Isabella Valancy Crawford was born in Dublin, Ireland on Christmas Day, 1846. The family emigrated to Canada when she was ten years of age. Her father applied for a licence to practice medicine and then began worked in Paisley, Canada West. But life was harder than expected. Disease took the lives of many of the children and they often lived in semi-poverty. A financial scandal involving her father caused the family to leave Paisley in 1861.By chance Richard Strickland invited the Crawfords to live at his home, out of charity, and because the town of Lakefield did not have a doctor. Strickland’s sisters, both writers, seemed to have given Isabella the spark to begin writing.In 1873 Isabella began to have her poems and stories published. With the death of her father two years later she was now the main source of income. With the death of the remaining siblings, she and her mother moved to Toronto, the centre of the publishing world in Canada.She contributed numerous serialized novels and novellas to New York and Toronto publications, including the Mail, the Globe, and the National. Despite her initial success with magazines, periodicals and newspapers she published only one book, ’Old Spookses’ Pass, Malcolm’s Katie & Other Poems’ in 1884. Crawford paid for the printing of 1, 000 copies. London journals such as the Spectator, the Graphic, and the Saturday Review pointed to ’versatility of talent’. However, only 50 books sold. Isabella Valancy Crawford died on 12th February 1887 in Toronto. She was buried in an unmarked grave at Peterborough’s Little Lake Cemetery near the Otonabee River. She had died in poverty but after a fundraising campaign a six-foot Celtic Cross was raised above her grave in November 1900, inscribed: Isabella Valancy Crawford Poet By the Gift of God Crawford is increasingly being viewed as Canada’s first major poet.
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