| Main entry | Graham, Gwethalyn |
|---|
| Birth place | Toronto, Ontario |
|---|
| Birth date | 18 January 1913 |
|---|
| Death place | Montreal, Quebec |
|---|
| Death date | 25 November 1965 |
|---|
| Identifier | 0289 |
|---|
| Birth name | Gwethalyn Graham Erichsen-Brown |
|---|
| Married name | McNaught, Yalden-Thomson |
|---|
| Marital status | married |
|---|
| Religious affiliation | Anglican |
|---|
| Paid work | book agent; script writer (CBC) |
|---|
| Biography | Gwethalyn Graham Erichsen-Brown (1913-1965) was born into a highly social and political family: father Frank Erichsen Brown (1878-1967) was an Ontario lawyer whose amateur painting earned him friendship with the likes of A.Y. Jackson, while mother Isabel Russell MacCurdy (1882-1963) was well-educated and took naturally to hosting politically-minded meetings at her home. A number of Gwethalyn's relatives also resided with the Browns in Toronto, including grandfather James Frederick McCurdy, a professor and leading scholar in Hebrew, Sanskrit, and Oriental Languages, and grandfather Dr. John Price Brown, a nose and throat specialist who also wrote three historical novels. Gwethalyn attended Rosedale Public School and Havergal College in Toronto, spending her summers at Treasure Island at Go Home Bay where she began to write, reportedly penning and destroying two novels before she had turned nineteen. In 1929, she attended the Pensionnat des Allières in Lausanne, Switzerland. Returning to North America, she enrolled in Smith College Massachusetts, and in 1932 during one of her summer home visits, met the young and unconventional divorcee and father, John McNaught (1902-1970)—the man who would become her first husband. The two soon eloped, but the marriage would only last until late in 1933, months after welcoming Gwethalyn's only child, Anthony. To start afresh after the end of her first marriage, Gwethalyn changed her surname to "Graham" and moved to Montreal. A brilliant student who began to write at the age of eight, she is best known for the two novels she wrote during this period, both of which won Governor General's Awards: SWISS SONATA (1938), inspired by her witnessing of socio-political conditions in pre-war Europe, and EARTH AND HIGH HEAVEN (1944). The latter novel was also awarded the Anisfield-Wolf award from SATURDAY REVIEW OF LITERATURE in 1945, was translated into many languages, and eventually sold over a million copies. Gwethalyn also contributed pieces to several magazines, on topics as diverse as immigration, politics, publishing, and home design. She married again in 1947 to David Cron Yalden-Thomson (1919-1993), a philosophy professor at McGill. After this marriage ended, she returned in 1958 to Canada from Virginia, where David had been working. Once back in Montreal, Gwethalyn began writing scripts for the CBC. Although she had been unsuccessful in trying to publish two of her books, she was able to publish a final text before her death: DEAR ENEMIES (CHERS ENNEMIS) (1963) was a collaboration with Solange Chaput-Rolland, later a member of the Quebec National Assembly. Suffering from a brain tumour, Gwethalyn died in 1965. An autobiographical novel, "West Wind," remains unpublished and in a private collection. |
|---|
| Travel | Mediterranean and France, 1930; England, 1930; Bahamas, 1934; England, France, Switzerland (6 mos), 1938; New York, 1940; England, 1948, 1962 |
|---|
| Other notes | Sister was authoress Isabel LeBourdais, who wrote THE TRIAL OF STEVEN TRUSCOTT. |
|---|
| Honours and awards | Award for SWISS SONATA, Governor-General's Award (1938); Award for EARTH AND HIGH HEAVEN, Governor-General's Award (1944); Award for EARTH AND HIGH HEAVEN, Anisfield-Wolf Award (Saturday Review of Literature, 1945) |
|---|
| Residences | Toronto, Ontario (1913-1929); Lausanne, Switzerland (1929); Massachusetts; Toronto (1932-1933); Montreal, Quebec (1934-1949); Charlottesville, Virginia (1949-1958); Montreal (1958-1965) |
|---|
| Geographic regions | Ontario; Quebec |
|---|
| Primary genres | fiction; non-fiction |
|---|
| Books | SWISS SONATA (1938); EARTH AND HIGH HEAVEN (1944); DEAR ENEMIES (1963), with S. Chaput-Rolland |
|---|
| Periodicals | CANADIAN AUTHOR; CANADIAN BOOKMAN; CANADIAN FORUM; CHATELAINE; COLLIER'S MAGAZINE; MACLEAN'S; NEWS CHRONICLE; SATURDAY NIGHT |
|---|
| Other arts | playwright; script writer |
|---|
| Father's name | Frank Erichsen Brown |
|---|
| Life dates of father | 29 August 1878, Galt, Ontario - 1967; m. 1904 |
|---|
| Father's note | lawyer; amateur painter; friend of A.Y. Jackson; son of Dr. John Price Brown |
|---|
| Mother's name | Isabel ("Isa") Russell MacCurdy |
|---|
| Life dates of mother | 6 May 1882, Chatham, New Brunswick - 1963, Toronto, Ontario; m. 1904 |
|---|
| Mother's note | Greek scholar; political hostess and secretary for Equal Franchise League and League of Women Voters; avid reader and amateur satirist; travelled extensively |
|---|
| Spouse 1 | John ("Jack") Charles Kirkpatrick McNaught |
|---|
| Life dates of spouse 1 | 23 March 1902, Toronto, Ontario - 1970 |
|---|
| Spouse 1 note | actor; after marriage, was broadcaster, writers, and CBC Radio and Television announcer; went by "John Bannerman," as well as other pseudonyms |
|---|
| Marriage 1 date | 24 September 1932 |
|---|
| Spouse 2 | David Cron Yalden-Thomson |
|---|
| Life dates of spouse 2 | 12 March 1919, Bridport, England - 3 June 1993, Earlysville, Virginia |
|---|
| Spouse 2 note | professor, philosophy (lectured at McGill and University of Virginia) |
|---|
| Marriage 2 date | 1947 |
|---|
| Children number | 1 |
|---|
| Children's names and dates | Anthony ("Tony") Graham McNaught (1 July 1933 - after 1979) |
|---|
| Biographical references | Dictionary of Literary Biography 1988; Meadowcroft, GWETHALYN GRAHAM: A LIBERATED WOMAN IN A CONVENTIONAL AGE (2008); FEMINIST COMPANION TO LITERATURE IN ENGLISH (1990); Cameron, "The Wrong Time and the Wrong Place: Gwethalyn Graham, 1913-1965," in Cameron and Dickin, eds., GREAT DAMES (1997), pp. 145-64. |
|---|
| Bibliographic references | Watters, CHECKLIST OF CANADIAN LITERATURE...1620-1960 (1970), p. 300. |
|---|
| Research references | complete |
|---|
| Archival references | several letters to W.A. Deacon, Deacon papers, Fisher Library, University of Toronto; some material, Macmillan papers, McMaster University. |
|---|
| Image credits | Line drawing by Una Vernelli (Vancouver, British Columbia). |
|---|
| 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. |
|---|