MARTIN ANDRUCKI · BATES COLLEGE ·
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Robert W Service.

From artdamage.com: “Robert William Service was born on January 16, 1874 to a Scottish bank clerk and the daughter of an English factory owner.

“At the age of 15 he followed his father into the banking business, but in 1896 he emigrated to Canada where he joined his younger brother in an experiment in ranching. The life of a farmer in British Columbia, however, was far from his expectations and after 18 months he set off for California.

      “For the next 6 years Service drifted up and down the Pacific coast. In 1903, finding himself broke in Vancouver, he applied to and was hired by the Canadian Bank of Commerce and won a posting in Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory.

      “Here Service found the western life he had sought, with its balance of a frontier sort of social life and the solitude of the northern woods.

      “During his wanderings Service had spent much time reading and dreaming and one day he was invited to recite at a church concert. A friend of his suggested that Service write something about the Yukon. He was inspired, as he tells it, by his surroundings. ‘It was Saturday night, and from the various bars I heard sounds of revelry. The line popped into my mind: “A bunch of boys were whooping it up” and it stuck there. Good enough for a start.’

      “Desiring a quiet place to work he went to his bank where the startled bank guard fired a shot at him the event which led Service's mind toward the idea of a shooting and, The Shooting of Dan McGrew was born. The flood gates opened, Service wrote so many poems over the next few months that he decided to publish them and found a publisher who would pay a 10% royalty, and Songs of a Sourdough . . . was published to some success.” (It was in this volume, published in 1907, that The Ballad of Sam McGee, also known as The Cremation of Sam McGee, first appeared.)

      “In 1908 he was transformed 400 miles north to Dawson where he composed and published Ballads of a Cheechako and, the following year, resigned from the bank in order to write full time.

     “Setting up shop in a log cabin Service decided to write a novel about the Gold Rush. In preparation he traveled along the Klondike River visiting the famous gold sites and boom towns; interviewing those who had settled in the area during 1898 and read everything he could find on the subject. Having finished the novel he moved to New York City where the book was published as The Trail of 98.

      “Having seen the book to publication service traveled to Louisiana, then Cuba and back to Alberta from whence he returned to the Yukon by paddling a canoe down the Mackensie River.

“Back in his cabin Service took up where he had left off, enjoying a bohemian sort of life and writing a great amount of poetry. In 1912, having finished Rhymes of a Rolling Stone, he accepted the job of war correspondent in the Balkan war.

      “During his travels in Europe Service married a woman from Paris and purchased a villa in Brittany. In the First World War he served in an America volunteer ambulance unit and became a war correspondent for the Canadian government. Following the war he traveled and wrote two volumes of poetry and several novels. With the outbreak of the Second World War he escaped from Poland to Hollywood where he lived in exile until the end of the war and his return to France

      “Though he never returned to the Yukon after he left in 1912 it remained a part of his life until his death in 1958.”
      
During the course of his long life, he was the author of more than a dozen volumes of poetry, and two volumes of autobiography:  Ploughman of the Moon (1945) and Harper of Heaven (1948).
  • Home
    • About me
    • Resources
  • The Public Theater
    • Titles A thru G >
      • A >
        • All in the Timing
        • Almost Maine
        • Animals Out of Paper
        • Around the World in 80 Days
        • Art
      • B >
        • Betrayal
        • Biloxi Blues
        • Blithe Spirit
        • The Book Club Play
        • Broadway Bound
        • To Build a Fire
        • The Business of Murder
      • C >
        • A Christmas Carol
        • The Cocktail Hour
        • Collected Stories
        • Communicating Doors
        • The Complete Works of Shakespeare, Abridged
        • Crossing Delancey
      • D >
        • Dancing at Lughnasa
        • Deathtrap
        • Doubt
        • Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
        • Dracula
        • Driving Miss Daisy
      • E >
        • Educating Rita
      • F >
        • Fallen Angels
        • Fiction
        • The Foreigner
        • Fuddy Meers
      • G >
        • The Glass Menagerie
        • Good People
        • Gun Shy
    • Titles H thru O >
      • H >
        • Hedda Gabler
        • Holiday Memories
        • The Hound of the Baskervilles
        • Humble Boy
      • I >
        • Indoor/Outdoor
        • An Infinite Ache
        • Italian American Reconciliation
      • L >
        • The Language Archive
        • Last Gas
        • The Last Mass
        • The Last Romance
        • Lend me a Tenor
        • Lips Together
        • Lost in Yonkers
        • Love/Sick
      • M >
        • Manny's War
        • Marjorie Prime
        • Marvin's Room
        • Miss Witherspoon
        • A Month of Sundays
        • Moonlight and Magnolias
        • Moonshine
      • N >
        • The Nerd
      • O >
        • The Old Settler
        • On Golden Pond
        • Orphans
        • Outside Mullingar
        • Over the River
    • Titles P thru W >
      • P >
        • Pavillion
        • Prelude to a Kiss
        • Private Lives
        • Proof
        • Psychopathia Sexualis
      • R >
        • Red
        • Red Herring
        • The Revolutionists
        • Rough Crossing
        • Rumors
      • S >
        • Seascape
        • Shirley Valentine
        • Side Man
        • Skylight
        • Sleuth
        • Southern Comforts
        • Steel Magnolias
      • T >
        • Terra Nova
        • 13th of Paris
        • Three Days of Rain
        • Tigers Be Still
        • Time Stands Still
      • U >
        • Under the Skin
      • V >
        • Vanya and Sonya and Masha and Spike
        • Visiting Mr. Green
      • W >
        • Wait Until Dark
        • What Rhymes with America
        • The Wind in the Willows
        • The Woman in Black
        • Wrong for Each Other
  • Portland Theater
    • Season 93 94 I
    • Season 93 94 II
    • Season 94 95 I
    • Season 94 95 II
    • Season 95 96
    • Season 96 97
    • Fool for Love
    • Ghosts
  • Playwrights
    • Albee to Coward >
      • Edward Albee
      • David Auburn
      • Alan Ayckbourne
      • Truman Capote
      • John Cariani
      • Noel Coward
    • Dickens to Harris >
      • Charles Dickens
      • Joe DiPietro
      • Arthur Conan Doyle
      • Tom Dudzick
      • Christopher Durang
      • Brian Friel
      • A.R. Gurney
      • Richard Harris
    • Ibsen to Nolan >
      • Henrik Ibsen
      • David Ives
      • Rajiv Joseph
      • Ira Levin
      • David Lindsay-Abaire
      • Jack London
      • Ken Ludwig
      • Donald Margulies
      • James Nolan
    • Pinter to Shue >
      • Harold Pinter
      • Yasmina Reza
      • Willy Russell
      • Susan Sandler
      • Robert W. Service
      • John Patrick Shanley
      • Larry Shue
    • Simon to Zacarias >
      • Neil Simon
      • Mat Smart
      • Craig White
      • Tennessee Williams
      • Karen Zacarias