Alice C. Jones (

pen name A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen na ...

, Alix John; August 25, 1853 – February 27, 1933) was a Canadian novelist and travel writer.

Biography

Jones was born and educated in

Halifax, Nova Scotia Halifax is the capital and largest municipality of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, and the largest municipality in Atlantic Canada. As of the 2021 Census, the municipal population was 439,819, with 348,634 people in its urban area. The ...

. She was the daughter of Lieutenant-Governor

Alfred Gilpin Jones Alfred Gilpin Jones, (September 28, 1824 – March 15, 1906) was a Canadian businessman, politician, and eighth Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia. Born in Weymouth, Nova Scotia, the son of Guy Carleton Jones and Frances Jones, he was a mer ...

and Margaret Wiseman Stairs. In the 1880s and 1890s she travelled to Europe and the West Indies. During her travels, she wrote short stories for a number of magazines including ''

The Week ''The Week'' is a weekly news magazine with editions in the United Kingdom and United States. The British publication was founded in 1995 and the American edition in 2001. An Australian edition was published from 2008 to 2012. A children's edi ...

'' and '' Frank Leslie's Monthly''. Her visits to places in the Mediterranean led to the publication of a series of travel essays which appeared in ''The Week''. When she returned to Halifax after her travels, she turned to writing novels. Her first novel, ''The Night Hawk'' was published in 1903 under the pen name, "Alix John". In 1905, she moved to

Menton Menton (; , written ''Menton'' in classical norm or ''Mentan'' in Mistralian norm; it, Mentone ) is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region on the French Riviera, close to the Italian border. Me ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

and remained there until her death in 1933. The women in Jones' stories are prominently strong of character which was unusual at the time. Many of her books featured Canadian themes of wilderness and the relationship between environment and character. In 1903, ''The Canadian Magazine'' called her the 'leading woman novelist in Canada' and the Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature compared her to

Sara Jeannette Duncan Sara Jeannette Duncan (22 December 1861 – 22 July 1922) was a Canadian author and journalist, who also published as Mrs. Everard Cotes and Garth Grafton among other names. First trained as a teacher in a normal school, she took to poetr ...

in her emphasis on strong women characters.

Works

* ''The Night Hawk'' (1901) ritten as Alix John* ''Bubbles We Buy'' (1903) * ''Gabriel Praed's Castle'' (1904) * ''Marcus Holbaech's Daughter'' (1912) * ''Flames of Frost'' (1914) Source:

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, Alice 1853 births 1933 deaths 20th-century Canadian novelists Canadian women novelists Writers from Halifax, Nova Scotia Canadian travel writers Women travel writers Canadian women non-fiction writers 19th-century Canadian non-fiction writers 19th-century Canadian women writers Canadian expatriates in France 20th-century Canadian women writers