Jean Newton McIlwraith was born in 1859 in Hamilton, Canada West (now Ontario). Her father, Thomas McIlwraith, had emigrated from Ayr, Scotland, in 1853 and was a well-known merchant and a pioneer ornithologist. Her mother, Mary Park McIlwraith, had accompanied her husband to Canada from Ayr. One of seven children, Jean McIlwraith was educated at the Hamilton Ladies' College and by correspondence courses from Queen Margaret College, Glasgow University; she lived in Hamilton, at "Cairnbrae," her family home, until after her mother's death in 1901, writing her first novel and several works of nonfiction there. In 1902 she moved to New York, where she worked as a publisher's reader and was for some time head reader for Doubleday, Page and Company; she continued to publish articles in periodicals such as Cornhill, Country Life, Harper's, and Canadian Magazine, as well as books. She eventually retired to Burlington, Ontario, and died there on 17 November...