Best known for his descriptions of outport life in turn-of-the-century Newfoundland, Norman Duncan was a journalist, short-story writer, novelist, and travel writer. Born 2 July 1871 in Brantford, Duncan grew up in Ontario. He spent four years at the University of Toronto but left in 1895 without receiving a degree. Although he lived and worked in the United States from 1895 until his death in 1916, he remained a Canadian citizen.

Duncan spent two years as a reporter on the Auburn, New York, Bulletin and went from there to work for four years on the New York Evening Post, where editors recognized his abilities as a writer of descriptive pieces capturing the flavor of neighborhood life in the city. During this period Duncan wrote several stories about the Syrian quarter of New York City, which were published in the Atlantic and McClure's and were collected as The Soul of the Street: Correlated Stories...