author
Edward William Thomson
1849–1924
A Canadian journalist and storyteller, this late-19th-century writer drew memorable scenes of life in the Ottawa Valley and other parts of rural Canada. His fiction and poems are especially known for their vivid sense of place and the people who worked the land and rivers.
2 Audiobooks
Old Man Savarin, and Other Stories
by Edward William Thomson
Old Man Savarin Stories: Tales of Canada and Canadians
by Edward William Thomson
About the author
Born in Peel County, Ontario, on February 12, 1849, he became a Canadian journalist, poet, and short-story writer whose work often centered on everyday life in Canada. As a teenager he spent time in Philadelphia and served in the Union cavalry during the American Civil War before later working in surveying and journalism.
He wrote for newspapers in both Canada and the United States, and his literary work grew out of that close observation of ordinary people and local speech. His stories are often associated with the Ottawa River region, especially its farmers, lumber workers, and river-drivers, and they helped preserve a lively picture of rural Canadian life.
He died on March 5, 1924. Though not as widely read now as some of his contemporaries, he remains an interesting figure in Canadian literature for the way he blended a reporter’s eye for detail with a storyteller’s feel for character and setting.