George Stewart, Jr., devoted much of his career as editor and man of letters to the promotion of a national culture based on the history and the literature of both English and French Canadians. Born on 26 November 1848 in New York City, he came to Canada in 1851 with his parents (George and Elizabeth Dubuc Stewart) and received his education in London, Canada West (now Ontario), and Saint John, New Brunswick. At sixteen he began the Stamp Collector's Monthly Gazette (1865-1867), the first Canadian periodical devoted to philately, then dropped it to establish Stewart's Literary Quarterly Magazine (1867-1872). As the only literary periodical at the time of Confederation, it quickly achieved national recognition. Stewart's aim was to counter the flood of "trashy" weeklies, "immoral" monthlies, and dime novels from the United States by providing a forum for Canadian writers. Reviewing Charles Mair's Dreamland and Other Poems (1868), he said, "It is...