Beautiful Joe

Margaret Marshall Saunders CBE was a prolific Canadian writer of children's stories and romantic novels, a lecturer, and an animal rights champion. She was an active member of Halifax's Local Council of Women. Saunders was born on April 13, 1861, in Milton, Nova Scotia, the fourth child of Reverend Edmund M. and Maria (née Freeman) Saunders. She spent the majority of her upbringing in Berwick, Nova Scotia, where her father was a Baptist minister. She studied in Edinburgh, Scotland, and Orleans, France at the age of 15, before returning to Halifax and taking classes at Dalhousie for a year before starting her freelance writing career. In response to the male-dominated environment of the publishing industry, she changed her name to Marshall Saunders. Saunders is best known for her novel Beautiful Joe. It relates the true story of a dog from Meaford, Ontario, who as a puppy had his ears and tail cut off by an abusive owner before being saved by a Meaford family whose lives he eventually saves.