page_title: Mazo de la Roche
section_title: Early writing career
hierarchical_section_title: Mazo de la Roche / Biography / Early writing career
caption_attribution_description: English: Benares Historic House and Bianca de la Roche. Mazo De La Roche &amp; Caroline Clement, ca. 1930s
context_page_description: Mazo de la Roche, born Maisie Louise Roche in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada, was the author of the Jalna novels, one of the most popular series of books of her time.
context_section_description: De la Roche, then 23, had her first story published in 1902 in Munsey's Magazine, but very shortly thereafter (in February 1903) she suffered a mental breakdown.  For the next several years, she suffered from depression and insomnia, and did not write.
  In 1905, Roche and Caroline moved with Mazo's parents to Acton, Ontario to operate the Acton House hotel. She was known locally as "Maisie Roach", and lived there until 1908, selling one of her stories while she was there. Her novel Delight was based on her time there, and Acton's geography figures notably in Possession. A few years later in 1911, by now in her early thirties, de la Roche moved with Caroline and the Roches to Sovereign House in Bronte, Ontario, to try life as farm owners.  By now, de la Roche had resumed writing and was placing stories in American magazines on an occasional basis.
  William Roche, Mazo's father, died in 1915 of cirrhosis of the liver brought on by alcoholism.  de la Roche, her mother Alberta and Caroline moved back to Toronto.
  De la Roche continued to write, but at this juncture Caroline Clement was the main breadwinner of the household, working as a civil service clerk. (She would eventually rise to become the province of Ontario's chief statistician.)  During the summers, Clement lived in a Toronto boarding house while de la Roche and her mother would stay in a cottage near Lake Simcoe, several hours north of the city.
  Alberta Roche died in 1920.  After this, de la Roche's writing career began in earnest, and Clement and de la Roche were never again separated for any significant length of time.  During most of the 1920s, they split their time between Toronto and a cottage they had built in Clarkson, Ontario.
  Her first published book, Explorers of the Dawn, appeared in 1922, and was a fix-up of some previously published sketches, vignettes and stories rewritten to work within an overarching narrative framework.  Her first two proper novels, Possession (1923) and Delight (1926), were romantic novels which were mild successes, but nevertheless earned her little in income or recognition.  de la Roche also wrote plays and short stories through this period.
  Her third novel, Jalna, was submitted to the American magazine Atlantic Monthly, winning a $10,000 award. Its victory and subsequent publication in 1927 brought de la Roche fame and fortune at the age of 48.
caption: Benares Historic House and Bianca de la Roche. Mazo De La Roche & Caroline Clement, ca. 1930s
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