Wilson MacDonald in his _Songs of the Prairie Land_ (1918) and _The Miracle Songs of Jesus_ (1921) discloses an absorption in mystical psychology and psychoanalysis which, by its daring and his method of suffusing the matter with ingenious and subtilized novelty or beauty of diction and imagery, adumbrates Goethe of the _Faust_ tradition. It is at once realistic and ultra-spiritualistic. His technique is just as original and individualized as the matter of his poems. If any Canadian has the right to the distinction of possessing _sheer_ creative genius, that right belongs to Wilson MacDonald as a Seer and as an Artist working in a field of spiritual vision which he has pre-empted. * * * * * Sources of quotations in this chapter: Marjorie Pickthall—_The Wood Carver’s Wife and Other Poems_ (McClelland & Stewart: Toronto). Robert Norwood—_His Lady of the Sonnets_ (McClelland & Stewart: Toronto). Katherine Hale—_The White Comrade_ (McClelland & Stewart: Toronto); _Morning in the West_ (Ryerson Press: Toronto). Lloyd Roberts—_England Overseas_ (Elkin Mathews: London). CHAPTER XXI Fiction Writers THE COMMUNITY NOVEL—MONTGOMERY—KEITH—MCCLUNG—LE ROSSIGNOL. INSTITUTIONAL FICTION—PACKARD—SULLIVAN—DUNCAN—WALLACE AND OTHERS. REALISTIC ROMANCE—SERVICE—CODY—STEAD, ETC. HISTORICAL FICTION—SNIDER—ANISON NORTH—TESKEY—MCKISHNIE—COONEY. IMAGINATIVE FICTION—PICKTHALL—MACKAY. MISCELLANEOUS TYPES— MCKISHNIE—SULLIVAN—HÉMON—SIME. THE NEW REALISM—SALVERSON—DE LA ROCHE—CORNELL, ETC. 1. _The Community Novel._ Until the ‘nineties’ the production of Canadian fiction had been spasmodic and scattered, but the success of Gilbert Parker, Marshall Saunders, and other Canadian writers who gained a hearing first in lands alien to their own, and whose work came back to Canada ‘with an alienated majesty,’ proved that Canada was rich in literary material. The first decade of the twentieth century saw a marked increase in fiction writing in Canada. The new writers were influenced not only by the example of their compatriots but by that of the fiction writers of Great Britain and the United States. They began to realize that life around them was as interesting as Barrie’s Thrums or Bret Harte’s California. There was, too, a growing reading public ready to appreciate stories that presented the adventure, the humor, and the pathos of the daily life of themselves, their neighbors, or their fellow-Canadians in other parts of the country and sometimes of other racial origins.