Josephine Phelan

Canadian writer and librarian

Josephine Phelan (1905–1979), Canadian writer and librarian, won the Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction in 1951 for The Ardent Exile, a biography of Thomas D'Arcy McGee.

Born in Hamilton, Phelan was educated in Guelph and at the University of Toronto where she earned a Master of History.^[1] After attending the Ontario College of Education,^[2] Phelan taught high school before moving to Montreal to work in publishing. In 1931, she returned to the University of Toronto and earned a degree in library science in 1931 and worked at the Toronto Public Library from 1932 to 1965.^[2]

Works

The Ardent Exile: The Life and Times of Thos. Darcy McGee (1951)
The Boy Who Ran Away: Great Stories of Canada (1954)
The Bold Heart: The Story of Father Lacombe (1956)
The Ballad of D'Arcy McGee: Rebel in Exile (1967)

References

^ "Josephine Phelan" in Catholic Authors
^ ^a ^b Library and Archives Canada. Josephine Phelan Fonds

External links

Archives of Josephine Phelan (Josephine Phelan fonds, R11787) are held at Library and Archives Canada

Winners of the Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction

1930s

Thomas Beattie Roberton, TBR: Newspaper Pieces (1936)
Stephen Leacock, My Discovery of the West (1937)
John Murray Gibbon, Canadian Mosaic (1938)
Laura Salverson, Confessions of an Immigrant's Daughter (1939)

1940s

J. F. C. Wright, Slava Bohu (1940)
Emily Carr, Klee Wyck (1941)
Bruce Hutchison, The Unknown Country (1942)
Edgar McInnis, The Unguarded Frontier (1942)
E. K. Brown, On Canadian Poetry (1943)
John Robins, The Incomplete Anglers (1943)
Dorothy Duncan, Partner in Three Worlds (1944)
Edgar McInnis, The War: Fourth Year (1944)
Ross Munro, Gauntlet to Overlord (1945)
Evelyn M. Richardson, We Keep a Light (1945)
Frederick Phillip Grove, In Search of Myself (1946)
Arthur R. M. Lower, Colony to Nation (1946)
William Sclater, Haida (1947)
Robert MacGregor Dawson, The Government of Canada (1947)
Thomas Head Raddall, Halifax, Warden of the North (1948)
C. P. Stacey, The Canadian Army, 1939-1945 (1948)
Hugh MacLennan, Cross-country (1949)
Robert MacGregor Dawson, Democratic Government in Canada (1949)

1950s

Marjorie Wilkins Campbell, The Saskatchewan (1950)
W. L. Morton, The Progressive Party in Canada (1950)
Frank MacKinnon, The Progressive Party in Canada (1951)
Josephine Phelan, The Ardent Exile (1951)
Donald G. Creighton, John A. Macdonald, The Young Politician (1952)
Bruce Hutchison, The Incredible Canadian (1952)
J. M. S. Careless, Canada, A Story of Challenge (1953)
N. J. Berrill, Sex and the Nature of Things (1953)
Hugh MacLennan, Thirty and Three (1954)
Arthur R. M. Lower, This Most Famous Stream (1954)
N. J. Berrill, Man's Emerging Mind (1955)
Donald G. Creighton, John A. Macdonald, The Old Chieftain (1955)
Pierre Berton, The Mysterious North (1956)
Joseph Lister Rutledge, Century of Conflict (1956)
Thomas H. Raddall, The Path of Destiny (1957)
Bruce Hutchison, Canada: Tomorrow's Giant (1957)
Pierre Berton, Klondike (1958)
Joyce Hemlow, The History of Fanny Burney (1958)
[No award] (1959)

1960s

Frank Underhill, In Search of Canadian Liberalism (1960)
T. A. Goudge, The Ascent of Life (1961)
Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962)
J.M.S. Careless, Brown of the Globe (1963)
Phyllis Grosskurth, John Addington Symonds (1964)
James Eayrs, In Defence of Canada (1965)
George Woodcock, The Crystal Spirit: A Study of George Orwell (1966)
Norah Story, The Oxford Companion to Canadian History and Literature (1967)
Mordecai Richler, Hunting Tigers Under Glass (1968)
[No award] (1969)

1970s

[No award] (1970)
Pierre Berton, The Last Spike (1971)
[No award] (1972)
Michael Bell, Painters in a New Land (1973)
Charles Ritchie, The Siren Years (1974)
Marion MacRae and Anthony Adamson, Hallowed Walls (1975)
Carl Berger, The Writing of Canadian History (1976)
F. R. Scott, Essays on the Constitution (1977)
Roger Caron, Go-Boy! Memories of a Life Behind Bars (1978)
Maria Tippett, Emily Carr (1979)
Robert Bothwell and William Kilbourn, C.D. Howe (1979)
Larry Pratt and John Richards, Prairie Capitalism (1979)

1980s

Jeffrey Simpson, Discipline of Power: The Conservative Interlude and the Liberal Restoration (1980)
George Calef, Caribou and the Barren-Land (1981)
Christopher Moore, Louisbourg Portraits: Life in an Eighteenth- Century Garrison Town (1982)
Jeffery Williams, Byng of Vimy: General and Governor General (1983)
Sandra Gwyn, The Private Capital: Ambition and Love in the Age of Macdonald and Laurier (1984)
Ramsay Cook, The Regenerators: Social Criticism in Late Victorian English Canada (1985)
Northrop Frye, Northrop Frye on Shakespeare (1986)
Michael Ignatieff, The Russian Album (1987)
Anne Collins, In the Sleep Room (1988)
Robert Calder, Willie: The Life of W. Somerset Maugham (1989)

1990s

Stephen Clarkson and Christina McCall, Trudeau and Our Times (1990)
Robert Hunter and Robert Calihoo, Occupied Canada: A Young White Man Discovers His Unsuspected Past (1991)
Maggie Siggins, Revenge of the Land: A Century of Greed, Tragedy and Murder on a Saskatchewan Farm (1992)
Karen Connelly, Touch the Dragon (1993)
John Livingston, Rogue Primate: An Exploration of Human Domestication (1994)
Rosemary Sullivan, Shadow Maker: The Life of Gwendolyn MacEwen (1995)
John Ralston Saul, The Unconscious Civilization (1996)
Rachel Manley, Drumblair: Memories of a Jamaican Childhood (1997)
David Adams Richards, Lines on the Water: A Fisherman's Life on the Miramichi (1998)
Marq de Villiers, Water (1999)

2000s

Nega Mezlekia, Notes from the Hyena's Belly (2000)
Thomas Homer-Dixon, The Ingenuity Gap (2001)
Andrew Nikiforuk, Saboteurs: Wiebo Ludwig's War Against Big Oil (2002)
Margaret MacMillan, Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World (2003)
Roméo Dallaire, Shake Hands With the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda (2004)
John Vaillant, The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness and Greed (2005)
Ross King, The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade That Gave the World Impressionism (2006)
Karolyn Smardz Frost, I've Got a Home in Glory Land: A Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad (2007)
Christie Blatchford, Fifteen Days: Stories of Bravery, Friendship, Life and Death from Inside the New Canadian Army (2008)
M. G. Vassanji, A Place Within: Rediscovering India (2009)

2010s

Allan Casey, Lakeland: Journeys into the Soul of Canada (2010)
Charles Foran, Mordecai: The Life and Times (2011)
Ross King, Leonardo and the Last Supper (2012)
Sandra Djwa, Journey with No Maps: A Life of P.K. Page (2013)
Michael John Harris, The End of Absence: Reclaiming What We’ve Lost in a World of Constant Connection (2014)
Mark L. Winston, Bee Time: Lessons from the Hive (2015)
Bill Waiser, A World We Have Lost: Saskatchewan Before 1905 (2016)
Graeme Wood, The Way of the Strangers: Encounters with the Islamic State (2017)
Darrel J. McLeod, Mamaskatch: A Cree Coming of Age' (2018)
Don Gillmor, To the River: Losing My Brother (2019)