author
J. D. (John Daniel) Logan
1869–1929
A Canadian poet, critic, and teacher, this energetic man of letters helped give Canadian literature a place in the classroom. He is especially remembered for claiming one of the first university courses devoted to Canadian literature.
1 Audiobook
Highways of Canadian Literature
by J. D. (John Daniel) Logan, Donald G. French
About the author
Born in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, on May 2, 1869, and raised in Pictou after his family moved there in 1876, he built a wide-ranging career as a writer, teacher, and literary critic. He studied at Pictou Academy and Dalhousie, then continued at Harvard, later teaching in several posts before becoming closely associated with Acadia University and, later, Marquette University.
His work ranged across poetry, literary history, composition, and music criticism. He is best known for a 1915 series of lectures at Acadia that was promoted as the first university course in distinctly Canadian literature, a sign of how seriously he took the idea that Canadian writing deserved focused study.
He also left an important archival legacy: papers, manuscripts, and a major collection of Canadian literature preserved at Acadia. He died in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on January 24, 1929, but his reputation endures through both his own writing and his early advocacy for Canadian literature as a field worth teaching and collecting.