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Norah M. Holland

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Canadian writer (1876–1925)
Norah M. Holland Claxton
BornHonorah Mary Holland
January 10, 1876
Collingwood, Ontario, Canada
DiedApril 27, 1925
Toronto, Canada
Resting placeSt. John's Cemetery, Toronto
Occupation
  • Writer
  • journalist
  • editor
LanguageEnglish
Alma mater
Spouse Lionel William Claxton ​ ​(m. 1922)​
Relatives
Signature

Norah M. Holland (after marriage, Claxton; January 10, 1876 – April 27, 1925) was a Canadian poet, playwright, journalist, and editor. She was a contributor to the Canadian Courier, The Canadian Magazine, Toronto Daily News, and The Globe. During Holland's travels in Ireland and England in 1904, she stayed with John Butler Yeats, and he drew a sketch of her. Holland died in 1925.

Biography

Honorah Mary Holland was born in Collingwood, Ontario, January 10, 1876. Her parental ancestors were from County Sligo, Ireland. Her father was John Hawkins Holland (1841-1923), and on his side, she was a grandniece of Chief Justice of Ontario John Hawkins Hagarty; her mother, Elizabeth (Yeats) Holland, was a first cousin of W. B. Yeats, the Irish poet.

Holland was educated in the public schools of her native town and in the Port Dover and Parkdale Collegiate Institutes.

Since 1889, Holland was a resident of Toronto. For eight years, she was on the staff of the Dominion Press Clipping Bureau, the Toronto Daily News, assistant editor of the Canadian Courier, and with the Macmillan Company of Canada.

"Norah M. Holland" by John Butler Yeats, 1904

During 1904, she made an extended journey on foot through the south and west of Ireland and in England gathering at first hand a great accumulation of Irish folklore.

In 1922, she married Lionel William Claxton, a writer of tales and poems. She died in Toronto of tuberculosis on April 27, 1925, and is buried at St. John's Cemetery, Toronto. The Toronto Globe in announcing her death paid the following tribute to her personality and work:—"To readers of poetry the one who is gone will be always Norah Holland, the weaver of exquisite verse. A lover of children, a friend of dumb animals, and a staunch, stimulating comrade to numerous wayfarers who crossed her path, she touched life at many points and wrote inspiringly of its different phases. Her two books of verse, Spunyarn and Spindrift and When Half Gods Go, remain as monuments to her genius, and fascinating fairy stories proclaim her the friend of little children and a firm believer in that charming world of fancy unknown to the materialist.”.

Selected works

Poetry collections

  • Spun-yarn and Spindrift, 1918
  • When Half-gods Go, and Other Poems, 1924

Drama

  • When Half Gods Go (allegorical poetic drama, 1928)

Poems

  • "Captains Adventurous"
  • "April in England"
  • "Home Thoughts from Abroad"
  • "Sea Song"

References

  1. ^ Caswell, Edward Samuel (1925). Canadian Singers and Their Songs: A Collection of Portraits, Autograph Poems and Brief Biographies. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart. pp. 237–38. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  2. ^ Garvin, John William (1916). Canadian Poets. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, Limited. pp. 407–08. ISBN 978-0-8274-2000-7. Retrieved 12 February 2022.
  3. ^ "Norah Holland". cwrc.ca. Canada’s Early Women Writers. 18 May 2018. Retrieved 12 February 2022.
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