Arthur Stringer

Arthur Stringer was a Canadian novelist, poet, and screenwriter whose fiction moved between crime stories and prairie life. Never-fail Blake, historically printed as Never-Fail Blake and also published as The Shadow, follows a determined detective through an international pursuit. Its 1913 publication places it among Stringer's thrillers, where professional obsession drives the action as much as the chase. The Prairie Wife, published in 1915 with illustrations by Harvey Dunn, turns to a different setting. Presented through a woman's account of marriage and settlement on the Canadian plains, it combines domestic strain, isolation, resilience, and the demands of frontier work. The novel became the opening part of Stringer's Prairie sequence and helped establish the rural subject with which he remains closely associated. Taken together, Never-fail Blake and The Prairie Wife show his range: one compresses suspense around a relentless investigator, while the other builds character through landscape and endurance. Their contrast shows Stringer moving from metropolitan pursuit to hardship while retaining his focus on endurance.