author

C. F. Argyll Saxby

Adventure on the Canadian prairie, the North-West, Africa, and Australia runs through these lively early 20th-century stories. Their author drew on a life that stretched from Shetland roots to Canada, the church, and time spent teaching in Australia.

1 Audiobook

The Fiery Totem A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West

The Fiery Totem A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West

by C. F. Argyll Saxby

About the author

Born to the Shetland writer Jessie M. E. Saxby, C. F. Argyll Saxby built a writing career around boys' adventure fiction and also appeared in print simply as Argyll Saxby. Reference notes attached to several of his books describe him as having lived on a homestead in the Qu'Appelle Valley in Canada before returning to Britain.

Those same sources say he later became a Church of England clergyman and then moved to Australia, where AustLit records that he taught at Melbourne Grammar School. His fiction ranges widely in setting, with stories based in western Canada as well as Africa and Australia.

He is now best remembered for energetic adventure tales such as The Fiery Totem, Braves White and Red, The Call of Honour, and The Settler of Serpent Creek. He also edited a 1903 edition of Edmonston's Flora of Shetland, showing a link to the Shetland world connected with his family background.