author
William Henry Drummond
1854–1907
Irish-born Canadian poet and physician William Henry Drummond became famous for lively poems inspired by the people, speech, and stories of rural Quebec. His best-known collection, The Habitant, made him one of Canada’s most popular poets of the late nineteenth century.
3 Audiobooks
The Habitant and Other French-Canadian Poems
by William Henry Drummond
The Voyageur and Other Poems
by William Henry Drummond
Phil-o-rum's Canoe, and Madeleine Vercheres: Two Poems
by William Henry Drummond
About the author
Born near Mohill, County Leitrim, Ireland, in 1854, Drummond emigrated to Canada with his family as a boy. Financial hardship led him to leave school early and work as a telegraph operator, a job that brought him into contact with French-Canadian farmers and woodsmen whose voices and stories later shaped his poetry. He eventually returned to his studies and earned a medical degree from Bishop’s University in 1884.
Drummond practiced medicine in Quebec and Montreal while writing poems in a humorous, French-influenced English associated with the habitant. His first collection, The Habitant and Other French-Canadian Poems, appeared in 1897 and was an immediate success. Later books included Johnnie Courteau and The Voyageur, and his complete Poetical Works was published after his death.
A fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Canada, Drummond continued working as a physician alongside his literary career. He died in Cobalt, Ontario, on April 6, 1907, at the age of 52.