| Main entry | McIlwraith, Jean Newton |
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| Birth place | Hamilton, Wentworth, Ontario |
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| Birth date | 28 December 1858 |
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| Death place | Nelson, Burlington, Halton, Ontario |
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| Death date | 17 November 1938 |
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| Identifier | 0413 |
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| Birth name | Jean Newton McIlwraith |
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| Alternate names | Jean Forsyth |
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| Marital status | single |
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| Religious affiliation | Presbyterian |
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| Paid work | publisher's reader, Doubleday Page Company (New York) |
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| Other work | teacher (private) |
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| Biography | Jean Newton McIlwraith (1858-1938) was born in Hamilton, Ontario, to Scottish immigrant parents. One of seven children, she attended public schools, Hamilton Ladies' College, and Wesleyan Ladies' College. She later took intermittent correspondence courses in English literature through Queen Margaret College in Glasgow; during several years in London in the early 1890s, she attended the National Training School of Cookery and also received vocal lessons. Her love of music led to her writing the libretto of a comic opera, PTARMIGAN, OR A CANADIAN CARNIVAL, with music by J.E.P. Aldous, which was produced in Hamilton in 1894. She travelled extensively, in England, Scotland and Europe, and across North America. From 1902 to 1916 she worked as a reader for Doubleday Page in New York while also contributing fiction and non-fiction prose to a variety of magazines. Her first published story, "A Singing Student in London" (HARPER'S 1894), based on her own experiences, drew criticism because the singing master was recognizable. Her first novel, THE MAKING OF MARY (1895), appeared under the pseudonym "Jean Forsyth." Subsequently specializing in historical romances for young readers, in 1923 she won a $500 prize for THE LITTLE ADMIRAL in the Canadian contest for juvenile fiction co-sponsored by the British publishing firm of Hodder and Stoughton and the Canadian publisher Musson. Her circle of literary friends included Anne Elizabeth Wilson Blochin*, Agnes Laut*, Walter Page, Vaschell Lindsay, and Isaac Marcossan. She published ten books in her lifetime, and after becoming deaf for much of her later life, she retired to Burlington, Ontario. Suffering from arteriosclerosis for a number of years, she died of pneumonia in 1938 and was buried in Hamilton. |
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| Travel | Scotland, 1912, 1921; Bermuda, 1928 |
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| Honours and awards | 1st place for "How far is the history of the nineteenth century reflected in its literature?"; Best Essay (Queen Margaret College, 1889); 1st place for THE LITTLE ADMIRAL, Canadian Contest for Juvenile Fiction ($500) (Hodder and Stoughton and Musson Book Company, 1923): |
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| Residences | Hamilton, Ontario (1858-c1900); Quebec City, Quebec (1901); Garden City, New York (c1902-1916); Burlington, Ontario (1922-1938) |
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| Geographic regions | Southern Ontario; USA |
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| Primary genres | fiction (juvenile); non-fiction |
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| Books | THE MAKING OF MARY (1895); PTARMIGAN: OR, A CANADIAN CARNIVAL (1895); A BOOK ABOUT SHAKESPEARE WRITTEN FOR YOUNG PEOPLE (1898); THE SPAN O' LIFE (1899) with William McLennan; A BOOK ABOUT LONGFELLOW (1900); CURIOUS CAREER OF RODERICK CAMPBELL (1901); SIR FREDERICK HALDIMAND (1904); A DIANA OF QUEBEC (1912); THE LITTLE ADMIRAL (1924); KINSMEN AT WAR (1927) |
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| Periodicals | CANADIAN MAGAZINE; CORNHILL; COUNTRY LIFE; HARPER'S MAGAZINE |
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| Other arts | music (singing) |
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| Father's name | Thomas McIlwraith |
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| Life dates of father | 24 December 1824, Newton, Ayrshire, Scotland - 31 January 1903, Hamilton, Ontario |
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| Father's note | businessman; ornithologist |
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| Mother's name | Mary Park |
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| Life dates of mother | 23 July 1825, Newton, Ayrshire, Scotland - 31 January 1901, Hamilton, Ontario |
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| Biographical references | Dictionary of Literary Biography 92; FEMINIST COMPANION TO LITERATURE IN ENGLISH (1990); Dagg, THE FEMININE GAZE (2001), pp. 205-206; Huyck, "Adapting through Compromise: Jean Newton McIlwraith and her Major Novels," MA thesis, University of Guelph, 1988; 1861 Census of Canada; 1871 Census of Canada; 1891 Census of Canada; 1901 Census of Canada; Canada, Ocean Arrivals (Form 30A), 1919-1924; Canadian Passenger Lists, 1865-1935; New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957; Ontario, Canada, Deaths, 1869-1938 and Deaths Overseas, 1939-1947 |
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| Bibliographic references | Watters, CHECKLIST OF CANADIAN LITERATURE...1620-1960 (1970), pp. 336, 340, 440, 540, 929 |
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| Research references | complete |
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| Archival references | several letters, University of Waterloo Library; letter, Margaret Cowie fonds, Rare Books and Special Collections, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC |
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| Image credits | Line drawing by Una Vernelli (Vancouver, British Columbia). |
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| Copyright | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/. Please cite Canada's Early Women Writers. SFU Library Digital Collections. Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada. 1980-2014. |
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