Jessie Kerr Lawson
{{short description|Scottish-Canadian poet and writer}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = Jessie Kerr Lawson
| image = Jessie Kerr Lawson at Forty.jpg
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| caption = Jessie Kerr Lawson, c. 1878
| birth_name = Janet Kerr Coupar
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1838|05|19}}
| birth_place = Fife
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1917|07|30|1838|05|19}}
| death_place = Toronto, Canada
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| occupation = Writer
| language = English
| nationality = Scottish
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| children = 10, including Andrew Lawson
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Jessie Kerr Lawson (born Janet Kerr Coupar; May 19, 1838 – July 30, 1917{{cite web |title=Jessie Kerr Lawson |url=https://cwrc.ca/islandora/object/ceww%3A22e9a9e2-e904-48ad-92e4-c563d9add723 |website=Canada's Early Women Writers |publisher=Canadian Writing Research Collaboratory |accessdate=March 13, 2020}} was a Scottish-Canadian writer and poet.{{Cite web | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-CU6AQAAMAAJ&q=Jessie+Kerr+Lawson.&pg=PA19 | title=Montana, Its Story and Biography: A History of Aboriginal and Territorial Montana and Three Decades of Statehood, Under the Editorial Supervision of Tom Stout| last1=Stout| first1=Tom| year=1921}}{{Cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HexZAAAAMAAJ&q=jessie+kerr+lawson+1838 | title=Aspiring Women: Short Stories by Canadian Women, 1880-1900| isbn=9780776603674| last1=McMullen| first1=Lorraine| last2=Campbell| first2=Sandra| date=January 1993| publisher=University of Ottawa Press}}
Early life
Lawson was born in St Monans, Fife in 1838.{{cite book |last1=Wallace |first1=William Stewart |title=The Encyclopedia of Canada |year=1935 |publisher=University Associates of Canada, Ltd. |page=47|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8zQzAQAAIAAJ |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Vaughan |first1=Francis Edward |title=Andrew C. Lawson: Scientist, Teacher, Philosopher |date=1970 |publisher=A. H. Clark |isbn=978-0-87062-097-3 |page=25 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MtgJAAAAMAAJ |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Edwards |first1=David Herschell |title=One Hundred Modern Scottish Poets: With Biographical and Critical Notices |date=1890 |publisher=Edwards |isbn=9781371855147 |pages=239–244 |url=https://archive.org/details/onehundredmoder09edwagoog/page/n237/mode/2up |accessdate=15 March 2020 |language=English}} She worked as a schoolteacher, and married William Lawson before moving to Canada in 1866.{{cite book |last1=Rhodenizer |first1=Vernon Blair |title=Canadian literature in English |date=1975 |publisher=Ann Arbor, MI : Xerox University Microfilms |pages=715,863 |url=https://archive.org/details/canadianliteratu0002rhod/page/715/mode/2up |accessdate=15 March 2020}}
Writing
She started writing verse when she was thirteen. The 1890 book One Hundred Modern Scottish Poets: With Biographical and Critical Notices referred to her work as "revealing much fertility of thought and vigour of expression. ... touched with the realism of the true artist." She used several pen-names. She engaged in journalism in Toronto and Dundee, Scotland, and lived her last years in Toronto.
Her work include the poems A Fisher Idyll, Are Oor Folk In, A Queer Auld Toon and The Birth Of Burns. Other work include Dr Bruno's Wife (1893), The Harvest of Moloch (1908) and Lays and Lyrics (1913).
References
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Category:Writers from Edinburgh
Category:19th-century Scottish poets
Category:19th-century Scottish women writers
Category:19th-century Canadian poets
Category:19th-century Canadian women writers
Category:20th-century Scottish poets
Category:20th-century Scottish women writers
Category:20th-century Canadian poets