Frederick Philip Grove (ca. 1871-1948), Canadian novelist and essayist of European birth and mysterious background, is best known for his realistic novels of pioneer life in western Canada.

Serious doubt has been cast by D.O. Spettigue (1969) on the facts of Frederick Philip Grove's autobiography. One thing is reasonably certain--our knowledge of his life in Canada is accurate. Having taken this caveat into account, we can say that Grove was born in northern Europe, probably in Germany, emigrated to North America in his youth, and spent the years of his early adulthood in the United States, where he may have taught school in Kentucky and traveled as a harvest hand in the Middle West. This itinerant experience, which may have taken up as much as 2 years of his life, appears to have had a profound effect on his writing.

In 1912 Grove appeared in Haskett, Manitoba, where he became...