Arthur John Arbuthnott Stringer

(February 26, 1874 - September 13, 1950)

Arthur John Arbuthnott Stringer was born in Chatham, Ontario on February 26, 1874. He was a high spirited boy who spent his childhood days fishing, swimming, raiding orchards and manning a pirate ship. When Arthur was ten years old, he moved to London, Ontario with his family.

Two years later, in 1886, he won the Diploma of Honour as the student with the highest mark on the High School Entrance Exam. During his high school years at the London Collegiate Institute, Arthur Stringer demonstrated his enjoyment of the written language by founding and editing a school magazine entitled Chips.

As an undergraduate at the University of Toronto Arthur Stringer enjoyed early recognition for his writing. He contributed poems and prose to several magazines including Toronto's Saturday Night and The Canadian Magazine. In 1894 he published his first volume of verse entitled Watchers of Twilight, and Other Poems.

After a year at Oxford University, and a summer cruising the Baltic and Northern Sea, Arthur Stringer found a job with the Pere Marquette Railway at Saginaw. He didn't enjoy the job and sought employment elsewhere. His efforts were soon rewarded with a position at the Montreal Herald, which was followed in 1898 with a job at the American Press Association in New York City. During this time he continued to submit contributions to magazines, and in 1903 his first novel The Silver Poppy was published.

At the time of his success with The Silver Poppy, Arthur Stringer met and married Jobyna Howland. They moved to a fruit farm in Cedar Springs, Ontario. The marriage ended in divorce in 1914. He subsequently married Margaret Arbuthnott Stringer and had three sons named Bob, Barney and Jack. In 1921 the Stringer family moved to Mountain Lakes, New Jersey where he wrote several novels and books of prose including The Prairie Stories and The Old Woman Remembers.

In 1946 Arthur Stringer was awarded an Honorary D.Litt., at the University of Western Ontario.

Arthur Stringer died on September 13, 1950 in New Jersey. Throughout his life, he was a prolific writer. Below is a partial list of his work:

Watchers of Twilight, and Other Poems - 1894	The Loom of Destiny - 1899
The Silver Poppy - 1903	Lonely O'Malley: A Story of Boy Life - 1905
The Wire Tappers - 1906	The Woman in the Rain, and Other Poems - 1907
The Gun-Runner - 1909	Open Water - 1914
The House of Intrigue - 1918	Prairie Stories, 3 volumes - 1922 - comprises I The Prairie Wife; II The Prairie Mother; and III The Prairie Child
Power - 1925	The Mud Lark - 1932
The Wife Traders: A Tale of the North - 1936	The Old Woman Remembers and Other Irish Poems - 1938
The Ghost Plane: A Novel of the North - 1940	Shadowed Victory - 1944
The Woman in the Rain, and Other Poems - 1949