John Wendell Mitchell
John Wendell Mitchell was a Canadian writer, best known for his work The Yellow Briar: A Story of the Irish on the Canadian Countryside.
Early life
Mitchell was born in 1882, in Mono Township, Ontario, in what is now part of Town of Mono. The area is occasionally figuratively referred to as the Caledon Hills, a reference to nearby Caledon Township, Ontario, now Caledon, Ontario. He lived on his grandfather's farm in Mono until 1894 when he moved with his mother to Toronto. He studied at Victoria College, before enrolling in Osgoode Hall Law School in 1902. He was called to the bar in 1907. He went on to practice law in Toronto for 28 years.Writing career and ''The Yellow Briar'' deception
Mitchell's first published work was The Kingdom of America, an essay about Canada. In 1933 he published his first novel The Yellow Briar under the pen name Patrick Slater, about the experience of a poor Irish immigrant in Ontario. When it was originally published it was presented as an autobiography by the publisher. It was very popular, it was reprinted four times in 1934, eventually selling 10,000 copies at the height of the Great Depression. Even through it was eventually revealed, by The Globe, that Patrick Slater was a hoax and the work was entirely fictional it did not seem to effect the sales of the book.Mitchell would go on to write two other novels The Water-Drinker and Robert Harding, but was never able to match the success he had with The Yellow Briar. The Yellow Briar was republished in 1970 by Macmillan Publishers, and again in 1990 by Dundurn Press, and it is currently in print.
Works
The Kingdom Of America, The Canadian Creed, The Yellow Briar, The Water-Drinker, Robert Harding, The Settlement Of York County,Source: