(Collins, 1952 dj, costing $3 originally; illustration uncredited; David Knight: photo)
(Ryerson, 1963 dj;G-G Award–Fiction)
(Ryerson, 1968 dj; 1st published in reduced 150 p. pb version in 1950; cover design: MC Healy? uncredited author photo)
(Ryerson, 168 dj; uncredited cover and photo; warmly inscribed by Garner)
British-born Hugh Garner (1913-1979) fought in the Spanish Civil War and rode the rails during the Depression. A hard-living guy, he worked as a harvest hand, cemetery flower-pot-holder-maker, housing inspector, grocery store manager, daily newspaper columnist, PR director, and a tv panelist.
Toronto was long his home base and from there he became our top short story writer of the ’60s writing sympathetically about the ‘little guy’ in the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s in his widely anthologized, honest work.
I liked and used Garner’s stories in my early textbooks, but some of them, like “”The Yellow Sweater”, “The Moose and the Sparrow”, and “One-Two-Three Little Indians” would be considered politically correct today.