Colin McDougall's reputation on the Canadian literary scene is exclusively a 1950s phenomenon: three of his most important short stories appeared early in that decade, and his only novel to date appeared in 1958. His talent, though regrettably not pursued in subsequent decades, was, however, prominently recognized; his short story "The Firing Squad" won first prize in Maclean's fiction contest and the University of Western Ontario President's Medal for the best Canadian short story of 1953, and Execution won the country's highest literary award, the Governor General's Award for fiction, as well as the Quebec Literary Prize.

Unlike many writers McDougall did not make literature a major preoccupation, and it is possible to see his writing career merely as one of many activities he pursued throughout a balanced, orderly, and fruitful life. The son of the Honorable Mr. Justice Errol McDougall and his wife, the former Mary Wynifred Rankin, McDougall...