James Le Rossignol was a Quebec writer and teacher whose concerns were broadly based. Publishing books on philosophy, economics, and political science, he was also well versed in psychology and literature. His detailed grasp of all these fields informs his primarily rural fiction, making for a stimulating blend of simple settings and complex issues.

Le Rossignol's father, Peter, was a native of the Isle of Jersey, and his mother, Mary Gillespi Le Rossignol, a native of Quebec. Le Rossignol was educated at Huntington Academy, Montreal High School, McGill University (B.A., 1888), and at Leipzig (M.A. and Ph.D., 1892). He married Jessie Catherine Ross of Montreal in 1898, and they had four children. Le Rossignol began teaching high school in Montreal and soon moved to the United States, where he taught psychology at Clark (1892) and Ohio University (1892-1894), and then went to the University of Denver to teach economics...