Sir Horatio Gilbert George Parker, 1st Baronet PC, known as Gilbert Parker, began his career as a teacher at the Ontario Institute for the Deaf and Dumb and went on to lecture at Trinity College. In 1886, he went to Australia and became associate editor of the Sydney Morning Herald. He traveled extensively in the Pacific, Europe, Asia, Egypt, and northern Canada. In the early 1890s, he developed a growing reputation as a fiction writer. Of his many works a few were Top 10 Sellers of the Year according to Publishers Weekly archives: The Seats of the Mighty (1896, outselling Crane’s Red Badge of Courage that year), The Battle of the Strong (1898), and The Right of Way (1901-02, outselling Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles). His best novels involve the history and life of the French Canadians.