CanLitBooks

(her first major book; Macmillan, 1955 dj)

(awesomely rare signed book inscribed to C.B. Farrar, a prominent psychiatrist who had trained under William Osler; she herself was the granddaughter of Sir Edmund Osler; jacket: Allan Fleming)

(from C. B. Farrar’s own library, inscription by author)

(beautifully illustrated children’s fable published by Oxford U Press, 1960; Leo Rampen was the talented designer-illustrator)

(two of her collected poems: left–Macmillan, 1968 dj, includes memoir by AW, jacket drawing by Blair Drawson; right– Exile, 1990, no credit for cover photo)

Anne Cochran Wilkinson (1910-1961) was born in and lived mostly in the Toronto area.  Her childhood is captured in her prose memoir entitled “Four Corners of My World”, found in her Collected Poems. Her first book of  poems was Counterpoint to Sleep (1951) which established her graceful, witty, sensuous style. She can be heard reading on Six Toronto Poets (Folkways LP/CD). I selected her droll poem “Carol” for Inside Poetry, 1st ed. (Harcourt).

(my Where Nests the Water Hen shirt; bought at the Roy House)

(1947 G-G winner; pictorial dj of novel’s characters; 1947 Reynal & Hitchcock; translator: Hannah Josephson; jacket design–Robert Hallock ; facsimile of GR`s signature on bookmark from Gabrielle Roy House; the back jacket bio blurb–photo Annette & Basil Zarov; the French title was Bonheur d’ Occasion)

(1951, Harcourt, Brace dj–design: Cirlin?; translator: Harry L. Binsse; postcard and book mark from the Gabrielle Roy House in St. Boniface–photo–Henry Kalen; I highly recommend a visit to and tour of her childhood home–this is the most famous and popular French-Canadian writer`s site in Canada; the more poetic French title was La Petite Poule d’ eau)

(2 eds. of her 3rd novel; left; 1955 McClelland & Stewart–dj; translator–Harry Binsse; cover by P.G.; Heinemann, 1956 dj by Jennifer Rope; the French title was Alexandre Chenevert, Caissier)

(left: 1947, Harcourt, Brace dj; translator: Harry Binsse;  jacket design–Ellen Raskin; right: French version, Rue Deschambault, 1967, Beauchemin pb, cover illustration J. Soucy)

(the house which inspired the stories in the above book is located at 375 rue Deschambault, Saint-Boniface, Manitoba. The house is now Maison natale de Gabrielle Roy/Gabrielle Roy’s birthplace which was originally built in 1905 and restored in 2002-2003. The house is a must-see for any Roy fan or French-Canadian literature fan, well-worth a nice, quaint afternoon visit when you are in Winnipeg.)

(Harcourt, Brace, 1962 dj; translator: Harry Binsse; jacket design by James & Ruth McCrea; original French title La Montagne secrete)

(GR-inscribed 1979 children’s book, Stanke, 1979; images by Francois Olivier; inscription translated to English–“I wish that they would accept her, this other cat, among their numerous cat friends. With my affectionate remembrance”)

(highly recommended award-winning 2001 video: Gabrielle Roy L’auteure la plus celebre du Quebec, 2007 Direct Source; in English and French)

(the author some years ago beside a sculpture of Roy on the Citizens Hall of Fame avenue on the east side of Assiniboine Park, Winnipeg; other sculptures featured include those of Nellie McClung, Carol Shields, and Leo Mol)

(Marie-Rose-Emma-) Gabrielle Roy (1909-1983) was born in St. Boniface, MB, the youngest of 8 children. She was interested early in drama and belonged to Cercle Le Moliere. She was a rural schoolteacher which contributed to her writing Where Nests the Water Hen. Initially, she worked as a journalist in Quebec, though she also did spend time also in France.

Her first novel, The Tin Flute, was widely acclaimed and she shyly returned to Winnipeg to escape the limelight. She especially liked to write about ordinary people and to write autobiographical reminiscences. She won 3 G-G awards for: The Tin Flute (1947), Street of Riches (1957), and Children of My Heart (1978). Indeed, Roy often wrote about/from the heart and people’s feelings and passions. A quote from The Hidden Mountain was used on the Canadian $20 bill beginning in 2004: “Could we ever know each other in the slightest without the arts?”

Two must-reads for biographical info on Roy are Gabrielle Roy: A Life by Francois Ricard and Enchantment and Sorrow: The Autobiography of Gabrielle Roy.

(1948 G-G winner; Ryerson 1948; this is the 1951 dj reprint with somewhat abstract line drawings by Thoreau MacDonald)

(the wonderful dj and hardcover with spine showing of the 1951 Borzoi/Knopf book designed by Lucian Bernhard)

(inside dj bio blurb on Klein from above book along with his signature, rare for this title)

A.M.Klein–Abraham Moses Klein (1909-1972) was born and lived mostly in Montreal; he grew up in an Orthodox Jewish-Canadian family, whose values inform his work. Later he graduated from and lectured at McGill, and became a practicising lawyer. Klein was, first and foremost a poet; his prose work The Second Scroll, for instance, is poetic/contains poems. Other works included The Hitleriad and Hath Not a Jew. Klein can be heard reading on Six Montreal Poets (Folkways LP/CD),

(in the ’50s and ’60s, Canadian magazines like Chatelaine and Maclean’s offered a market for our short story writers–in this issue, as well Gabrielle Roy and Mazo de la Roche; “The Quarrel”–one of Buckler’s best stories was published in the July 1959 issue of Chatelaine & signed by Buckler)

(1952, Henry Holt dj with bio blurb on back; jacket design by R.M. Powers)

(1954 pb, Signet/New American Library; cover–Zuckerberg)

(McClelland & Stewart, 1963 dj and bio blurb on back; design: the great Frank Newfeld)

(McClelland & Stewart, 1968 dj; dj design: Guy Fleming; right: evocative line drawings by Walter Richards)

(1975 McClelland & Stewart dj; Robert D. Chambers, ed.)

(1977 McClelland & Stewart dj; scarce flatsigned by EB; jacket design by David Shaw & Associates)

(2 awesomely rare signed letters from above copy of The Mountain and the Valley; Ross Graves’ book–Graves–referenced in letter 1–was from Upper Stewiacke, N.S., and was an educator and historian who taught at S. Colchester High School, Brookfield, N.S.

(Bruce Bates unknown, but must have been connected to Graves since this letter was also found in Graves’ book)

Ernest Buckler (1908-1984) was born in Dalhousie West, NS. He earned an MA in Philosophy at U of T in 1930. After that, he worked for an insurance company, but, because of illness,  retired to the family farm in 1936 where he wrote from for the rest of his life. Buckler was a strong short-story writer, and also wrote radio plays, magazine articles, book reviews, and newspaper columns. He was a CanLit master of prose and his diction and syntax are wonderfully unique and memorable. I had the distinct pleasure of including the following Buckler stories in my various textbooks: “The Harness”, “Long, Long After School”, “The Clumsy One”, and “Penny in the Dust”.

(1944 G-G winner; Ryerson, 1944)

( 1972 McGraw Hill Ryerson dj; neither drawing or photo are credited)

(signed copy of above book)

(signed, 1973 Penguis dj and bio blurb–Harold Town did the cover illustration)

(these two rare signeds were laid into the above book; 1st is U of AB invitation; 2nd is a U of Victoria memorandum; c.f. Miriam Waddington for a note back to ‘Dee’)

Dorothy Kathleen May Livesay–aka Mrs. D.C. Macnair (1909-1996) was born in Winnipeg and eventually taught in various parts of the world including Zambia.  She received her BA at the U of Toronto and studied at the Sorbonne. The ever-busy Livesay also worked as a social worker in New Jersey and Vancouver, and for the YWCA as well as UNESCO. She was a journalist, writing for newspapers in Winnipeg, Toronto, and Vancouver. Eventually, she became a professor at the U of AB and U of Victoria. Her first poem collection was The Green Pitcher (1928). Her second G-G winning collection was Poems for People (1947). She also knew Raymond Knister and wrote a memoir for his collected poems.

(rare J.M. LeBel Enterprises, 1973 LP; features poems read by Gustafson, F.R. Scott, P.K.Page, Earle Birney, Michael Ondaatje, Francis Sparshott, Douglas Barbour, Stephen Scobie and others)

(rare signed of this title, 1960, McClelland & Stewart; beautifully designed by Frank Newfeld as part of a series he did for M & S)

(The great Frank Newfeld will be featured later.)

Ralph Gustafson (1909-1995) was born in Lime Ridge, Quebec. He attended Bishop’s University (Lennoxville) and Oxford U. While he was living in New York, he edited The Penguin Book of Canadian Verse. His  poetic craftsmanship is most evident in Rivers Among Rocks.

(1963 Viking dj front and back; John Pimlott designed the front; photo by James Hall)

(rare signed of above title)

Wallace Stegner (1909-1993) is actually a famous American author, but as a child, he lived in Eastend, SK, and later wrote about it at length. The Wallace Stegner House in Eastend can still be visited today. His short stories about this Canadian period can be found in any volume of his collected stories. A prolific author, Stegner won the Pulitzer Prize in 1972. Wolf Willow is a remarkable read about his Canadian youth and the history of that region.

(rare dj of 1941, Reynal & Hitchcock )

(rare signed slipcased ltd. ed., 1994 Fifth House)

(“It’s an Immense Night Out There”, signed ltd. ed. chapbook; Richard Spafford, 1993)

(1958 Macmillan dj; jacket by Arnaud Maggs)

(signed reprint of 1968, McClelland & Stewart pb–this was never published in dj; these are the best stories about the Depression published by a Canadian)

(1970, McClelland & Stewart dj)

(funeral service card)

(Mrs. Bentley (of As for Me and My House) poems spin-off; signed by SK’s Lorna Crozier, 1996 dj, McClelland & Stewart; jacket design: Sari Ginsberg, jacket photo: Image Bank, hand tinting: Adrienne K. Veniger)

……………………………………………..

(James) Sinclair Ross (1908-1996) was born near Prince Albert, SK. In 1924, he became a bank clerk on the prairies and eventually moved to Winnipeg. He served in World War II and then worked for the Royal Bank in Montreal. In his writing, he was mainly concerned with the psychological effects of isolation on people living in small towns and on isolated farms during the Depression. His best stories are collected in The Lamp at Noon and Other Stories; later Lorraine McMullen would edit his previously unpublished stories in book form The Race and Other Stories.

Books that shed light on his then-little-known homosexuality and many publishing frustrations include: As for Me and My Body–Keath Fraser, “Collecting Stamps Would Have Been More Fun”–Jordan & David Stouck, and As for Sinclair Ross–David Stouck. I had the pleasure of selecting “The Lamp at Noon”, “The Painted Door”, and “One’s a Heifer” for inclusion in my story anthologies.

(Ryerson, 1947, dj & blurb; cover painting by R.H. Hurley)

(Ryerson 1947 dj)

(signed 1956 McClelland & Stewart; artwork by Cathier)

Edward (Alexander) McCourt (1907-1972) was born in Ireland and then grew up near Kitscoty, AB. He was a Rhodes scholar and quite the university athlete at Oxford and U of AB. He eventually became a university professor at U of SK in Saskatoon. He wrote non-fiction ( Road Across Canada–about the Trans-Canada highway) as well as several novels Home Is the Stranger (1950), Walk through the Valley (1958), and Fasting Friar (1963). Music at the Close was his best-known novel.

(MacLennan signed letter on McGill stationery in response to comments on The Watch That Ends the Night; *all ephemera on this site are from my personal collection)

(rare 1945  signed Collins White Circle Pocket ed.)

(In the sixties, MacLennan turned to doing some visual books, this one–McClelland & Stewart, 1967– and The Rivers of Canada)

(starting out, 1928 Dalhousie yearbook–left: MacLennan, third down; right: MacLennan as tennis success; he also won an Rhodes scholarship at Oxford)

(his first book, based on the 1917 Halifax Explosion which occurred in his hometown when he was a child; Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1941; bio blurb on back of same book)

(two more editions: left–UK–George G. Harrap, 1942 1st ed.–cover by E. Jeffrey; right; William Collins, 1941 scarce pb cover–MacLennan was one of the first Canadian authors published in a White Circle Edition)

(left: movie poster for ill-fated ’70s film version of this book–it was never issued in VHS or DVD; right: his first G-G winner; Collins, 1945, jacket by Lisbeth Lofgren)

(left: the very rare U.K. dj, Cresset, 1946; rare CBC Montreal roundtable talk, Nov. 1942,  published by Canadian Printing & Lithographing Co.)

(G-G winner; rare signed 1st ed. Collins, 1948)

(signed Macmillan, 1951, jacket by Salter)

(left: G-G winner, 1st ed. Scribners, 1959–jacket by Philip Grushkin; Signet/New American pb, 1960)

(1978 dj Macmillan, 1978–photo: Peter Paterson; jacket design–Richard Miller)

(left: his last novel which surprised the critics, signed with laid-ins 1980, Macmillan dj; illustration–Christine Bunn, jacket design: Vera Jacyk; right: Penguin pb, 1981; jacket–indecipherable signature)

(rare signed 1952 speech text, UNB)

(rare 1965 Christmas card; Tota was his second wife)

(John) Hugh MacLennan (1907-1990) was born in Glace Bay, N.S. and from 12 to 21 slept year-round outside in a backyard tent. He spent time studying in England and the U.S. before returning to Canada to begin a new life with Dorothy Duncan, an American painter and writer, who had a significant influence on his decisions and work.

Because the 1917 Halifax Explosion happened in his hometown, MacLennan had lots of experiences and memories to include in his first novel Barometer Rising, also published in England, which was the beginning of his writing about and defining the Canadian experience. His Two Solitudes,  about the divisions between English and French Canada, won a Governor General’s Award; he won a total of 5 of these awards and, with Michael Ondaatje, remains the top G-G winner of all time. His essays received the award twice: Cross-Country and Thirty and Three. (He and Robertson Davies were the top Canadian essayists in the 20th century.)

MacLennan taught Leonard Cohen, himself a graduate of McGill. An excellent NFB documentary on MacLennan’s life is Hugh MacLennan: Portrait of a Writer. Highly recommended, too, is Elspeth Cameron’s strong book Hugh MacLennan: A Writer’s Life which reveals his personal trials writing The Watch That Ends the Night, as the geneses and receptions to other novels.