Pelham Edgar

Oscar Pelham Edgar was a Canadian teacher. He was a full professor and head of the Department of English at the Victoria College, Toronto from 1910 to 1938. He wrote many articles and several monographs on English literature. He had a talent for identifying and encouraging promising new authors. He was an active member of various literary societies, and was the force behind the establishment of the Canadian Writers’ Foundation to help needy authors.

Oscar Pelham Edgar was born on 17 March 1871, second son of James David Edgar and Matilda Ridout Edgar. Both his parents were greatly interested in literature. His father, a lawyer and Liberal politician, was a minor poet. His mother was a historian and feminist. Her biography of Sir Isaac Brock was published in 1904 as a volume in the Makers of Canada series. Pellham Edgar was educated at Upper Canada College. He attended the University of Toronto, where he was a student of W.J. Alexander. He graduated from University College in 1892 with the Governor-General's Medal in Modern Languages.

Pelham Edgar taught at Upper Canada College from 1892 to 1895. In 1893 he married Helen Madeline Boulton. Edgar left Upper Canada College to study at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, where he earned a PhD in 1897. His thesis was about Shelley, a poet who had inspired him as a boy.

The poet Duncan Campbell Scott (1862–1947) was a close friend of Pelham Edgar, and they maintained a correspondence for more than fifty years, starting in the 1890s. Edgar often criticized Scott's major poems before they were published. Scott worked in the Department of Indian Affairs. Scott and Edgar traveled together in Northern Ontario in 1906 on an expedition to make treaties with the Native Americans. Edgar was said to have been acting as secretary, but in fact the trip seems to have been more a holiday.

In the 1900s Edgar and Scott were invited to edit the Makers of Canada series of historical biographies published by George Morang. Neither were particularly well qualified. Edgar had edited a selection of writings by Francis Parkman (1823–1893), but was more interested by the picturesque than the historical elements. He was criticized for his casual editing. In the end most of the serious editing was done by William Dawson LeSueur. The friendship lasted, and Edgar published eight articles on Scott's work between 1895 and 1948.

In 1897 Edgar became a lecturer in the Department of French at Victoria College, Toronto. He was head of the department from 1901 to 1910. In 1902 he started to also give lectures in the Department of English. He taught in the Department of English after 1909, and headed the department from 1912 until he retired in 1938.

Pelham Edgar died in Canton, Ontario, on 7 October 1948 at the age of 77.