Image of Virna Sheard

Timeline

Lifetime: 1862 - 1943 Passed: ≈ 81 years ago

Title

Poet, Novelist

Country/Nationality

Canada
Wikipedia

Virna Sheard

Virginia Sheard was a Canadian poet and novelist. She also wrote under the name Stanton Sheard.

Sheard was born in Cobourg, Ontario, the daughter of Elizabeth Butler and Eldridge Stanton, a photographer. Eldridge was a descendant of United Empire Loyalists. The family moved soon after to Toronto where she was raised. Her brother Eldridge Stanton Jr. and his wife both died at Niagara Falls, in the Ice Bridge Disaster of 1912.

Sheard began publishing her poems and stories in magazines around 1898. She wrote her first books, Trevelyan's Little Daughters (1898) and A Maid of Many Moods (1902) to entertain her sons. Her adult fiction was written mainly in the romance genre and included, By the Queen's Grace (1904; a romance set in Elizabethan London), The Man at Lone Lake (1912), The Golden Apple Tree (1920), Below the Salt (1936), and Leaves in the Wind (1938). Below the Salt is a melodramatic story of Marcus O'Sullivan, a wealthy Ontario farmer.

She wrote five volumes of poetry, mainly with religious themes. Some of these included The Miracle and Other Poems (1913), Carry On! (1917), The Ballad of the Quest (1922), Candle Flame (1926), and Fairy Doors (1932). She collected what she thought were her best in Leaves in the Wind, (1938).

Her poem "The Young Knights", which opens with the lines "Now they remain to us forever young / Who with such splendour gave their youth away", is often cited among Canadian women's literary responses to World War I. Of her novel By the Queen's Grace, one reviewer wrote: "It is highly romantic (which is important) and highly improbable (which is of no consequence), and readers of 17 or 70 will find it equally to their taste."

Books by Virna Sheard

Hallowe'en Cover image

Hallowe'en

Poetry
Tribute Poems Fortnightly Prose

A tribute to Hallowe'en by Canadian poetess Virna Sheard.

April Cover image

April

Poetry
Imagery Nature Poems Hope Verses Fortnightly

"When April comes, the world is anew, and so is the poet's heart." April is a poem about the beauty of the natural world and the power of new beginnings. The poet describes the arrival of springtime with its flowers, birdsong, and warm breezes. She...

Miracle, and Other Poems Cover image

Miracle, and Other Poems

This is the only volume of poetry by Canadian author Virna Sheard. In this volume, Ms Sheard shares all kinds of different emotions, and some stories. As the Boston Globe put it, "A study of The Miracle and Other Poems shows at once that the author i...

Carry On! Cover image

Carry On!

This is a little volume of poetry by Canadian poet Virna Sheard. Published in 1917, its subject is the then ongoing first World War. - Summary by Carolin

When Christmas Comes Cover image

When Christmas Comes

Virna Stanton was born in Cobourg, Ontario, the daughter of Elizabeth Butler Stanton and Eldridge Stanton, a photographer. Her brother Eldridge Stanton Jr. and his wife both died at Niagara Falls, in the Ice Bridge Disaster of 1912. She published bo...

Sea Cover image

Sea

LibriVox volunteers bring you 23 recordings of The Sea by Virna Sheard. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for April 5, 2020. ----- One hundred and two years ago, the Titanic sank in the North Atlantic claiming more than 1500 lives. This poem...