The Story of the Gravelys (Illustrated Edition)

Margaret Marshall Saunders (1861-1947) was a prolific Canadian writer of children's stories and romance novels, a lecturer, and an animal rights advocate. The daughter of a Baptist minister, she spent her childhood in Berwick, Nova Scotia, before studying in Scotland and France. She returned to Halifax where she took courses at Dalhousie for a year prior to launching her career as a freelance writer, adopting a shortened version of her name in response to the male-dominated nature of the publishing industry. Saunders is most famous for her novel Beautiful Joe (1893) which tells the true story of a dog who had his ears and tail chopped off as a puppy by an abusive owner and was taken in by a family whose life he later saves. Told from the dog's point of view as a first-person narrative, it is often compared with Black Beauty which was published a few years earlier, and became a bestseller, receiving worldwide attention for both the book itself, which was translated into many languages, and the subject of animal cruelty. The Story of the Gravelys, subtitled A Tale for Girls, tells the story of three siblings, two sisters (the older of whom is now married) and their younger brother, who were orphaned at a young age and brought up by their grandmother. A shorter version of the story appeared in The Youth's Companion prior to book publication in 1903. Includes six full-page illustrations in black and white.