Women in Canadian Literature

Félicité Angers (Laure Conan)
(1845-1924)

Laure Conan, a pseudonym chosen by Félicité Angers, was without models of fellow women writers when she began writing historical novels in the 1870s, a time when Quebec was engulfed by conservative and clerical nationalism. Conan remained single and lived most of her life at her family home in La Malbaie. Quebec's first woman novelist, she was remarkably prolific. She published nine works, beginning with Un amour vrai in 1879.

Although assessment of Conan's novels has emphasized the apparently traditional themes in her work -- the compensatory life of religious devotion in the wake of love and loss, for example -- recent reappraisal focuses on Conan's resistance to Quebec's patriarchal culture. Angéline de Montbrun (1884), first published serially in La Revue canadienne and possibly Conan's best psychological novel, is now valued for its subversive structure and thematic resistance to patriarchal power. Further reassessment of Conan's other fiction is certainly overdue.

Selected Works by Laure Conan

-- Angéline de Montbrun. -- Québec : Brousseau, c1884. -- 343 p.

-- L'oublié. -- Montréal : Revue canadienne, c1900. -- 183 p.

-- L'obscure souffrance. -- Québec : Action sociale, c1919. -- 115 p.

-- La sève immortelle. -- Montréal : Bibliothèque de l'Action française, 1925. -- 231 p.

Robertine Barry (Françoise)
(1863-1910)
and other women journalists

Robertine Barry was the first among a handful of Quebec women journalists who wrote pseudonymously for women readers. Her first publication, a collection of short fictional pieces, Fleurs champêtres (1895), depicts with brutal honesty the harsh realities of the lives of women in rural Quebec, including abuse and exploitation. Françoise was author of her own weekly column in La Patrie (1891-1895) and was responsible for the first women's page in a Quebec newspaper, "Le Coin de Fanchette," but probably her most significant contribution was her bimonthly paper, Le Journal de Françoise (1902-1909).

An unflagging supporter of women's rights, education and literary culture, Françoise raised the ire of Quebec's clerical elite. In 1900 she helped ensure the success of Canada's contribution to the World's Fair in Paris, prepared by the National Council of Women of Canada. Her career prepared the way for women's periodical literature and inspired other women journalists including "Fadette" (Henriette Dessaules, 1860-1946) and "Madeleine" (Anne-Marie Gleason, 1875-1943) to follow her lead.

Selected Works by Françoise

-- Fleurs champêtres. -- Montréal : Desaulniers, c1895. -- 205 p.

-- Chroniques du lundi. -- Montréal : c1896?

-- Le Journal de Françoise. -- Montréal : Valiquette & Dubé, c1902-1909. -- ISSN 07024234

Harriet Vaughan Cheney (1796-1889),
Eliza Lanesford Cushing (1794-1886), and
Eleanor H. Lay (18??-1904)

Writing for Children

The Snow Drop cover

Three liberal American women who emigrated to Canada with their husbands all considered the education of Canadian children in mid-19th-century Canada important enough to merit the publication of periodicals for a children's readership. Mrs. Cheney, a poet and writer of historical sketches, and Mrs. Cushing, a playwright, were Montreal-based sisters who had both been published in the United States and were regular contributors to the Literary garland before their husbands died in 1845 and 1846 respectively.

In 1847, together they launched The Snow Drop, a monthly periodical written for girls aged 6 to 12 and primarily concerned with social roles and domestic responsibilities appropriate for young women. Eleanor Lay's husband, the founding editor of a rival periodical, the Maple Leaf, died in 1853 leaving Lay responsible for her family and finances. Lay capably took over her husband's editorial role and ensured the continuation of the Maple Leaf. Although both periodicals reflect contemporary values, each solicited and published the work of Canadian women writers. As a result, Canadian families were introduced to Canadian materials, ensuring greater relevance for the education of their children.

-- The Snow drop or Juvenile magazine. -- 1847-1853. Monthly, illustrated

-- Maple leaf. -- 1852-1854. Monthly, illustrated

Gerson, Carole. -- "The snow drop and the maple leaf : Canada's first periodicals for children". -- Canadian children's literature. -- 18/19 (1980). -- ISSN 03190080. -- P. 10-23

Rosanna Leprohon
(1829-1879)

Born Rosanna Mullins in Montreal, Leprohon began writing at an early age. In 1846, while she was still attending a convent school, her first poems appeared in the Literary garland. Over the next five years, she had five novels, 15 poems and one story published in this magazine. Her marriage to Jean-Lukin Leprohon, a francophone physician, and the demise of the Literary garland in 1851 signalled the end of this stage in her career.

During her early married years, Leprohon's creative output dwindled to only an occasional poem. However, by 1859 she had resumed writing, and her novel Eveleen O'Donnell was serialized in The Pilot, a Boston journal. The novel for which she is best known, Antoinette de Mirecourt, or, Secret Marrying and Secret Sorrowing, was published in 1864. This work is the second in a series of three of Leprohon's most popular and critically acclaimed novels. While her earlier works have non-Canadian settings, these novels are set in Quebec and effectively depict Québécois history and culture. The French translations of these and other works by Leprohon were well received by francophones.

Mother to 13 children, Leprohon maintained a prolific writing career. Until her death in 1879, her work appeared regularly in the Family Herald, Canadian Illustrated News and L'Ordre.

Selected Works by Rosanna Leprohon

-- "The Stepmother". -- The Literary garland. -- (February-June 1847). -- ISSN 08345406

-- Antoinette de Mirecourt, or, Secret marrying and secret sorrowing. -- Ottawa : Carleton University Press, 1989, c1864. -- ISBN 0886290929 (bd.). -- 274 p.

-- Armand Durand, or, A promise fulfilled. -- Ottawa : Tecumseh Press, 1994, c1868. -- ISBN 0919662463 (bd.)

-- The poetical works of Mrs. Leprohon. -- Montreal : J. Lovell, c1881. -- 228 p.

Agnes Maule Machar
(1837-1927)

Agnes Machar published novels, historical works and collections of prose and poetry. Often writing under the pseudonym "Fidelis," she contributed numerous articles, reviews, poems and stories to periodicals such as The Week and Rose-Belford's Canadian Monthly. All genres of her writing were coloured by her views as an earnest Christian, nationalist, feminist and social crusader.

Machar was born in Kingston, Ontario, to parents who both came from scholarly and religious backgrounds. Her father, a Presbyterian minister, became principal of Queen's University. Educated at home, Machar was greatly influenced by her religious and intellectual environment.

Her first novel, Katie Johnstone's Cross: A Canadian Tale, published in 1870, was awarded a prize for best children's Sunday school fiction. The book's religious and reformist ideals became elements of all her novels. Although Machar has been criticized for didactic and unrealistic writing, she was not afraid to examine issues that were largely overlooked by her literary peers. Her 1892 adult novel, Roland Graeme, Knight: A Novel of Our Time, was one of the few in that period to deal with the negative aspects of industrialization. Addressing issues such as women's rights, compulsory education and workplace conditions, Machar earned respect in her time as both an author and a compassionate social critic.

Selected Works by Agnes Maule Machar

Articles

Fidelis. -- "Women's work". -- Rose-Belford's Canadian monthly and national review. -- Vol. 1 (May 1878). -- P. 295-311

Machar, Agnes M. -- "The higher education of women". Week -- Vol. 7, no. 4 (December 1889). -- P. 55-56

Novels

-- Lucy Raymond, or, The children's watchword. -- Toronto : [s.n.], c1871.

-- For king and country : a story of 1812. -- Toronto : Adam, Stevenson, c1874. -- 265 p.

Isabella Valancy Crawford
(1850-1887)

Although now considered a leading 19th-century Canadian poet, Isabella Crawford achieved little recognition during her lifetime. Born in Dublin, she immigrated to Canada with her family in the 1850s, eventually settling in North Douro, Ontario. Here she had the occasion to meet Catharine Parr Traill before the family relocated to Peterborough. In 1875 her siblings and father died, leaving Crawford and her invalid mother with scant financial resources.

To earn a living, Crawford sold her prose and poetry to newspapers. While some of her earlier work appeared in the Favourite and the Toronto Mail, between 1875 and 1879 she published only in American periodicals. Crawford and her mother relocated to Toronto, and in 1879 she began contributing to the Toronto Globe and the Toronto Evening Telegram.

Crawford submitted her work to literary journals but her efforts were rejected, leaving her with no choice but to publish in newspapers. In 1884, struggling to gain recognition, she used her own money to publish "Old Spookses' Pass", "Malcolm's Katie" and Other Poems, a collection of some of her best narrative poems. This collection received critical praise but sold only 50 copies. Apart from newspapers, it was the only publication of Crawford's work during her lifetime. With some difficulty, what remains of her work has been posthumously compiled and published from newspapers and her surviving manuscripts.

Selected Works by Isabella Valancy Crawford

Papers

The existing Crawford manuscripts can be found in the Lorne Pierce Collection at the Queen's University Archives, Kingston, Ontario.

Books of Prose or Poetry

-- The collected poems of Isabella Valancy Crawford. -- Edited by John W. Garvin with an introduction by Ethelwyn Wetherald. -- Toronto : W. Briggs, c1905. -- 309 p.

-- Fairy tales of Isabella Valancy Crawford. -- Edited and with an introduction by Penny Petrone. -- Ottawa : Borealis Press, c1977. -- 85 p. -- ISBN 0919594530

-- Selected stories of Isabella Valancy Crawford. -- Edited and with an introduction by Penny Petrone. -- Ottawa : University of Ottawa Press, c1975. -- 90 p. -- ISBN 0776643355