Margaret Marshall Saunders
| Margaret Marshall Saunders | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born | May 13, 1861 |
| Died | February 15, 1947 |
| Occupation | Author, lecturer, activist |
| Genre | Children's literature, romance |
Margaret Marshall Saunders CBE (May 13, 1861 – February 15, 1947) was a prolific Canadian writer of children's stories and romance novels, a lecturer, and an animal rights advocate.
Saunders was born in the village of Milton, Nova Scotia, though she spent most of her childhood in Berwick, Nova Scotia where her father was a Baptist minister.
Saunders is most famous for her novel Beautiful Joe. It tells the true story of a dog from Meaford, Ontario that had his ears and tail chopped off by an abusive owner as a puppy, but is rescued by a Meaford family whose lives he later saves. The story is written from the dog's point of view, and is often compared to Black Beauty which was released a few years earlier.
In 1889 Saunders submitted Beautiful Joe to the American Humane Education Society Prize Competition "Kind and Cruel Treatment of Domestic Animals and Birds in the Northern States", and won a prize of $200. When the book was brought to publication in 1893, both the book and its subject received worldwide attention. It was the first Canadian book to sell over a million copies, and by the late 1930s had sold over seven million copies worldwide. It was also translated into many languages, including Esperanto.
About Beautiful Joe, Marshall Saunders commented, "I have had the honour of leading the old Ontario dog around the world on a chain of translations and rejoice in the report that he has become quite a propagandist for humanitarianism".
Following the success of Beautiful Joe, Saunders wrote more than twenty other stories, a number of which provided social commentary on such things as the abolition of child labor, slum clearance, and the improvement of playground facilities.
Saunders also wrote newspaper articles about supervised playgrounds for city children and other social issues in the Halifax Morning Chronicle and the Toronto Globe. She also lectured frequently, and belonged to many organizations including various humane societies, and the Canadian Women's Press Club which she co-founded with fellow Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery.
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