Catherine Anthony Clark
Catherine Anthony Clark was a pioneering Canadian author, born on May 5, 1892, in London, England. She immigrated to Canada in 1914 with her family and settled in Gray Creek, British Columbia, a location that profoundly influenced her writing. Clark is best known for her novel "The Golden Pine Cone," published in 1950, which is considered the first significant Canadian fantasy work. This novel incorporates the region's landscape and Native American folklore, featuring magical adventures and selfless quests undertaken by young protagonists. Throughout her career, Clark wrote several other novels, including "The Sun Horse," which received the Canadian Library Association's Book of the Year for Children Award in 1952. Her works often highlighted the natural beauty of British Columbia and its cultural narratives. In addition to her literary contributions, Clark was active in her community, participating in organizations such as the Catholic Women's League and the Royal Oak Women's Institute. She passed away on February 24, 1977, leaving behind a legacy as Canada's first notable fantasy writer.
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Catherine Anthony Clark
Writer
- Born: May 5, 1892
- Birthplace: London, England
- Died: February 24, 1977
- Place of death: Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Biography
Catherine Anthony Clark was born in London, England on May 5, 1892, one of eight children of antique dealer Edgar Smith and his wife, Catherine Mary Palmer Smith. Clark attended school at the Convent of Jesus and Mary in Suffolk, England. After her mother’s death, she immigrated with her father and her seven siblings to Canada in1914. She had been fascinated with British Columbia as a child, collecting pamphlets on the province, and she was delighted when she and her family were able to settle there. They made their new home in the tiny community of Gray Creek on the shores of Kootenay Lake in the rugged southeastern corner of the province. She married retired rancher Leonard Clark on December 29, 1919, and the couple raised two children, a son and a daughter, on their ranch.
Clark wrote for the Prospector newspaper in Nelson, British Columbia, and later published her first book,The Golden Pine Cone, in 1950. This novel is regarded as the first truly Canadian work of fantasy, drawing as it does upon the landscape, Native American folklore, and the frequently harsh way of life of in British Columbia’s wilderness. Its main characters set out to return the pinecone of the title to its rightful Native American owner and in the process pass through a semimagical land, the Inner World, much like the one they already know. They travel with a team of reindeer and, more remarkably, fly through the sky with a flock of geese.
Clark’s subsequent works all featured young protagonists, a boy and a younger girl, involved in similarly selfless quests. In her second novel, The Sun Horse, Mark and Giselle rescue Giselle’s father, who has disappeared in the mountains looking for a fabulous palomino stallion. They enlist the help of Flame-Lighter Woman and a talking bat and use a “love magnet” in their struggle with a firebird. Clark also published a more conventional adventure story, The Man with Yellow Eyes, toward the end of her career.
Clark was a member of the Catholic Women’s League and the Royal Oak Women’s Institute. She won the Canadian Library Association’s Book of the Year for Children Award in 1952 for her best-known novel, The Sun Horse. She was Canada’s first fantasy writer of any importance. Although she was an uneven stylist, she was consistent in her themes and her sympathetic use of local subject matter, giving a voice to the lakes, rivers, and mountains of her adopted home. She died on February 24, 1977, at the age of eighty-four.