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Jones, Alice

Main entryJones, Alice
Birth placeHalifax, Nova Scotia
Birth date26 August 1853
Death placeMenton, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France
Death date27 February 1933
Identifier0406
Birth nameAlice Catherine Jones
Alternate namesAlix John
Marital statussingle
Religious affiliationAnglican
BiographyAlice Catherine Jones (1853-1933) grew up in the comfortable Halifax home of her father, Alfred Gilpin Jones (1824-1906), a successful businessman who represented Halifax in the Federal Parliament and became Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia. Of strong Loyalist background, Alice and her sister, poet and painter Frances Jones Bannerman*, found their chief artistic inspiration in Europe, where Alice travelled widely and studied languages after her early education in Halifax. Their literary circle included their cousins and childhood neighbours, Helen Morrow Paske Duffus* and Susan Morrow Jones*; the latter married Alice's brother. Beginning her writing career with travel articles, Alice established her reputation by winning a literary prize from THE WEEK in 1891 for her story "Hidden Treasure." She published five novels in the United States and England, one of which, THE NIGHT HAWK (1901), appeared under her pseudonym, "Alix John." After acting as her father's chatelaine at Government House for about five years, she moved to France, where she resided from about 1905 until her death in 1933.
TravelBritain, Europe, Egypt, Caribbean, 1880s and 1890s
Honours and awardsAward for "Hidden Treasure," Story prize (THE WEEK, 1891)
ResidencesHalifax, Nova Scotia (1853-1905); France (c1905-1933)
Geographic regionsNova Scotia; Europe
Primary genresfiction
BooksTHE NIGHT HAWK: A ROMANCE OF THE '60'S (1901); BUBBLES WE BUY (1903) published in the UK as ISABEL BRODERICK (1904); GABRIEL PRAED'S CASTLE (1904); MARCUS HOLBEACH'S DAUGHTER: A TALE OF THE GULF SHORE (1912); FLAME OF FROST (1914); THE CONSUL'S NIECE (1907); AT THE HARBOUR'S MOUTH (1905)
PeriodicalsTHE AMERICAN MAGAZINE; CANADIAN MAGAZINE; FRANK LESLIE'S POPULAR MONTHLY; THE WEEK
Father's nameHonorable Alfred Gilpin Jones
Life dates of father28 September 1824, Weymouth, Nova Scotia - 15 March 1906, Government House, Halifax, Nova Scotia; m. 1850, 1877 to Emma Albro
Father's notebusinessman; M.P.; Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia (1900-1906)
Mother's nameMargaret Wiseman Stairs
Life dates of mother1826, Halifax, Nova Scotia - 5 February 1875, Halifax, Nova Scotia; m. 1850
Biographical referencesFEMINIST COMPANION TO LITERATURE IN ENGLISH (1990), Canadian Crime Fiction; Davies, "Jones, Alice C." in ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LITERATURE IN CANADA, ed. New (2002), p. 556; 1871 Census of Canada; 1881 Census of Canada
Bibliographic referencesWatters, CHECKLIST OF CANADIAN LITERATURE...1620-1960 (1970), p. 317
Research referencescomplete
Archival referencesmanuscripts of three novels, Public Archives of Nova Scotia; letter to Archibald MacMechan, 12 July 1905, MacMechan papers, Dalhousie University Archives.
Image creditsImage from Henry Morgan, TYPES OF CANADIAN WOMEN (Toronto: Briggs, 1903).
CopyrightThis 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.