A poet of distinction in his own right, Alfred Goldsworthy Bailey has had a formative influence on a generation of younger poets, notably Elizabeth Brewster, Fred Cogswell, and Robert Gibbs. Of equal distinction has been his work as historian, anthropologist, and university teacher and administrator.

Bailey, the son of Loring Woart and Ernestine Valiant Gale Bailey, was born in Quebec City but with family roots deep in the New Brunswick Loyalist tradition and in New England (he is a collateral descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson). After receiving his B.A. (1927) from the University of New Brunswick, Bailey earned both an M.A. (1929) and a Ph.D. (1934) from the University of Toronto (with a year at the London School of Economics where he studied with Morris Ginsberg). On 8 September 1934 he married Jean Craig Hamilton. From 1935 to 1937 he served as assistant director and associate curator of the New Brunswick Museum...