Mazo Louise de la Roche (1879-1961) was a Canadian author whose masterful and dramatic description of a family of Canadian country squires gained her international recognition.

Mazo de la Roche was born on Jan. 15, 1879, in the town of Newmarket near Toronto into a middle-class family. She was educated in suburban schools in and near Toronto and had firsthand experience with farm life when her family rented a homestead outside the town of Bronte, Ontario. Here the author, who had been writing stories for a number of years with little success, underwent formative experiences which helped to crystallize important ideas of a country squirearchy which would be central to her best-known work.

Her Work

Beginning her career as a writer of short stories, Mazo de la Roche published her first novel, Possession, in 1923 and had several plays produced in the 1920s. International popularity came with the publication of Jalna...