The period from the early 1880s through the First World War has been called “The Age of the Storytellers.” The intention of the writers of this period was not to write great literature, but to entertain, spinning yarns to be printed and read, just as their predecessors, the minstrels and bards, recited and were listened to. Through their countless tales of adventure and derring-do, they brought romance and colour to the lives of those who could do more than dream. This was the age of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, H. Rider Haggard, Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson, and H. G. Wells. Canadian writers contributed in no small way to the cornucopia of romance and adventure the reading public could find at the newsstands and bookstores. Messrs. Roper, Beharriell, and Scheider in Literary History of Canada: Canadian Literature in English (Second edition, 1976) say “the Canadian fiction-writers between 1880 and 1920 were read more widely by their contemporaries, inside and outside Canada, than have been the Canadian fiction-writers — collectively — since.”
We have garnered from amongst the collections and magazines produced from the Late Victorian Era up through the introduction of the “Pulps” in the 1920s a selection of choice nuggets from the rich mother lode of popular fiction by Canadian writers. Herein you will find stirring tales by W.H. Blake, Susan Carleton, W.H. Drummond, W.A. Fraser, Sir Gilbert Parker, Hesketh Prichard, R.T.M. Scott, Alan Sullivan, and Lillian Benyon Thomas. Some have never been anthologized before; all are guaranteed to set the blood a-racing and stimulate the imagination. Crime and its detection are related in W.A. Fraser’s “The Gold Wolf,” Hesketh Prichard’s “The Crime at Big Tree Portage,” and R.T.M. Scott’s “Bombay Duck.” In this anthology, we have widened the scope to include not just tales of adventure and crime, but of terror and horror as well. The power of guilt and the revenge of the grave is recounted in Sir Gilbert Parker’s “The Flood.” Ghostly apparitions are introduced in Susan Carleton’s “The Clasp of Rank” and Lillian Benyon Thomas’s “When Wires are Down.” Canada has its own indigenous monsters, the most terrifying being the Wendigo and in this anthology the supernatural is further explored with the presentation of two expositions of this hideous creature, one in prose, W.H. Blake’s “A Tale of the Grand Jardin,” and one in poetry, W.H. Drummond’s “The Windigo.” The authoritative text on this legendary monster is John Robert Colombo’s Wendigo: An Anthology of Fact and Fantastic Fiction, originally published by Western Producer Prairie Books in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, in 1982. This highly readable collection of descriptions and discussions of the appearances of the Wendigo, the Algonkian spirit of cannibalism and selfishness, is highly recommended to anyone interested in the genre of horror fiction or the folklore of North America’s Native peoples. It is available in an expanded edition with an appendix of new material from Colombo & Company, 42 Dell Park Ave, Toronto, Ontario, M6B 2TC ($40.00, ISBN 1-896308-35-X). Another Canadian monster is the “loup garou” the French-Canadian version of the werewolf, and is encountered in Alan Sullivan’s chilling story “The Eyes of Sebastien.”
BOMBAY DUCK
R(eginald) T(homas) M(aitland) Scott, 1882-1966.
Ontario-born in the town of Woodstock on August 14, 1882, R.T.M. Scott was educated at Woodstock College — in its day one of the most highly respected preparatory schools, if not in the same social milieu of Upper Canada College — and from 1901 to 1904 at the Royal Military College (RMC) at Kingston, Ontario. From 1908 to 1912, he worked as an engineer for the International Marine Signal Company installing marine lighting in Italy, Arabia, India, Burma, Ceylon, and Australia. In 1914, he accepted a captain’s commission in the Twenty-first Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF). He saw active service on the Western Front in Belgium, subsequently attaining the rank of major. From 1919, he lived in New York City where he died on February 5, 1966. He created Aurelius Smith, a New York City-based private investigator, in a series of short stories with a psychic element for the “slicks,” (e.g., The Saturday Evening Post) as opposed to the pulps. Scott was not without merit and ability and his best work lies in his short stories.
In the 1930s, his son, R.T. Scott II, created for the pulps Richard Wentworth — “The Spider” — in works often erroneously attributed to his father.
Secret Service Smith. New York: Dutton, 1923. Short stories.
The Black Magician. New York: Dutton, 1925. Novel.
Anns Crime. New York: Dutton, 1926. Also published as Smith of the
Secret Service. London: Amalgamated, 1929. Novel.
Aurelius Smith — Detective. New York: Dutton, 1927. Short stories.
The Mad Monk. New York: Kendall, 1931. Novel.
Murder Stalks the Mayor. London: Rich, 1935. Novel
The “Agony Column” Murders: A Secret Service Smith Novel. New
York: Dutton, 1946. Novel
The Nameless Ones: A Secret Service Smith Novel. New York: Dutton,
1947.
THE CLASP OF RANK
S. Carleton, pseudonym of Susan Carleton (Morrow) Jones, (Mrs.
Guy Carleton), 1869-1926.
Born and educated in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where she was a lifelong resident, Susan Jones wrote novels and short stories for the pulps under the bylines of S. Carleton, Guy Carleton, Helen Milicente, Carleton-Milicente, and S. Carleton Jones. She was the sister-in-law of both the poetess Frances Bannerman and the novelist Alice Jones, both daughters of Alfred G. Jones, lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia from 1900 to 1906.
A Detached Pirate: The Romance of Gay Vandeleur. As by Helen Milicente. London: Greening, 1900.
A Girl of the North: A Story of London and Canada. As by Helen Milicente. London: Greening, 1900.
The Career of Mrs. Osborne. As by Carleton-Milicente. New York: Smart Set, 1903.
The Micmac: or, “The Ribboned Way.” As by S. Carleton. New York: Holt, 1904.
Out of Drowning Valley. As by S. Carleton Jones. New York: Holt, 1910.
The LaChance Mine Mystery. As by S. Carleton. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1920.
The Forest Runner. As by S. Carleton. London: Melrose, 1925.
THE CRIME AT BIG TREE PORTAGE
Hesketh (Vernon Hesketh) Prichard, 1876-1922.
We have cheated in including Prichard because he is not a Canadian, but his character, November Joe, most certainly is. Born in India, Prichard was taken as an infant to England by his widowed mother. He spent most of his life travelling and hunting and used his outdoor experiences as background for his serial novel, November Joe: Detective of the Woods, recounting the adventures of possibly the only backwoods detective in the literature of the genre, from which we have abstracted the introductory story. Prichard collaborated with his mother, Kate Ryall Prichard, on many works, notably those featuring “Don Q,” Don Quebranta Huesos, about whom there are two collections of short stories: The chronicles of Don Q (1904), and The New Chronicles of Don Q (1906 US title, Don Q in the Sierra), and one novel, Don Q’s Love Story (1909).
THE EYES OF SEBASTIEN
(Edward) Alan Sullivan, 1868-1947.
Alan Sullivan was born in Montreal on November 29, 1868, the son of the Right Reverend Edward Sullivan, Bishop of Algoma, and Frances Mary (Renaud) Sullivan, but grew up in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. He was educated at Loretto College School in Scotland, Ontario, and graduated in Civil Engineering from the University of Toronto. He then worked in the Algoma District of Northern Ontario as an engineer for twenty years before becoming a full-time writer. He was a past president of the Arts & Letters Club of Toronto. During World War I, he was a captain in the RAF. He died on August 6, 1947, at the age of 78 at Tilford House, Farnham, Surrey, England — the home of his son-in-law, Captain Basil Liddell-Hart, the noted British military commentator. He also wrote under the pseudonym Sinclair Murray.
Cariboo Road: A Novel. Toronto: Nelson, 1946. Set in the Cariboo country of the British Columbia interior during the 1860s gold rush.
The Jade God. London: Bles, 1924.
The Passing of Oul-i-But and Other Tales. London: Dent, 1913.
Under the Northern Lights. London: Dent, 1926.
Sullivan wrote 31 other novels under his own name, the most famous of which are The Rapids (1922), a fictionalized account of the industrialization of Sault Ste. Marie, and Three Came to Ville Marie (1941), for which he won a Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, as well as the useful Aviation in Canada, 1917-18 (1919), and twelve novels under the name Sinclair Murray, several of which deal with the paranormal.
THE FLOOD
Sir (Horatio) Gilbert Parker, baronet, 1862-1932.
An historian and novelist, Gilbert Parker was born in Camden East, Addington, northeast of Napanee, Ontario, on November 23, 1862, the eldest son of Joseph Parker. Educated locally and at the Ottawa Normal School, he taught school locally, then attended Trinity University (now Trinity College, University of Toronto), in Toronto where he studied theology. In 1886, he set out for the South Seas and Australia, eventually fetching up in England in 1889, where he established himself as a journalist and latterly became MP for Gravesend in the House of Commons from 1900 to 1918. He was knighted in 1902, made a baronet in 1915, and became a member of the Privy Council in 1916. During the First World War, he was in charge of propaganda aimed at North America. He died in London, England on September 6, 1932, but is buried in Canada.
The Chief Factor: A Tale of the Hudson’s Bay Company. New York: Trow Directory Co., 1892.
Pierre and His People: Tales of the Far North. Toronto: Copp Clark, 1897.
An Adventurer of the North: Being a Continuation of the Histories of “Pierre and His People” and the Latest Existing Records of Pretty Pierre. London: Methuen, 1895.
A Romany of the Snows: Second Series of “An Adventurer of the North”, Being a Continuation of “Pierre and His People.” Toronto: Copp Clark, 1898.
Northern Lights. Toronto: Copp Clark, 1909.
Among his other thirty-five fiction and non-fiction works, Parker’s best-known novel is The Seats of the Mighty: Being the Memoirs of Captain Robert Moray, Some Time an Officer in the Virginia Regiment, and Afterwards of Amherst’s Regiment (London: Methuen, 1896), for donkey’s years a staple textbook in secondary school English in Canada.
THE GOLD WOLF
William Alexander Fraser, 1859-1933.
Born at River John in Pictou County, Nova Scotia, in 1859, William Fraser received his early education in New York City and Boston, but at 14 he returned to Canada to live with an uncle in Elgin County in Southwestern Ontario. He graduated in engineering and helped to develop the early oil wells in Western Ontario. Subsequently, he spent seven years prospecting for oil in Burma and in India, where he became a lifelong friend of Rudyard Kipling. Fraser returned to Canada and spent six years prospecting for oil in Western Canada where, in the employ of the Canadian government, he sank the first well at Pelican Falls, Alberta, and latterly prospected for precious metals in the Cobalt District of Northern Ontario in its roaring days. Due to illness, he gave up field work and settled in Georgetown, Ontario, where he lived for many years. Late in his life he moved to Toronto, where he died in his residence in his seventy-fifth year on November 9, 1933. It was Fraser who suggested and saw into realization the Silver Cross for mothers whose sons had died in the First World War. Fraser spun exciting tales with a humorous touch about exotic places as well as more sophisticated mysteries about horse racing. He was also a prolific writer of short stories, having over 250 to his credit.
The Blood Lilies. Toronto: Briggs, 1903.
Brave Hearts. New York: Scribner’s, 1904. Horse-racing mystery.
Bulldog Carney. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1919.
Caste. Toronto: Doran, 1922.
Delihah Plays the Ponies. Toronto: Musson, 1927. Horse-racing mystery.
The Eye of a God and Other Tales of East and West. New York: Doubleday, 1899.
Red Meekins. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1921. Set in the Cobalt District of Northern Ontario.
Thirteen Men. New York: Appleton, 1906.
Thoroughbreds. Toronto: George N. Morang, 1902. Horse-racing mystery.
The Three Sapphires. Toronto: McClelland, Goodchild & Stewart, 1918.
Fraser published five other books, both novels and collections of short stories.
A TALE OF THE GRAND JARDIN
William Hume Blake, 1861-1924.
A grandson of the famous Edward Blake, William Blake was born in Toronto, educated at the University of Toronto, and called to the bar in 1885. In addition to his collection of essays and short stories, Brown Waters and Other Sketches (1915), he also published another collection, In a Fishing Country (1922), both written to express his appreciation of the Laurentian landscape and to acquaint English readers with the customs and attitudes of the Québécois habitants. He also published the philosophical A Fisherman’s Creed (1923). Blake is best known for his translations into English of Louis Hemon’s Maria Chapdelaine, published in 1921, and Adjutor Rivard’s Chez nous [our Quebec home] (1924).
THE WINDIGO
William Henry Drummond, 1854-1907.
Born at Currawn House, near Mohill, Country Leitrim, Ireland, Drummond immigrated to Montreal with his parents when he was 10. He attended Montreal High School, McGill University, and Bishop’s University in Lennoxville, Quebec, from which he received his MD degree in 1884. He practised medicine in Montreal and died of a stroke in Cobalt, Ontario, where he was helping to control a smallpox outbreak at a mine owned by his brothers. His distinctive dialect verse, most of it amusing and most of it dealing with French-Canadian habitant life, was Canada’s most popular poetry at the turn of the century.
WHEN WIRES ARE DOWN
Lillian Benyon Thomas
Regrettably, nothing is known of this authoress other than that she was Canadian, wrote short fiction for the pulps, and was a playwright writing a well-constructed comedy, Jim Barber’s Spite Fence, in 1935. (The Oxford Companion to Canadian History and Literature. Edited by Noah Story. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1967. p. 224.)