Lily Alice Lefevre

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Lily Alice Lefevre
Lily Alice Lefevre in 1890
Lily Alice Lefevre in 1890
BornLily Alice Cooke
(1854-04-05)5 April 1854
Kingston, Canada West
Died17 October 1938(1938-10-17) (aged 84)
Vancouver, British Columbia
GenrePoetry

Lily Alice Lefevre (5 April 1854 – 17 October 1938) was a Canadian poet whose writing was closely linked to Vancouver after her arrival there in 1886. Her book of poems, The Lions' Gate, and Other Verses, was the first literary work published by a woman in British Columbia.[1]

Biography[edit]

Lily Alice Cooke was born in Kingston, Ontario, on 5 April 1854.[2] Educated in Montreal, in 1883 she married John Lefevre, a doctor.[3] Writing under her pen name Fleurange, in 1885 she won the $100 prize offered by the Montreal Witness newspaper for her poem, The Spirit of the Carnival.[4][5] It was later anthologized in William Douw Lighthall's 1889 survey of Canadian verse, Songs of the Great Dominion.[6]

Lefevre arrived in Vancouver in 1886 after her husband was appointed surgeon of the western division of the Canadian Pacific Railway.[3] She described the young city for the Montreal newspapers.[7] In 1889, her poem The Lions' Gateway (later renamed The Lions' Gate) was printed in The Vancouver Daily World on New Year's Eve.[8] One of her poems, Requital, appeared in 1894 in Canadian Magazine.[9] Her 1895 book, The Lions' Gate, and Other Verses, was the first work of literature published by a woman in British Columbia. Robert Bringhurst remarked that it was earliest in the province to have "any sense of the landscape," especially in regards to how the environment could be transformed, creating new wealth.[1]

In 1902, Lefevre organized the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire for the coronation of King Edward VII.[2] Popular locally, the title poem of her first book, as well as The Beaver and the Empress, was published in 1903 in a beautiful limited edition album of photographs.[10] After her husband's death in 1906, Lefevre became a patron of the arts, and made her home, 'Langaravine,' a gathering place for writers, artists, and scholars.[2] In 1909, the Victoria Colonist newspaper described her as a "clever polished writer of either prose or verse," and that Lord Dufferin included one of her sonnets in a compilation for his friends, alongside eminent English poets such as Tennyson and Browning. Lefevre also wrote lyrics set to music by composers.[7]

Lefevre published in 1921 her last book of poetry, A Garden By The Sea, and Other Poems.[10] She was a co-founder of the Vancouver Art Gallery, opened in 1931.[2] Three years later, she donated $5,000 for a scholarship and gold medal to the University of British Columbia in honor of her husband. In 1936, The Lions' Gate was again reprinted during Vancouver's Jubilee celebrations.[11] Lefevre died on 17 October 1938 at her home in Vancouver overlooking English Bay.[3]

Works[edit]

The Lions' Gate, and Other Verses. Province Publishing, Victoria, 1895.
  • The Lions' Gate, and Other Verses (1895)
  • The Lions' Gate, and The Beaver And The Empress (1903)
  • A Garden By The Sea, and Other Poems (1921)

Source:[2]

Anthologies[edit]

Works by Lefevre are included in these books:[2]

  • Lighthall, Songs of the Great Dominion (1889)
  • Lighthall, Canadian Poems and Lays (1892)
  • Rand, Treasury of Canadian Verse (1900)
  • Garvin, Canadian Verse for Boys and Girls (1930)

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b Bringhurst, Robert (1984). Ocean, Paper, Stone: The catalogue of an exhibition of printed objects which chronicle more than a century of literary publishing in British Columbia. William Hoffer. p. 19. ISBN 0-919758-07-X.
  2. ^ a b c d e f "Lefevre, Lily Alice Cooke". Simon Fraser University. 2014. Archived from the original on 21 December 2019.
  3. ^ a b c "Mrs. J. M. Lefevre Died Yesterday". The Times Colonist. Victoria. 18 October 1938. p. 7. Archived from the original on 19 May 2024. Retrieved 19 May 2024 – via Newspapers.com Free access icon.
  4. ^ "The Carnival". The Gazette. Montreal. 17 January 1885. p. 5. Archived from the original on 19 May 2024. Retrieved 19 May 2024 – via Newspapers.com Free access icon.
  5. ^ O'Hagan, Thomas (1901). "Canadian Women Writers". Canadian Essays: Critical and Historical. Toronto: William Briggs. p. 74 – via Internet Archive.
  6. ^ Lighthall, William Douw, ed. (1889). Songs of the Great Dominion. London: Walter Scott. pp. 203–208 – via Internet Archive.
  7. ^ a b "Women Writers of the Coast". The Victoria Colonist. 6 November 1909. p. 3 – via Vancouver Public Library.
  8. ^ Fleurange (Lily Alice Lefevre) (31 December 1889). "The Lions' Gateway". Vancouver Daily World. p. 1. Archived from the original on 19 May 2024. Retrieved 19 May 2024 – via Newspapers.com Free access icon.
  9. ^ Dangan (pen name) (14 April 1894). "The Library". The Province. Vancouver. p. 6. Archived from the original on 19 May 2024. Retrieved 19 May 2024 – via Newspapers.com Free access icon.
  10. ^ a b Zilm, Glennis (1981). "Poetry and Vanity Printing". Early B.C. Books: An Overview of Trade Book Publishing in British Columbia in the 1800s with Checklists and Selected Bibliography Related to British Columbiana (M.A. Thesis). Simon Fraser University. pp. 142–143. Archived from the original on 8 October 2023. Retrieved 19 May 2024.
  11. ^ "Lefevre, Lily Alice". ABC Bookworld. Archived from the original on 18 September 2020. Retrieved 19 May 2024.

External links[edit]

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lily_Alice_Lefevre&oldid=1225002236"