volume of Chatelaine, in March 1928; the second, “Secret,” was published later that year, in May 1928.

Dimity in Town

Livesay, Dorothy. “Dimity in Town.” Chatelaine (March 1928): 16.

Chatelaine (March 1928): 16.

Secret

Livesay, Dorothy. “Secret.” Chatelaine (May 1928): 19.

Chatelaine (May 1928): 19.

Mary B. Huber

22 Tuesday Jan 2013

Posted by Karyn Huenemann in Biography, Poetry

≈ 3 Comments

Mary Huber is one of our elusive authors: elusive no more. All we knew was that she lived in Toronto, and had published two poems in the Canadian Poetry Magazine. Through our list of authors to be researched, we received an email from Sheldon Rose, of Toronto, who is conducting “research on Mary B. Huber in connection with Dr. Grenfell, the Canadian Women’s Press Club and one of her poems, ‘My Labrador Rug’.” Mr. Rose’s interest lies mainly in Canadian poetry that is suitable to be set to music, so he has also looked Marjorie Pickthall and others. His thorough research has helped us immensely in knowing more about Mary B. Huber and her work, both poetic and political. Below are the two poems we located in the Canadian Poetry Magazine, as well as “My Labrador Rug,” which Mr. Rose sent to us.

The tradition of the “Labrador Rug” comes from the early 1900s, when women all over North America were encouraged to send their ruined silk stockings to the women of Labrador, who would then hooked beautifully designed rugs from them. The practice was begun by the Grenfell Mission, founded by Sir Wilfred Grenfell in 1893; Grenfell credited with coining the maxim: “When your stockings run, let them run to Labrador.” The mission’s mandate was primarily medical, but also included enterprises to help the people of Labrador and Newfoundland to improve their living conditions through cottage industry: hence the rugs. Labrador Rugs are now collector’s items, prized for their history and their intricate designs.

My Labrador Rug

Chatelaine (June 1938)

Old silk stockings, worn and grey,
Packed in a box and sent away,
To a fisherman’s home by a wintry sea,
You have all come back again to me,
In the form of a ship and a flying gull,
White for the sails and brown for the hull,
Blue for the sky and sea.
 
Old silk stockings, tired of the town,
Did you smell the tang of the seaweed brown,
Have you heard the lonely seabirds cry,
While the good wife worked with hook and dye?
Black for the rocks and the fisherboy’s hair,
White for the ice and the polar bear,
Blue for the sea and sky.
 

Aurora Borealis

Canadian Poetry Magazine 2.4 (April 1938): 33.
Huber CPM 2.4 1938 33

 

Resurgam

Canadian Poetry Magazine 3.2 (October 1938): 32.

Huber CPM 3.2 1938 32

“Return from Bedlam,” by Mona Gould

18 Friday Jan 2013

Posted by Karyn Huenemann in Poetry

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The Vancouver Province published this photo of Mona Gould in conjunction with a review of her poetry collection Tasting the Earth (May 1943).
Vancouver Daily Province May 1943, review of Tasting the Earth

Return from Bedlam

The following poem is from the Canadian Poetry Magazine 9.2 (1945): 20.
Canadian Poetry Magazine 9.2 (1945): 20.

Corolyn Cox? Carolyn Cox? The elusive authorship of Stand By (1925)

17 Thursday Jan 2013

Posted by Karyn Huenemann in Biography, Fiction and other arts

≈ 1 Comment

Cox, Carolyn. Stand By. New York: Harper, 1925.

We have recently been researching an author often claimed by Canada—Corolyn Cox—to determine both her antecedents and her list of publications. It soon became obvious to us why her nationality was so elusive.

Corolyn Cox was born Corolyn Bulley in 1892 in Ohio. Her family eventually moved to Syracuse, New York, where Corolyn became a journalist. Sent to Canada to interview her maternal first cousin, John Raffles Cox, she fell in love and the two were married in 1919.

John Raffles Cox was an explorer—hence a subject for newspaper articles—who spent 3 years in the Canadian arctic then 14 months fighting in the First World War. Although British by birth, his family had immigrated to Canada in 1890, when he was 3 years old.  The family retained strong British connections, and by 1911, his parents and sister Katherine had returned to England.

After marriage, Corolyn and John spent about 6 months in Vancouver, BC—where John worked for the Canadian Geological Survey—before heading to India, where their two daughters, Jane and Penelope were born: Jane in Kashmir in 1920, and Penelope in Lahore in 1922. Despite returning to the United States for a brief period, the family listed Ottawa as their place of permanent residence on travel documents.

The family moved repeatedly, living for a period in Peru, and for about 5 years in Nairobi, Kenya. In December of 1929, their son John Raffles Junior was born in Philadelphia; in July of 1930 they had returned to Syracuse for a visit to Corolyn’s sister, Rachel. (The Syracuse Herald notes on 16 July 1930 that “after 11 years of adventure in South America, Africa, India,” the young family was “now to ‘settle down'” in America.) By the time of the 1930 US census, they were resident in Florida. They did seem to have settled in the USA at this point, but the Second World War somehow found them living in Canada, with Corolyn again working as a journalist, publishing articles in the Montreal Herald, Saturday Night, and Canadian Homes and Gardens.
PreviewScreenSnapz001
All this is known: verified through census and travel documents. What is not known is whether or not sometime-journalist Corolyn Cox is the same personal as the author Carolyn Cox, whose Stand By was published by Harper (New York & London) in 1925. The book itself sheds no light on the subject, being a mass-market novel on cheap paper with only the bare minimum of publishing details. Therefore, I said to myself, quoting Sam Gamgee, “there’s nothing for it” but to read the novel and see if there are any clues embedded in the prose. Very little luck there, either, but having read all 351 pages, I felt compelled to share it with you.

Stand By (1925)

The time is 1917; the United States has just entered the War; and Rosemary Lee is young, naïve, and aching to contribute in some way to the war effort. Knitting is all she feels able to do, but hoping to cheer some lonely soldier somewhere, she places a snapshot of herself, with her name and address on the back, into the toe of one of the socks she sends off. A reply comes from Jack Harlow of the US Navy. The two arrange to meet in Baltimore on one of his shore leaves, in which he determines the level of her naïveté, and leaves her with an almost-chaste kiss. On their second meeting, his desire knows no limits, but is obstructed by her innocence. He marries her to have her, and then leaves, angry at himself and her for the predicament he finds himself in. The story thus fluctuates between Rosemary’s faithful rationalization of Jack’s lack of communication—and her development of skills, maturity, and eventually self-respect—and Jack’s prowess in the Navy, parallelled only by his derision of women in general and Rosemary—who “tricked” him—in the specific.

When the war is over, and “the boys come home,” Jack is not among them. Rosemary now has no reason to misunderstand Jack’s intentions, and yet she faithfully stands by her husband in her heart. When he eventually does come home, having been injured and suffering from TB, she finally accepts the truth of their marriage: that he never did love her, and returned only because he had nowhere else to go and needed care. There follow pages of incidents in which he shows over and over his lack of respect and her faithful perseverance. Finally, to the relief of the pained reader, she has had enough, and threatens to leave; Jack then has an attack and coughs up blood, and so she stays. Three times. Finally finally, she does run off to Washington, where she had worked as a clerk before Jack’s return and where another ex-soldier who loves her works as a journalist. Jack, meanwhile, has (of course) realized the error of his ways, and come to love her, now that he has killed her love completely. He leaves; she returns; they meet on a train trestle just as the Western Express is arriving. She falls; he jumps in and saves her, dying in the attempt. Curtain. Thankfully.

Significantly, no mention of Canada, or India, where Corolyn Cox was resident from 1919 through 1922… just a mediocre love story capitalizing on the emotional undertow following World War One. Still, there is no obvious evidence that Corolyn Cox did not write it.  The content is totally American, as was Cox at this point in her life. The style replicates a number of other women’s novels of the time: American, British, Canadian, Anglo-Indian… there is no clue there. So the mystery remains. If anyone out there has more information, we would love to hear. At the moment, Corolyn Cox will be entered as a “snapshot” in our database, for her journalism activities in Canada during the early 1940s, but we do not believe that she was sufficiently invested in Canada to warrant a complete entry.

“The Last Man,” by Helen C. MacDonald

16 Wednesday Jan 2013

Posted by Karyn Huenemann in Poetry

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MacDonald, Helen C. “The Last Man.” The Crucible (Autumn 1936): 10.

One of the joys of running this blog, or working on the CEWW project, is connecting with people through the works of our authors. A few months ago, James Arnett, the grandson of one of our authors, Laura Vivian Belvadere Arnett, found his grandmother’s name on our blog, and contacted us. He recently sent a collection of papers, published and handwritten, from his grandmother. One of the publications was the Autumn 1939 volume of The Crucible, a “little magazine” of “Fiction, Articles, Poems by Canadian Writers” edited by two other of our authors, sisters Hilda and Laura Ridley. Today’s poem is from that volume, but I have also scanned in the complete journal, and posted it as one of the pages on this website.

The Crucible (Autumn 1936): 10.

“Close in Our Caverned Fastness,” by F. Robina Monkman

11 Friday Jan 2013

Posted by Karyn Huenemann in Poetry

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Monkman, F. Robina. “Close in Our Caverned Fastness.” The Crucible (Autumn 1936): 3.

This poem was first published in The Crucible (edited by Hilda and Laura Ridley) as a part of the poetic narrative “Poets in Paradise,” ostensibly by “Pedagogue” (Muriel L. Jenkins. The dialogue is between “Pedagogue,” “The Duchess” (Verna Loveday Harden, which is another pseudonym, for Verna Bessie Bentley), “The Classical Kid” (F. Robina Monkman), and “The-Smartest-of-them-all” (Jenkins’s father). “Leaping Lena” (unidentified, but not a poet and likely Jenkins’s mother), plays a small, silent role. The scene is “Poets’ Paradise,” a cabin in the woods by a lake where the four poets spend their holiday sharing poems and peaceful repose. It is a delightful short narrative, and includes snippets of poetry from previously published work: Monkman’s “Close in Our Caverned Fastness” is the only original piece in the narrative.

Close in Our Caverned Fastness

The Crucible (Autumn 1936): 3.

“The Old Year and the New,” by Mrs. A. MacGillis

10 Thursday Jan 2013

Posted by Karyn Huenemann in Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

MacGillis, Mrs. A. “The Old Year and the New.” Rose-Belford’s Canadian Monthly 6 (Jan. 1881): 1-2.

MacGillis - New Year

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  • How to use our site
  • Authors lists
    • Authors completed
    • Authors to be included
    • Author “snapshots”
    • Authors to be evaluated
    • Authors using pseudonyms
    • Resource list
    • Authors not included (for researchers)
  • Comprehensive Index of Contributors to the Crucible Magazine, 1932-1943
  • Index of Female Contributors to The Canadian Poetry Magazine, 1936-1950
  • A series of lists
    • Canadian periodicals online at ECO
    • A complete list of Ryerson Poetry Chapbooks, 1925-1962
      • Ryerson Poetry Chapbook 4: The Captive Gypsy (1926), by Constance Davies-Woodrow
      • Ryerson Poetry Chapbook 5: The Ear Trumpet (1926), by Annie Charlotte Dalton
      • Ryerson Poetry Chapbook 77: Songs, Being a Selection of Earlier Sonnets and Lyrics (1937), by Helena Coleman
    • Pseudonyms: Known and unknown
    • Some anonymous texts online at ECO
    • Women of Canada (1930)
  • Resource websites

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