Robert J. C. Stead's novel Grain (1926) is considered, with Frederick Philip Grove's Settlers of the Marsh and Martha Ostenso's Wild Geese, both published in 1925, to pioneer a Canadian version of realism. During Stead's lifetime, however, Grain was among his least successful works. Newspaper critics dubbed him "The Canadian Laureate" for his patriotic poetry, and thousands of readers bought his more sentimental romances about prairie homesteading: The Homesteaders (1916) went through five printings before 1922, and The Cow Puncher (1918) sold seventy thousand copies. Stead's elegy"Kitchener" (1916) was published throughout the empire (eventually in book form with other poems in 1917), and this publicity ensured that his novels were read and reviewed not only in England but also in Australia, New Zealand, and even Siam, not to mention the United States.

Stead's accounts of prairie life are given authenticity by his own experience. Robert James Campbell Stead was born on 4 September 1880 in Middleville...