John Richardson (author)
John Richardson | |
---|---|
Queenston, Ontario, Upper Canada, British Empire | |
Died | 12 May 1852 New York City, U.S. | (aged 55)
Occupation | Soldier, novelist |
John Richardson (4 October 1796 – 12 May 1852) was a Canadian officer in the British Army who became the first Canadian-born novelist to achieve international recognition.
Life
Richardson was born at Fort George or in Queenston on the Niagara River in 1796. His mother Madelaine was the daughter of the fur trader John Askin and an Odawa woman Monette. His father, Dr. Robert Richardson, was a surgeon with the Queen's Rangers. As a young boy, Richardson lived for a time with his grandparents in Detroit and later with his parents at Fort Malden, Amherstburg. His step-mother, Marie Archange Barthe, told him of stories about early Detroit and the Siege of Fort Detroit in 1763, which inspired his interest in writing.[1]
At age 16, Richardson enlisted in the British
Richardson was commissioned into the
Richardson stated that his mixed racial background made him uneasy with his fellow officers in the West Indies. This is surprising given the stereotypical and racist treatment of First Nations people in his novels. Although Richardson's most savage characters, Wacousta in the novel Wacousta (1832) and Desborough in The Canadian Brothers (1840), are in fact white men who have turned "savage," his depiction of other Indigenous characters typically affirms a European settler perspective that envisions Indigenous people as pre-modern, irrational, and innately warlike.
Richardson began his fiction-writing career with novels about the British and French societies of his time. In his third and most successful novel, Wacousta, he turned to the North American frontier for his setting and history. He followed the same practice in the sequel, The Canadian Brothers.
From 1820 to 1827 he lived in Paris and traveled throughout Europe, as he spoke fluent French, according to David Beasley. He returned to London in the fall of 1827. David Beasley has identified him as the anonymous author of The Roué; or The Hazards of Women, The Oxonians: A Glance at Society, and Écarté; or the Salons of Paris.
In 1838, after fighting with the British during the Spanish First Carlist War, Richardson returned to Canada from England, promoted to the rank of major. He tried to earn his livelihood by writing fiction and by setting up a series of weekly newspapers. He was appointed superintendent of the police on the Welland Canal in 1845, but was fired the next year. In 1849 Richardson moved to New York City, where he continued to write fiction. However, his attempts to build a literary career in the US failed.
John Richardson died (supposedly of starvation) in New York City in 1852. He was buried in the paupers' cemetery in New York; his grave site is unknown.
References
- ISBN 978-0-915317-18-9.
Further reading
- Michael Hurley: The Ward of 1812: Major John Richardson. Child Soldier, War Historian, and the Father of Canadian Literature. International Journal of Canadian Studies IJCS – Revue internationale d'études canadiennes, 53, 9, Spring 2016, University of Toronto Press (abstract & references online)
- Alan James Finlayson, Major John Richardson: Canadian Patriot and Literary Nationalist, Ontario History, CXI, 1, Spring 2019, 80–95.Abstract and text in Erudit.org
- David R. Beasley, The Search for Major John Richardson's Unknown Writings, Ontario History, CXIII, 2, Autumn 2021, 167–94.
External links
Media related to John Richardson (author) at Wikimedia Commons
- "John Richardson". Dictionary of Canadian Biography (online ed.). University of Toronto Press. 1979–2016.
- Works by John Richardson at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about John Richardson at Internet Archive
- John Richardson's entry in The Canadian Encyclopedia