author
Charles Sangster
1822–1893
Best known as one of the first poets to write vividly about Canadian places, this 19th-century writer helped give early Canadian literature its own landscape and voice. His poems often turn the St. Lawrence, the Saguenay, and the natural world into something grand, reflective, and distinctly local.
1 Audiobook
Hesperus and Other Poems and Lyrics
by Charles Sangster
About the author
Born near Kingston, Upper Canada, in 1822, Charles Sangster worked in government service and journalism before building his reputation as a poet. He served with the Kingston Whig, edited the Amherstburg Courier, and later worked in Ottawa in the Post Office Department.
He is especially remembered for The St. Lawrence and the Saguenay, and Other Poems (1856) and Hesperus, and Other Poems and Lyrics (1860). Contemporary reference works describe him as a major pre-Confederation poet, and he is often credited with being among the first to make Canadian scenery and subjects central to his poetry.
Although his fame faded after his lifetime, Sangster remains an important early figure in Canadian writing. He died in Kingston in 1893, leaving behind work that helped shape a distinctly Canadian poetic tradition.