author
M. A. Nicholl
A little-known 19th-century poet remembered for Lays from the West, a collection shaped by homesickness, faith, and life on the Canadian prairies. The surviving record is sparse, which gives the work an added sense of mystery.
1 Audiobook
Lays from the West
by M. A. Nicholl
About the author
M. A. Nicholl is the credited author of Lays from the West, a poetry collection first published in 1884 by the Manitoba Free Press Printers in Winnipeg. Library and archive records identify the book as poetry, and Project Gutenberg notes it as Canadian literature.
The clearest biographical detail I could confirm comes from the Internet Archive record for the 1884 edition, which describes Nicholl as the wife of a missionary stationed at Grenfell in the early 1880s and says she was also known as "Stella." That fits the way the book is often cataloged as Lays from the West: By "Stella".
Beyond that, reliable information about her life appears to be very limited. What does stand out is the tone of the book itself: modern catalog summaries describe poems concerned with memory, longing, religion, and attachment to homeland, suggesting a writer whose work was deeply personal and rooted in place.