Hazel Boswell

"A trained artist who studied in Paris before the First World War, Boswell based her illustration on her childhood experiences and on the folk-art traditions of Quebec. Inspired by the designs for hooked rugs, her highly stylized full-page illustrations are framed by a flat coloured border, while individual objects are reduced to geometrical shapes." From Gail Edwards and Judith Saltman. "Picturing Canada: A History of Candian Children's Illustrated Books and Publishing. University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2010. image 3.5

"Hazel Boswell, born in Quebec City and descended from one of the original seigneurs of New France, became interested in folklore of French Canada when, as a girl, she spent most of her summers on her grandfather's seigneury. Some years after her death, the book Town House, Country House: Reflections of a Quebec Childhood (1990) was editied from her writings.

French Canada: Pictures and Stories of Old Quebec has twenty-three chapters, each dealing factually with an item consdiered typical of early Quebec - dog derby, the cure, Sunday, eel fisheries, spinning. It was popular enough to be reprinted in 1967 to Boswell's pleasure; she comments: "it seemed especially important to call to the attention of a new generation of readers the charm of the old customs and ways of life which they may never have the opportunity of experiencing first hand." Boswell published other books on Quebec history after 1945.

Bibliography:

Boswell, Hazel. 1967 [1938]. French Canda: Pictures and Stories of Old Quebec. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 76 pp."

From Dagg, Anne Innis. The feminine gaze: a Canadian compendium of non-fiction women authors and their books, 1836-1945. Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2001, 44.