James De Mille was a professor at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia and an early Canadian author who wrote a number of works of popular fiction from the late 1860s through the 1870s. He was born on August 23, 1833, and he passed away on January 28, 1880. De Mille, the son of businessman and shipowner Nathan De Mille, was born in Saint John, New Brunswick. He studied for a year at Acadia University after attending Horton Academy in Wolfville. After that, he went to Europe with his brother Elisha Budd, spending a half-year in England, France, and Italy, where he was inspired to write several of his masterpieces. He attended Brown University shortly after arriving back in North America, where he graduated with a Master of Arts in 1854. A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder, which was serialized posthumously in the journal Harper's Weekly and published in book form by Harper & Brothers of New York City in 1888, is the most well-liked work among his contemporaries and the work for which he is currently best known. He worked there until 1865 when he agreed to a new position as a professor of English and rhetoric at Dalhousie.