Buckler, Ernest

Ernest Buckler was born in Nova Scotia and received his BA from Dalhousie University in 1929 and his MA in philosophy from the University of Toronto in 1930. From 1930 to 1936, he worked at the Manufacturers Life Insurance Company but then, due to failing health, returned to the valley, where he remained for the rest of his life. His writing career began in 1937 with contributions to the American magazine Esquire. Although he had published a story in the Trinity University Review in 1933 ("No Second Cup"), his first story to receive wide circulation was "One Quiet Afternoon," published in Esquire in April 1940. Other stories, articles, letters and poems followed, in magazines such as MacLean's, Saturday Night, The Canadian Home Journal, and Chatelaine. Novels and plays, including radio scripts, followed. Buckler's fame largely rests with his first novel, The Mountain and the Valley (1952), which is recognized as a Canadian classic.