Background
Isabel Ecclestone Mackay was born on November 25, 1875, in Woodstock, Ontario. She was a daughter of Donald McLeod MacPherson, a native of Scotland, and his wife, Priscilla Ecclestone, of England.
Isabel Mackay
147A CT-169, Woodstock, CT 06281
Isabel attended Woodstock Public Schools.
35 Riddell St, Woodstock, ON N4S 6L9
Isabel was educated at Woodstock Collegiate Institute.
1919
Isabel Ecclestone McKay in ''Canadian Singers and their Songs.''
1919
Isabel Ecclestone McKay in ''Canadian Singers and their Songs.''
35 Riddell St, Woodstock, ON N4S 6L9
Isabel was educated at Woodstock Collegiate Institute.
147A CT-169, Woodstock, CT 06281
Isabel attended Woodstock Public Schools.
Emily Pauline Johnson was Isabel's friend.
Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall was Isabel's friend.
https://www.amazon.com/Between-Lights-Isabel-Ecclestone-MacKay/dp/B0016BTH9C/ref=sr_1_8?dchild=1&keywords=Isabel+Ecclestone+Mackay&qid=1585079720&s=books&sr=1-8
1904
(Blencarrow tells the story of a group of youth, particula...)
Blencarrow tells the story of a group of youth, particularly the Fenwells. Kathy and Gilda Fenwell are both stricken by their father’s shameful public behavior; Gilda leaves the family, while Kathy stays to help. Kathy is early on wooed by three young men of Blencarrow - Euan, Garry, and Con - but when Gilda returns the Fenwell difficulties become even more painful. Only Euan stands by Kathy, but through the steadfast friendship of these small-town Canadians, better times seem inevitable by the novel’s close. Isabel Paterson, writing for the New York Herald Tribune Books, commented: “The plot as such is not the important thing. One goes on reading and liking this simple tale for the gentle incidental humor of it, the unforced sympathy with the trifling, tremendous concerns of youth and the authentic atmosphere of the sleepy, obscure town.”
https://www.amazon.com/Blencarrow-Isabel-Ecclestone-Mackay/dp/B000Q6BMJQ/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?dchild=1&keywords=Blen-carrow+Isabel+MacKay&qid=1585079485&s=books&sr=1-1-fkmr0
1926
(The Window-Gazer was similarly appreciated for its likabl...)
The Window-Gazer was similarly appreciated for its likable air. The New York Times commented: “An altogether entertaining novel, rather light, never dull, and seldom thought-provoking. The author of The Window-Gazer knows the formula of popularity and writes according to it with unerring skill.”
https://www.amazon.com/Window-Gazer-Isabel-Ecclestone-Mackay-ebook/dp/B0082YVC44/ref=sr_1_6?dchild=1&keywords=Isabel+Ecclestone+Mackay&qid=1585051580&s=books&sr=1-6
2012
(''Up the Hill and Over'' treats societal problems in a so...)
''Up the Hill and Over'' treats societal problems in a somewhat sentimental mode. In it, MacKay tells the story of a big-town doctor, Dr. Henry Callandar of Montreal, who moves to the village of Coombe to settle into a more relaxing style of life. There he meets with Esther Coombe and her stepmother Mary Coombe, whom Callandar had known in another time. The past comes back to haunt Callandar, but the ending allows him to move forward into new pastures.
https://www.amazon.com/Hill-Over-Isabel-Ecclestone-Mackay-ebook/dp/B0084BFZGQ/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Up+the+Hill+and+Over+Isabel+Mackay&qid=1585078962&s=books&sr=1-1
2012
(A woman - pushed to the brink by her family’s destruction...)
A woman - pushed to the brink by her family’s destruction at the hands of an unfeeling department store owner - kidnaps and deserts the department store owner’s baby. Over the course of the abandoned child’s youth, a series of strange adventures serve to trace the child’s true identity. MacKay’s book was praised for its clever treatment of big-city business; as Relke explains: “Unlike most Canadian novelists of the period, who uncritically celebrated rural values and condemned city life as immoral, MacKay’s treatment of urban experience is considerably balanced.” The New York Times comments: “Along with the narrative there are some interesting comments on department store life and pictures of department store people.” But, the anonymous reviewer adds: “One’s enjoyment of what is interesting in the book is somewhat marred by exasperation with the extraordinary density of the book’s detectives.”
https://www.amazon.com/Windows-Isabel-Ecclestone-1875-1928-Mackay/dp/1346653593/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=The+House+of+Windows+Isabel+Mackay&qid=1585078641&s=books&sr=1-1
2015
(Mist of Morning, set in the years preceding World War I, ...)
Mist of Morning, set in the years preceding World War I, depicts the romance of Rosme and David, childhood playmates, who are parted by circumstance and who rediscover one another. Despite another girl’s claim on David, he is finally reunited with Rosme, and the novel ends with a bittersweet reflection on the value of love in the face of war: “Though war might find them tomorrow, today they had found love.”
https://www.amazon.com/Mist-Morning-Isabel-Ecclestone-MacKay/dp/1355262852/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Mist+of+Morning+Isabel+Mackay&qid=1585079151&s=books&sr=1-1
2016
newspaperwoman novelist playwright poet
Isabel Ecclestone Mackay was born on November 25, 1875, in Woodstock, Ontario. She was a daughter of Donald McLeod MacPherson, a native of Scotland, and his wife, Priscilla Ecclestone, of England.
Noted for her warmth and ambition to achieve, Isabel Macpherson grew up in the Scots community of Oxford County, Ontario, where she won prizes in Highland dancing. Isabel was educated at Woodstock Public Schools. She was also educated at Woodstock Collegiate Institute, and her first work appeared in school publications.
Isabel began her literary career at the age of fifteen. From 1890 to 1900, writing under the pseudonym “Heather,” she was a staff contributor to the Woodstock Daily Express and, in 1894, began contributing poems and short stories to other Canadian newspapers as well. Mackay began publishing books in the late 1890s, and by the 1910s she was an established writer of fiction.
Marriage in 1895, births in 1902 and 1904, and the family’s move to Vancouver in 1909 did not slow Isabel’s career. Fees from her writing paid for a housekeeper, who freed her for literary activity. Her daughters, who would remember her playfulness and absentmindedness, were the first audience for the many poems and stories she contributed to periodicals for young people. A selection of her poems republished in “The shining ship,” and other verses for children, confirmed Mackay’s name as a lyric poet with a good rhythmic sense. It would be hailed as a “Canadian classic” in 1930, though an American reviewer in 1918 thought it imitated Robert Louis Stevenson with “a halting, shambling gait.” Mackay’s most enduring work has been this poetry of childhood, which was included in school readers until 1967.
The move to Vancouver had “a stimulating effect” on Mackay, as she had predicted it would in the “Canadian Bookman” in April 1909. Her literary circle expanded through the Canadian Women’s Press Club, a major force in the struggles of first-wave feminism.
Between 1894 and 1928 she published six novels, four collections of poems, and five plays, and contributed over three hundred poems, short stories, and sketches to the best British, American, and Canadian magazines, including Harper's, Scribner's, McClure's, Youth's Companion, St. Nicholas, Ainslee's, Red Book, Life, and others.
Mackay was famous for the brilliancy of her style and the depth of her imagination. Although Isabel was a prolific poet, novelist, playwright, and newspaperwoman, she will be remembered best as a tireless champion of creative writing and journalism in Canada. Isabel garnered respect for her involvement with Canadian literary associations. She helped to found the British Columbia chapter of the Canadian Women’s Press Club. Through her popular fiction and her work in the literary associations of Canada, she opened the door for other writers of fiction in her native country.
(Mist of Morning, set in the years preceding World War I, ...)
2016(A woman - pushed to the brink by her family’s destruction...)
2015(''Up the Hill and Over'' treats societal problems in a so...)
2012(Blencarrow tells the story of a group of youth, particula...)
1926(The Window-Gazer was similarly appreciated for its likabl...)
2012Like the poetry of her female contemporaries, most of MacKay's verse shows the late-Victorian romantic style and is of historical interest rather than lasting literary value. Johnson and Marjorie Pickthall, the two most widely read women poets of the day and close personal friends of MacKay, were a significant influence on her poetry. However, MacKay's verse lacks Pickthall's craftsmanship and Johnson's wide public appeal. Isabel Mackay’s writing was constrained by the lingering puritanism and philistinism that shaped her treatment of modernist topics such as urban malaise and sexuality. Writing for the market place, she was responsive to its norms and so was praised for material that was “interesting but not decadent.” She was a feminist, but her feminism was low-key. In each role - poet, journalist, community leader, and novelist - MacKay provided warm support for women and Canadian writers.
Mackay helped to found the British Columbia chapter of the Canadian Women’s Press Club, and was its vice president in 1914 and its president in 1916. She also was an active member of the Vancouver branch of the Canadian Authors’ Association and served as its vice president between 1922 and 1926.
Over the course of her career, Mackay too was known for her humor, as well as for her “philosophic turn of mind” and a “note of yearning” balanced with a “concreteness of sensuous impressions.” To her teachers and classmates, in the Woodstock schools, she was known as 'Bell MacPherson,' and many remember vividly her eager, glowing face, her warm, sensitive heart. She was ready to work, ambitious to achieve, happy to have pleased.
Quotes from others about the person
Diana Relke notes, in an article for Dictionary of Literary Biography: “Isabel Ecclestone MacKay is one of a group of Canadian literary women whose phenomenal output and active public lives are a testimony to the considerable energy that characterized the early twentieth-century female literary community.”
In 1895, Mackay married Peter John MacKay, a court reporter, with whom she raised three daughters: Phyllis, Margaret, and Janet Priscilla.
Peter and Isabel moved to Vancouver in 1909, when Peter Mackay became chief reporter (stenographer) of the British Columbia Supreme Court.
Isabel helped nurse Emily during her final illnesses and facilitated the production of her last books, as an executive of the trust fund that supported Johnson through the publication of her ''Legends of Vancouver.'' Johnson had an “excellent sense of humor,” Mackay wrote, and it helped balance her “differing legacies”: the emotion of Amerindian oral eloquence with the literary sensibility of the European tradition. Mackay’s narrative model in ''Indian nights'' is indebted to Johnson’s “translation” of both the method and the content of Indian legends into English story form.
Isabel also helped nurse Marjorie during her final illnesses and facilitated the production of her last book, as hostess to Pickthall, who composed ''The wood carver’s wife'' at Mackay’s summer camp on Boundary Bay, south of Vancouver. In an appreciation of Pickthall, Mackay made her only explicit pronouncements on poetics: in seeing poetry as a mystical escape from everyday constraints, her views were typical of late-Victorian romanticism. It was laughter, however, that cemented friendship.
