author
Charles Heavysege
1816–1876
An early Canadian poet and dramatist, he built an ambitious literary life from a working-class background and became best known for the verse drama Saul. His writing drew strongly on Shakespeare and the Bible, giving it a bold, high-stakes style.
1 Audiobook
The Advocate: A Novel
by Charles Heavysege
About the author
Born in England in 1816 and largely self-educated, he left school young and worked with his hands before making his name in literature. He immigrated to Montreal in 1853, where he first worked as a woodcarver and later became involved in journalism as well as writing.
Heavysege was among the earliest poets to publish substantial original work in Canada. His best-known work, Saul, won serious attention in its day, and he also wrote other verse dramas and poems shaped by his deep reading of Shakespeare, Milton, and the Bible.
He died in Montreal in 1876. Today he is remembered as an important early figure in Canadian literature: a self-taught writer whose ambition helped set a high bar for poetry and drama in 19th-century Canada.