Author “snapshots”

Updated 28 June 2012

This list has been superseded by the Database of Canada’s Early Women Writers, a simpler database which includes the names and basic information for all of the Canadian women authors who published up to and including 1950, whether or not we have complete information. The new database is currently under construction; it should be populated with our existing data by the end of June 2017.

The following authors will be included as individual “snapshots” in the database.  This usually means that our research has not turned up enough information for a more thorough biographical or bibliographical entry. Another reason for inclusion as an Event is that the author is not Canadian, but spent some time here and published a text having to do significantly with Canada. 

 

“A Member of the Community”
Life and Letters of Rev. Mother Teresa Dease, Foundress and Superior General of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary in America [Toronto] Edited by A Member of the Community (1916)
Anonymous

“Her Sisters and Friends”
A Teacher’s Life: Jessie E. Robertson, With Extracts from Diaries, Essays, and Letters. By Her Sisters and Friends (1890)
Anonymous

Adair, Lucretia H.
Seeing for Ourselves (Ryerson social studies, Grades 4,5)(with T. J. Sanderson); Seeing Our World (Ryerson geography, Grade 3)(with T.J. Sanderson)
No biographical information available

Adair, Mary
Short Story Studies, In Short Story Classics (1930)
No indication that she is Canadian, and little biographical information available: text has Canadian content

Adams, Sarah Flower
1805-1848
“Nearer, My God, to Thee”
Limited production, and a song, but famous

Albee, Ruth E.
Alaska Challenge (1940)

Argall, Phyllis
1909-1977
My Life with the Enemy (New York: Macmillan, 1944) published in UK as Prisoner in Japan (London: Bles, 1945)
Born in Canada, went to U of T but otherwise lived in Japan, England, and USA

Argyll, Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll
Quebec: Pictures from My Portfolio (1882?)
British diplomatic wife

Ashwell, Lena
1872-1957
Canadian Diaries and Autobiographies: Myself a Player (London, 1936)
British actress/author: autobiography includes an account of her childhood in Canada

Bates, Emily Katharine
A Year in the Great Republic (1887) (2 vols.)
Visitor to Canada: British; Travelogue of time spent in Canada and the USA

Batty, Beatrice
1833-1933
Beatrice Stebbing Batty; “Bee Bee”; Beatrice Braithwaite-Batty
Forty-two Years amongst the Indians and Eskimo: Pictures from the Life of the Right Reverend John Horden, First Bishop of Moosonee (London: Religious Tract Society, 1893)
British author visiting Canada

Bell, Clara May
1892-1918
“Psyche” (1918)
Unpublished play of significance

Beynon, Edith Marie (Williamson)
Marie Edith Beynon
Saints, Sinners, and Queer People (1897)

Bignell, Effie
1855-1933
née Molt
Saint Anne of the Mountains: The Story of a Summer in a Canadian Pilgrimage Village (1912)
American author

Bilbrough, Ellen Agnes
British Children in Canadian Homes (1879)
British author

Bird, Isabella Lucy
1831-1904
The Englishwoman in America (1856; 1966)
British traveller to Canada and USA

Bleecker, Ann Eliza
1752-1783
The History of Maria Kittle (Hartford, 1797)
American author

Bonner, Geraldine
1870-1930
To Klondike by Sea (1897)
American author

Bosanquet, Mary
1913-
Saddlebags for Suitcases: Across Canada on Horseback (1942)
British author

Brassey, Annie Allnutt
1839-1887
Baroness Brassey
A Cruise in the “Eothen” (1873)
British author visiting Canada

Brightwell, Cecilia Lucy
British
1811-1875
Georgie’s Present; or, Tales of Newfoundland (c.1872)

Brinley, Katherine Gordon
née Sanger; Mrs. Daniel Putnam Brinley; “Gordon Brinley”
Away to Quebec: A Gay Journey to the Province (1945); Away to Cape Breton (1940); Away to the Gaspe (1926); Away to the Canadian Rockies and British Columbia (1938)
American author

Bucham, Mary A.
Memories and Other Poems (1905)
Only known text

Buchan, Anna
1877-1948
“O. Douglas”
Unforgettable, Unforgotten (1945)
British author: sister to Lord Tweedsmuir

Buchan, Susan Charlotte Grosvenor
1882-1977
Lady Tweedsmuir
Canada (1941)
Visitor to Canada: British diplomatic wife

Byng, Marie Evelyn (Moreton)
1870-1949
Vicountess; Lady Byng of Vimy
Up the Stream of Time (1944); Anne of the Marshland “By Lady Byng of Vimy, Author of Barriers” (1914); Barriers (1912)

Cameron, Charlotte
-1948
A Cheechako in Alaska and Yukon (1920)
British author visiting Canada

Campbell, Miss M. A.
Posthumous Poems
Posthumous, and no biographical info available

Carbutt, Mary
née Rhodes; Mrs. E. H. Carbutt
Five Months’ Fine Weather in Canada, Western USA, and Mexico (1889)
Visitor to Canada: British diplomatic wife

Cather, Willa
1873-1947
Alexander’s Bridge (1912); Shadows on the Rock (1931)
British author visiting Canada

Catherwood, Mary Hartwell
1874-1902
Stories of Canada; The Romance of Dollard (New York, 1889); The Story of Tonty (Chicago, 1890); The Lady of Fort St. John (Boston, 1892)
American author

Chapin, Adele le Bourgeois
1862-1938
Mrs. R. W. Chapin
Their Trackless Way (1931)
American author

Chase, Eliza Brown
Over the Border: Acadia, the Home of Evangeline (1884); Transcontinental Sketches (1909)
American author

Churchill, Caroline M.
Wrote a political burlesque, 2 novels, and a number of articles
Born in Canada but moved early to the USA: considered American

Clarke, Katherine Alice
Gleanings from My Portfolio (1894); Lyrical Echoes (1899)
No biographical information available

Clarke, Violet Alice
c1867-
née Press
The Vision of Democracy (1919)
No biographical information available

Conger, Janet C.
A Daughter of St. Peter’s (1889),
Only one text; very little biographical information available

Cowper, Edith Elise
-1933
Two on the Trail: A Story of Canada Snows (1922)
British author

Craig, Martha
The Gardens of Canada (1902); Legends of the North Land (unavailable)
No biographical info available

Craig, Mary Coad
1871-
“Duncan Clark, MD”
The Two Decanters
Little biographical information available

Cran, Marion Dudley
Mrs. George Cran
A Woman in Canada (London: John Milne, 1910);
British author

Cromer, Ruby
Countess Cromer
Such Were These Years (London, 1937)
British diplomatic wife

Davidson, Laura Lee
Isles of Eden (1924)
Visitor to Canada

De Forest, Julia B.
-1910
A Short History of Art (1881)
American author

DeGraf, Anna
Pioneering in the Yukon, 1892-1917
Posthumous (1982)

Delaney, Theresa
1865?-1913
Two Months in the Camp of Big Bear: The Life and Adventures of Theresa Gowanlock and Theresa Delaney (1885)(with Theresa Gowanlock)

Douglas, Mia Farquharson
Mignonette (1939)
Posthumous

Dressler, Marie
1871?-
My Own Story (1934)
Only childhood in Canada

Dufferin, Lady
1843-1936
Harot Georgina Blackwood; née Rowan-Hamilton, Marchioness of Duffering and Ava
My Canadian Journal 1872-78: Extracts From My Letters Home Written While Lord Dufferin Was Governor-General (New York: Appleton, 1891)
British diplomatic wife

Durham, Countess
1797?-1841)
Louisa Elizabeth (Grey) Lambton, Countess of Durham
Wrote some articles on life in Canada
British diplomatic wife

Eddy, Celia
“The Witch of Endor” St Catharine’s Journal April 11, April 18, 1850
Only one known poem, but early

Elwood, Muriel
1902-1976
Heritage of the River: An Historical Novel of Early Montreal (1945), Deeper the Heritage (1946); Towards the Sunset (1947)
British author settled in Los Angeles, CA

Ewing, Juliana Horatia Gatty
1841-1885
“Canada Home” (poem)
British children’s author, lived in Canada

Faithfull, Lilian Mary
1865-
The Evening Crowns the Day (London, 1940)
British: Includes two chapters on travel and work in Canada

Fane, Lady Augusta Fanny
Chit-Chat (London, 1926)
British: Includes a section on travel and sport in Canada

Fisher, Gertrude Adams
An Address Delivered Before the Aberdeen Association, Winnipeg, January 1895
Little biographical information available

Fisher, Sally
Britain’s Golden Mines Discover’d (1720)
From a letter, only peripheral to Canada

Flandrau, Grace Hodgson
1886-1971
Mrs. W. Blair Flandrau
Red River Trails (undated) and The Verendrye Overland Quest of the Pacific (undated)
American author

French, Alice
1850-1934
“Octave Thanet”
Knitters in the Sun (Boston, 1887) includes a long story set in Saguenay
American

Gettys, Cora Luella
The Administration of Canadian Conditional Grants (1938)
American

Glyn, Elinor
Multiple novels
Born in Canada but moved to the UK early in life: Considered British

Götsch-Trevelyan, Katherine
Unharboured Heaths (Toronto, 1930)
British author

Gowanlock, Theresa
1863-1899
Two Months in the Camp of Big Bear: The Life and Adventures of Theresa Gowanlock and Theresa Delaney (1885)(with Theresa Delaney)

Grant, Jeannette A.
Through Evangeline’s Country (1894)
American author

Greeley, Floretta Elmore
Work and Play in the Grenfell Mission (1920)
American author

Green, E. Eda
British author

Grey, Lady Louisa Elizabeth
-1841
Articles on life in Canada
British diplomatic wife

Gurney, Jane
née Wheatley
A Journey to Canada (1887?)
Visitor to Canada

Haliburton, Susanna Lucy Anne (Weldon)
1817-1899
Mrs. John Wesley Weldon; née Haliburton
Specimens of China Brought to the Colonies by the Early Settlers, Particularly the Loyalists … (Fredericton, 1880)
Peripheral, and a catalogue: but Thomas Haliburton’s daughter, therefore of interest

Hanson, Elizabeth
1684-1737
An account of the captivity of Elizabeth Hanson… (1760)
American author

Hardy, Mary McDowell
1825?-1891
Lady Duffus
Through Cities and Prairie Lands
British aristocratic visitor

Harper, Lizzie St. John
Mrs. L. St John Eckel
Maria Monk’s Daughter: An Autobiography
American author? Text of dubious authorial authenticity

Harrington, Rebie
Cinderella Takes a Holiday in the Northland (1937)
American author

Harrison, Marjorie M.
Go West—Go Wise! A Canadian Revelation (1930)
British author visiting Canada (travelling on CPR)

Harte, Grace H.
American author, but sister to Edith and Winnifred Eaton

Hasbrouck, Louise S.
The Boys’ Parkman: The Romantic History of Canada, Selected from the Historical Works of Francis Parkman, by Louise S. Hasbrouck (1912)

Hasell, Frances Hatton Eva
Across the Prairie in a Motor Caravan; a 3000-Mile Tour by Two English Women on Behalf of Religious Education (1922)
British author visiting Canada

Havard, Pauline
peridocial poet
No biographical info available

Hayward, Victoria
Romantic Canada (1922); “Bubble, Bubble, Bubble” in the Canadian Magazine 54.1 (1919-20) 495-503
Bermudan

Henderson, Mrs. Millicent Pollock
née Steele
Article on travel in Canada
British author visiting Canada and the USA

Hill, Esther Marjorie
1895-1985
No extensive published work, but significant

Hitchcock, Mary Evelyn
1889-
Two Women in the Klondike: The Story of a Journey to the Gold-Fields of Alaska (1899)
American author

Hobbart, Lady
-1886
Help for the Helpless: London’s Bitter Cry Hushed in Canada (London, 1884)
British author

Hogner, Dorothy
Mrs. Nils Hogner; née Childs
Summer Roads to Gaspé (1939)
American author

Howard, Lady Winifred
Journal of a Tour (London, 1897)
British traveller to Canada and USA

Hutchison, Isobel Wylie
1899-
North to the Rime-ringed Sun: Being the Record of an Alaskan-Canadian Journey Made in 1933-34 (1934)
British author visiting Canada

Jaques, Florence
Mrs. Francis Lee Jaques, née Page
Canadian Spring (1947)
American author

Johnstone, Catherine Laura
1838-1923
“F. R. Grahame”
Winter and Summer Excursions in Canada (1894?); The Young Emigrants: A Story for Boys (189-?)
British author

Jones, Eliza Maria Harvey
1838-1903
Dairying for Profit [Chicago, 1893. Montreal, 1894]
No extensive published work, but significant

Kenton, Edna
1876-1954
The Jesuit Relations, and Allied Documents, Travels and Explorations… (1925)
American author

Knowles, Lilian Charlotte Anne
née Thom/Tomn?
Economic Development of British Overseas Empire (with C. A. Knowles) (London: Routledge, 1930) 2 vols.
British author

Langstone, Rosa Willetts
Responsible Government in Canada (1931)
British academic author

Lawler (Lawlor) Elizabeth Gertrude
c.1866-1929
edited several textbooks, including works by Shakespeare, Tennyson, Arnold, and Browning, also editor of at least two journals, but no original publications
Editor only, not author

Lay, Eleanor
Sister of Jenny Haight; editor, ran a school

Leighton, Caroline C.
Life at Puget Sound (Boston, 1884)
American author

Low, Florence B.
Books about Canada for emigrants
British author

MacDougall, Margaret
“A Lover of Children”
The Home of Santa Claus: A Real Christmas Story
No biographical info available

MacNaughton, Sarah Broom
-1916
My Canadian Memories (1920)
British traveller writing about Canada

MacPherson, Annie
1824-1904
Annie Parlane MacPherson
Canadian Homes for London Wanderers (1870)
British author

Marchant, Bessie
Mrs. J. A. Comfort
Daughters of the Dominion: A Story of the Canadian Frontier (19–); Athabasca Bill: A Tale of the Far West (18–), among others
British author

Martin, Clara Brett
1874-1923
Writings on the legal position of women in Canada
No extensive published work, but significant

McFarlane, Amy
The Phantom Freighter (1947)
Only known text

Mirsky, Jeannette
1903-1987
American
To the Arctic! (1934)

Mitchell, Elizabeth
 In Western Canada Before the War: A Study of Communities (1915)
British author visiting Canada

Monck, Frances Elizabeth Owen
-1919
My Canadian Leaves: An Account of a Visit to Canada in 1864-1865 (1891)
Visitor to Canada

Monk, Maria
Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk; or The Hidden Secrets of a Nun’s Life in a Convent Exposed! [1836]
American author? Text of dubious authorial authenticity

Mooers Marshall, Marguerite
1887-
Mrs. Sidney Walter Dean
We Fell in Love with Quebec: A Book of Cities, Shrines, Villages, Rivers, Mountains, and People (1950)
American author

Moore, Mary Fielding

Morley, Margaret Warner
1858-1923
Down North and Up Along (1900)
American author

Morris, Elizabeth Keith
An Englishwoman in the Canadian West (Bristol, 1913)
British author visiting Canada

Munro, Georgina C.
1825-1854
The White Rose of the Huron (1852); The Little Emigrant’s Birthday (1853)
British author

Murray, Amelia Matilda
Hon. Amelia M. Murray
Letters from the United States, Cuba and Canada (1856)
British author visiting Canada

Murray, Ellen Frances
née Steele
Article on travel in Canada
British author visiting Canada

Newbigin, Marion Isabel
1869-1934
British academic
Canada, The Great River, the Lands and the Men (1926)

Nute, Grace Lee
In process
1895-1900
Lake Superior (1944)
American author

Oskley, Amy
Mrs. Thornton Oskley
Kaleidoscopic Quebec (1947)

Parrish, Maud
Nine Pounds of Luggage (London, 1940)
American author

Parsloe, Muriel Jardine
A Parson’s Daughter (London, 1935)
British author

Patchell, Sarah Elizabeth
Sarah Elizbeth Wade
My Extraordinary Years of Adventure and Romance in Klondike and Alaska (19–)
American author

Peck, Anne Merriman
1884-
wrote 2 books about Canada for kids
American

Petrie, Mary L. G.
Mrs. Ashley Carus-Wilson; née Petrie; “Carus-Wilson”
Tokiwa, and Other Poems (1895)
Visitor to Canada: British academic wife

Pierce, Mrs. Harriet
née Singleton
An Eastern Window: A Book of Days
Posthumous, but mother of Lorne Pierce, so significant

Pinkerton, Kathrene Sutherland
1887-
née Gedney
Wilderness Wife (London 1939); Three’s a Crew (New York 1940); Two Ends to Our Shoestring (New York, 1941)
American author

Plummer, Mary Wright
1856-1916
Roy and Ray in Canada (1908)
American author

Porter, Alice
Wrote two important letters to the editor of Science Magazine (American Association for the Advancement of Science) in 1893
Canadian, but only two scientific letters: still significant

Potts, Fannie Cox
1849-
“Ann Hathaway”
Muskoka Memories (1904)
Only one text; very little biographical information available

Pullen-Burry, Bessie
1858-1937
From Halifax to Vancouver (1912)
British author

Ratcliffe, Dorothy Una
1891-1967
To the Blue Canadian Hills: A Week’s Log in a Northern Quebec Camp (1928)
British author

Rayleigh, Clara
-1900
Lady Clara Rayleigh; Clara Elizabeth La Touche Vicars Strutt
The British Association’s Visit to Montreal, 1884: Letters by Clara Lady Rayleigh
British diplomatic wife

Read, Catherine
1790-1872
“Mrs. Williams”; Catherine A. Williams
The Neutral French; or, The Exiles of Nova Scotia (1841?)
American author

Reeves, Marian Calhoun Légaré
1854-
A Little Maid of Acadie (1888)
American author

Ritchie, Olivia Grace
later England

Robinson, Margaret L.
The Story of the Colonial Nursing Association, 1896-1909
British author

Rockley, Alicia Magaret (Tyssen-Amherst) Cecil, Baroness
-1941
Some Canadian Wildflowers (1937)

Rothery, Agnes Edwards Pratt
1888-1954
The Ports of British Columbia (1943)
American author

Rourke, Louise
The Land of the Frozen Tide (London, 1928)

British author

Rowlandson, Mary
1635-1678
The Captivity and Deliverance of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, of Lancaster, Who was taken by the French and Indians. Written by Herself. (1811)
American author

Sanson, Mary J.
A Holiday Trip to Canada (1916)
British author visiting Canada

Saunders, Ann
Narrative of the Shipwreck and Sufferings of Miss Ann Saunders… Written by Herself. (1827)

Savage, Mary L.
Miramichi (Boston, 1858)
American author

Saxby, Jessie M.
née Edmonston
West Nor’-West (1890)
British author

Schafer, Mary T. S.
American author

Seton, Grace Thompson
1872-1959
Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
A Woman Tenderfoot (1900)
American author, but wife of Ernest Thompson Seton

Seymour, Susan Margaret Richards
-1936
“Mrs. Algernon St. Maur”; née MacKinnon; Duchess of St. Maur
Impressions of a Tenderfoot (London, 1890)

Shaw, Emma
Poem on Canada in Magazine of Poetry
Renowned American travel writer

Shaw, Flora Louisa
1852-1929
Lady Flora Louisa Shaw
Klondike (1899)
British author

Skrine, Agnes Nesta
1864-1955
“Moira O’Neill”; Mrs. W. Skrine; Agnes Shakespeare Higginson
“A Lady’s Life on a Ranche”
Irish author

Smith, Anna Tolman
1840-1917
“Education in Canada: Chapter from the Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1897-98” (1899)
American author

Stannard, M.
Memoirs of a Professional Lady Nurse (1873)
Visitor to Canada

Stanwell-Fletcher, Theodora D.
Driftwood Valley (London, 1948)

Stone, Grace
The Cold Journey (1934)

Stredder, Eleanor
Lost in the Wilds of Canada (1894)
British author

Sturgis, Ellen Barbara
1912-2004
“Barbara Silver”
Our Young Barbarians
British author

Sykes, Ella Constance
A Home-Help in Canada (1912)
British author

Symmes, Lydia Clarke
Journal published posthumously by son, 2nd edition 1911

Taylor, Lydia Jutsum
Mrs. Alfred Edward Taylor
Land of the Scarlet Leaf (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1915
British author

Textor, Lucy Elizabeth
c1871-1958
A Colony of Émigrés in Canada, 1798-1816 (1905)
American author

Tonna, Charlotte Elizabeth
Charlotte Elizabeth; née Phelan
Personal Recollections (1841)
Visitor to Canada: British military wife

Topham, Anne
1874-
Julia and I In Canada (1914)
British author

Trotter, Isabella Strange
1816-1878
First Impressions of the New World on Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 (1859)
British author

Tucker, Sarah
British
1774-c1859
The Rainbow in the North (1851)

Villiers, Katherine
Honourable Katherine Villiers
Memoirs of a Maid of Honour (London, 1931)
British aristocratic visitor

Vincent, Ethel Gwendoline
1861-1952
Lady Howard, née Moffat
Newfoundland to Cochin, China, the the Golden Wave, new Nippon, and the Forbieddent City (1892)
British author

Vincent, Kitty
1887-1969
Lady Vincent
Two on a Trip

Wakefield, Priscilla
1751-1832
Excursions in North America described in letters from a gentleman and his young companion, to their friends in England (1810)
British author

Walshe, Elizabeth Hely
c.1835-1869
Cedar Creek From the Shanty to the Settlement: A Tale of Canadian Life (1863?)
Irish author

Ward, Mrs. Humphrey
Mary Augusta Ward; née Arnold
Canadian Born; aka Lady Merton, Colonist (1910)
British author

Webling, Peggy
Peggy (London, 1924)
British actress/author visiting Canada

West, Jane
1758-1852
The Loyalists, An Historical Novel (1812)
British author

Whiting, Lilian
1859-1942
Canada: The Spellbinder (1917)
American author

Wilkinson, Florence
1874-
The lady of the Flag-Flowers (Chicago, 1899) as well as others
American author

Willard, Mrs. F. J.
A Life Idyl in Hamilton, 1869
American author

Wood, Ruth Kedzie
Tourist’s Maritime Provinces; with Chapters on the Gaspé Shore, Newfoundland and Labrador and the Miquelon Islands (1915); The Tourist’s Northwest (1916)
Visitor to Canada

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