author
M. A. Nicholl
A little-known poet from 19th-century Winnipeg, remembered for the 1884 collection Lays from the West. Very little biographical detail appears to survive online, 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 credited as the author of Lays from the West, a poetry collection published in Winnipeg in 1884. Project Gutenberg, HathiTrust, and other library-style records confirm the book and its date, but they provide only sparse information about the person behind it.
Because reliable biographical sources are so limited, it is hard to say much more with confidence. Some editions associate the work with the name "Stella," which may be a pen name or subtitle attribution, but the surviving records available here do not clearly establish a fuller identity.
For readers, that scarcity can be part of the appeal: Nicholl comes down to us mainly through the poems themselves, as one of those authors whose life is mostly hidden while the writing remains.