Arrows of Cottonwood - novel by E.F. Hagell - manuscript - Collections

Scope and Content: The novel was intended for young adult audience and tells the story of two young men growing up in the ranching country of southern Alberta: "the wild freedom and carefree courage of the romantic days." The author suggests that the book is a "Tom Sawyer-Huckleberry-Finn characterization set in a wi…

History Biographical: Edward Fredrick "Teddy" Hagell was born June 20, 1895 in Coaldale, Alberta. His father, Edward Hagell, arrived in Lethbridge from England in about 1890. He started the first newspaper called “Lethbridge News”. He came with his wife, who died with the birth of her first child, Cora. Edward and Ellen (2nd wife) had four children: Violet, Freda, Albert, and Edward Fredrick “Teddy”. Growing up in southern Alberta, Hagell roamed the prairies sometimes working as a cowboy, indulging his love of horses and the prairie. Thoughout his life he pursued passion of visual art and writing. The major artistic themes in his work were the prairie landscape, animals and the pioneer era of western Canada. He studied in New York and Los Angeles, and lived in Vancouver and on a farm near Toronto before returning to southern Alberta in 1952 to live in Pincher Creek. During his lifetime Ted Hagell produced about 1,500 works of art, wrote poetry and short stories, and published one book. He began writing in 1930. His first works was a collection of poems and short stories. Later a chapter book entitled “When the Grass was Free…” published in January 1954. The "Harker of the Fiddleback" has never been published. The manuscript was created when the author lived in Ontario.

Scope and Content: The novel was intended for young adult audience and tells the story of two young men growing up in the ranching country of southern Alberta: "the wild freedom and carefree courage of the romantic days." The author suggests that the book is a "Tom Sawyer-Huckleberry-Finn characterization set in a wilder western range land."