Grace Campbell (1895 – 1963) was born Grace MacLennan Grant in Williamstown, Ontario. Williamstown is in a rural part of eastern Ontario, near the St. Lawrence River. She grew up on a farm in the area. Both her parents were of Scottish ancestry and the surrounding community was rich with Highland heritage. It was this environment that inspired her first novel, Thorn-apple Tree. Before her writing career, she attended Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario and excelled at English literature. It was at university that she met her future husband, Reverend Harvey Campbell.

Grace and Harvey had three sons, Alexander and Robert who were twins and a younger son named Donald. During World War II, both twins who served as pilots in the RCAF died in action in 1944.

The grieving of the loss of her sons did not affect her future writing as she continued to publish books about every three years. In addition to Thorn-apple Tree, we also have Fresh Wind Blowing available on Faded Page. Other novels such as The Higher Hill and Torbeg are in the process of becoming eBooks at our companion site, Distributed Proofreaders Canada.

Help us add more of Campbell’s works and other public domain books by volunteering to proof a few pages.