Edward McCourt's popular reputation rests largely on his travel books and his literary reputation on his five novels, but he also wrote biography, short stories, juvenile fiction and history, literary criticism, and radio plays. His major critical writing deals with Canadian literature, but he was also interested in the British novel (especially Thomas Hardy) and Anglo-Irish literature. At the time of his death he was working on a biography of Sir William Gregory, husband of Lady Augusta Gregory, patron of William Butler Yeats.

Edward Alexander McCourt was born on 10 October 1907 in Mullingar, Westmeath, Ireland, the youngest of three sons. His parents were William Alexander and Elizabeth Gillespie McCourt. The family moved to Canada in 1910 to take up a homestead near Kitscoty, Alberta. McCourt's early education at the local one-room school was followed by high-school courses taken by correspondence. He graduated with a B.A. (honors) in English from...