Coningsby Dawson was born in 1883 at High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, England. Coningsby was to graduate from Merton College, Oxford in 1905. He took a theological course for a year but decided his life was to be that of a writer. He travelled to America and worked for various newspapers usually on all things Canadian. His early works were poems and novels including: Garden Without Walls (1913), which was an immediate success, followed by The Raft and Slaves of Freedom. In 1914, he went to Ottawa, and was offered, if he completed his military training, a commission in the Canadian Field Artillery. In July 1916 he was dispatched for service in France. He served till the War's end but was wounded twice. After the War he studied reconstruction problems in Europe on which he then lectured in the States. At the request of President Hoover he reported on the devastated regions of Central and Eastern Europe. He continued to write, though at a lesser pace than before. Coningsby Dawson died in 1959.