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Robert W. Service
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Robert William Service
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Died: September 11, 1958, in Monte Carlo
Robert W. Service was a Canadian author who earned a reputation as "the poet of the Yukon Gold Rush" for poems such as The Shooting of Dan McGrew.
He was the oldest son in a family of ten born to Robert Service Sr., a banker, and Emily Parker Service, daughter of a cotton mill owner.
He spent his childhood in Scotland and joined the Commercial Bank of Scotland before emigrating to Canada in 1897. His vision of Canada included cowboys on a wild frontier, and therefore, he dressed like Buffalo Bill while traveling to his destination.
Although he worked on a ranch on Vancouver Island, he returned to banking in 1903. He was transferred to the Yukon in 1904, but never participated in the gold rush. His writing career was inspired by his conversations as a banker with his customers. The information gathered from these gold diggers form the basis of his first three works: Songs of the Sourdough, The Spell of the Yukon, and Ballads of a Cheechako.
Service considered himself a songwriter rather than a poet. He referred to works such as The Shooting of Dan McGrew and The Cremation of Sam McGee as ballads. His style of verse incorporated rhymes, stressed rhythms, and ironic humor. These works became popular, rather than literary, successes.
In 1910, his first novel, The Trail of '98 was published. He had to turn down the position of bank manager in the Yukon in order to write the book. He delivered the manuscript to the publisher personally and never returned to the North. He traveled to Europe where it is reputed he lived a colorful life.
On his return, he married Germaine Bourgoin, the daughter of a distillery owner, in June 1913. Three years later, he published Rhymes of a Red Cross Man based on his experiences as a World War I correspondent. After the war, he settled in France.
Service became interested in filmmaking and a number of his works were adapted for the screen, with unsuccessful results. He left Europe to avoid World War II. Near the end of his life, many of his poems were published in anthologies, such as The Complete Poems.
Collected Poems Of Robert Service
English-born Canadian poet and novelist
best known for his poems depicting frontier life in the Klondike.
