Margaret Marshall Saunders was born Nova Scotia in 1861, and was inspired to write Beautiful Joe while she was visiting her brother in Meaford, Ontario. She heard about the story of a dog that was rescued from a brutal owner and proceeded to write a fictionalized biography of the dog, entering it into a literary contest sponsored by the American Humane Education Society. When the book was first published, it was the first Canadian book to sell over a million copies, and by the late 1930s had sold over seven million copies worldwide. In 1934, Saunders was made a Commander of the British Empire, and together with fellow Canadian author, Lucy Maud Montgomery, she also co-founded the Maritime branch of the Canadian Women's Press Club. Saunders went on to write more than twenty other stories and died in 1947 in Toronto.
