author
J. D. (John Daniel) Logan
1869–1929
A lively early champion of Canadian writing, this Nova Scotia-born poet, critic, and teacher helped bring Canadian literature into the university classroom. His career ranged across poetry, journalism, music criticism, and literary history, giving his work a broad, curious spirit.
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, he grew up in Pictou and studied at Pictou Academy and Dalhousie University. He went on to build an unusually varied literary life as a poet, journalist, critic, and teacher, publishing poetry as well as work on literature, composition, and music.
He is especially remembered for his connection to the early teaching of Canadian literature at Acadia University, where he later claimed to have offered the first university course in the subject in 1915. His reputation also rests on his work as a literary and music critic and on his role in collecting and encouraging Canadian writing at a time when the field was still defining itself.
His life reached well beyond the classroom. Archival records describe him as a major cultural figure with interests in scholarship, criticism, and wartime history, and they show the breadth of the papers and literary materials he preserved. He died in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on January 24, 1929.