Edward McCourt

Edward Alexander McCourt (October 10, 1907 – January 6, 1972) was a Canadian writer.

Born in Mullingar, Ireland, McCourt's family emigrated to Kitscoty, Alberta when he was two years old. He was educated at the University of Alberta, becoming a Rhodes Scholar at Merton College, Oxford, and earned an MA from Oxford University. Returning to Canada, he worked at Upper Canada College, Queen's University and the University of New Brunswick before joining the faculty of the University of Saskatchewan in 1944.

McCourt published five novels—Music at the Close (1947), Home Is the Stranger (1950), The Wooden Sword (1956), Walk Through the Valley (1958) and Fasting Friar (1963). His non-fiction titles included The Canadian West in Fiction (1949), a critical analysis of regional literature from the Canadian Prairies, Revolt in the West (1958), about the North-West Rebellion, and Remembering Butler (1967), a biography of Sir William Butler, as well as works of travel writing.

Music at the Close won the Ryerson Fiction Award in 1947, and was republished by the New Canadian Library in 1972.

McCourt died on January 6, 1972.

References

Theme and form in the novels of Edward A. McCourt, by Neil Graham, Thesis M. A., University of Windsor, 1968 (with a bibliography)

1907 births

1972 deaths

20th-century Canadian novelists

Canadian male novelists

Canadian literary critics

Canadian male biographers

Canadian travel writers

Canadian Rhodes Scholars

Irish emigrants to Canada

Academic staff of the University of Saskatchewan

Writers from Saskatchewan

Writers from Alberta

People from Mullingar

20th-century Canadian biographers

20th-century Canadian male writers

Alumni of Merton College, Oxford