CanLitBooks

(By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, a rare 1st ed. Editions Poetry London dj; design by Gerald Wilde)

Elizabeth Smart (1913-1986) was born into a prominent family in Ottawa who did not approve of her long, rough affair with the married English poet George Barker, with whom she was long-smitten and with whom she bore several children. She briefly worked for the British Ministry of Defence when she was in England with Barker until she was fired.

Her mother did her best to suppress her daughter’s work by buying up and burning any copies that made it to Canada of her passionate U.K. novella By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept (only 2000 copies were ever printed; one of which is seen above). Smart was writer-in-residence at U of AB (’82-83) and later died of a heart attack in London and was buried in Suffolk, UK.

More information about her work and life can be found in a documentary Elizabeth Smart: On the Side of the Angels and an interesting biography Elizabeth Smart A Life by Rosemary Sullivan.

(early G-G winner, scarce clean Scribner’s, 1939 dj & complementary hardback design; designed by “M”?)

(her 2nd G-G winner for Fiction; this ed. Lippincott, 1944 dj; photo by Leja Gorska, design by Hallock)

(from the previous copy, an ultra-rare flatsigned title page; on the right: Jonathan Cape, 1944 dj, from Australia) 

(Like her Montreal author-friend, Hugh MacLennan, Graham was interested in the 1960s Quebec political-social upheavals and partnered with Solange Chaput Rolland on this project; Macmillan; 1963 pb; she has double-signed this book to her dentist)

(included in the above book is also a rare personal letter to the dentist about an appointment for some dental work)

Gwethalyn Graham (1913-1965), nee Gwethalyn Erichsen-Brown, was born in Toronto. She was educated at Smith College and in Lausanne , Switzerland, the latter which led to her  first G-G-winning novel  about a Swiss-finishing-girls’ school, Swiss Sonata, which also got her on the Nazi blacklist. Graham was influenced by Stendahl, Hemingway, Cather, Arthur Koestler, and her feminist-mother. She was friends with Pierre Trudeau, Hugh MacLennan, and F.R. Scott.

Her second novel, another G-G winner for Fiction, Earth and High Heaven, was the first Canadian novel to top the New York Times‘ bestseller list. A movie planned, starring Katharine Hepburn, was never made. As well as being against anti-Semitism, Graham also was against discrimination toward French-Canadians as seen in her Dear Enemies non-fiction book. Tragically, Graham died relatively young of an undiagnosed brain tumor.

(signed card and letter with envelope; Knopf, 1960 dj; design: Rudolph Ruzicka)

(1st trilogy: The Salteron Trilogy; on left:  book 1: Tempest-Tost; prominent Canadian designer and illustrator Grant MacDonald did the charming cover; Clarke Irwin, 1951 dj; on right: 2nd book of trilogy; Scribner’s, 1955; terrific, evocative  jacket design: Helen Borton)

(3rd book of trilogy; Macmillan:1958 front dj by Robert Galster, back photo by Mckague)

(dj with cut-out front design; design: Frank Newfeld; signed card laid-in)

(his most famous, popular book–1st of Deptford Trilogy; Viking: 1970 dj by Mel Williamson; right: the celebrated CBC radio version of the book, 2002; one of the best radio dramas CBC ever did; available on 4 cassettes, 2002; dj by Scott Kletke Design)

(CBC Home Video VHS, 1996; photo: Brenda Davies; with promotional postcard for his 3rd trilogy–The Cornish Trilogy; card advertises Murther & Walking Spirits; photo: Jerry Bauer) The excellent Life & Times CBC series included profiles on other Canadian authors such as Morley Callaghan, Irving Layton, Stephen Leacock, W.O. Mitchell, Mordecai Richler, and Farley Mowat.

(nice commemorative stamped envelope by Canada Post, 8/28/13; Massey College architect’s sketch by Barry Downs; Lowe-Martin, design: Steven Slipp; postage stamp booklet: Canada Post; Lowe-Martin; design: Steven Slipp; photo: the great Yousuf Karsh)

(William) Robertson Davies (1913-1995) was born in Thamesville, ON and was educated at Upper Canada College, Queen’s U, and Oxford. He loved drama and worked in the Old Vic Repertory Theatre, later writing several plays (e.g., his popular 1-act “Overlaid”) for the stage, becoming one of our country’s first significant dramatists.

When he returned to Canada, he worked as literary editor for Saturday Night magazine, then as editor for The Peterborough Examiner (c.f., letter above from this period), and finally Master of Massey College. During that time, our country’s first genuine man of letters also became our country’s first significant essayist via his nom-de-plume/alter-ego, the witty curmudgeon Samuel Marchbanks.

Internationally famous by the 1970s, Davies wrote 3 2/3 marvellous trilogies. The Salterton Trilogy: Tempest-Tost (1951), Leaven of Malice (1954), A Mixture of Frailties (1958). The Deptford Trilogy: Fifth Business (his best and most popular novel, 1970), The Manticore (a G-G winner for Fiction, 1972), and World of Wonders (1975). The Cornish Trilogy: The Rebel Angels (1981), What’s Bred in the Bone (1985), and The Lyre of Orpheus (1988). The Toronto Trilogy: (incomplete): Murther and Walking Spirits (1991) and The Cunning Man (1994).

(Ryerson, 1939 chapbook; with the opening page of the most famous Canadian poem about the Depression; right: a very rare signed copy of a very rare book–250 copies; this and the next chapbook covers were done by Group of 7 artist J.E.H. MacDonald)

(left: G-G winner; only 250 copies of this rare title; Ryerson: 1941; right: 1942, Ryerson; this dj was done by J.E.H. MacDonald and his son Thoreau)

(Ryerson, 1945 dj & back cover blurb)

(Mosaic Press/Valley Editions dj, 1981; inscribed by author; uncredited design)

(inscribed book with signed typed letter; Mosaic Press pb, 1985; uncredited art)

(Joyce) Anne Marriott (1913-1997) was born and educated in Victoria, BC. As a young woman, she travelled to SK during the Depression, later immortalizing the latter in her full-length poem “The Wind Our Enemy”. Her G-G-Poetry-winning chapbook Calling Adventurers was a radio documentary about the Canadian North. She went on to work for NFB and co-founded, with Dorothy Livesay, the Canadian poetry magazine Contemporary Verse. Marriott continued to write and publish poetry into her old age, also offering poetry workshops for young people.

(rare, clean, intact associative book; Contact Press, 1956; arguably title poem is his most famous, signature; book is dedicated to his daughter Naomi, for whom he wrote the tender poem “For Naomi”)

(1959 McClelland & Stewart pb, signed by Layton, designed by Frank Newfeld; his G-G winner)

(scarce slipcased signed ltd. ed–199 copies; The Uncollected Poems of Irving Layton, Mosaic Press/Valley Editions, 1976; designed by Tim Inkster, Porcupine Quill printer)

(very rare signed handwritten letter by author)

(Along with Leonard Cohen, Layton is/was our most audially-broadcast poet; left; a must-have for fans of Cohen and Layton in the Smithsonian Folkways Archival CD which also features A.J.M. Smith, Louis Dudek, F.R. Scott, and Cohen. Originally, it was published as a vinyl record.  Right: rare McLelland & Stewart, 1990: Audio encore cassette; cover illustration: Bernice Eisenstein, original cover design: T.M. Craan)

(left: rare 1973 Caedmon LP–the only other Canadian poet who was featured by Caedmon; cover: Harold Town, album design: David Shaw, photo: Erik Christensen)

(awesomely rare LP, 1962, Posterity; illustration: Chris Wells & J. Saint-Cyr; recorded live at Ottawa’s Le Hibou coffeehouse)

(likewise awesomely rare, mint 1981 Astro Custom LP; cover design: Karen Pietkiewicz, cover photo: Grey Goddard, photographed at sault Ste. Marie, Ontario Public Library; recording was made there)

(Peter) Irving Layton (1912-2006) was easily our country’s most brash and audacious poet, known for challenging the prudery of Canadian sensibilitities in the ’50s and ’60s. Fearless and blunt, Layton’s honest work often challenges readers about their own complacencies.

Layton was born in Roumania and came to Montreal at an early age, and brought up in a cockroach-infested tenement on Montreal’s famed St. Urbain’s Street. He studied economics at McGill and achieved an M.A. Later, he taught English at a boys’ school and founded Contact Press with Louis Dudek and Raymond Souster. He was married a few times, once to Betty Sutherland, who was actor Donald’s half-sister.

He was blacklisted in the US because of his involvement with the David Lewis and the CCF. Layton wrote erotic poems and was a great social critic, appearing on the CBC tv program Fighting Words. Popular also in South Korea and Italy, he was twice nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature.

He was a close friend and early mentor of Leonard Cohen, and was also admired by Bob Dylan and Allan Ginsberg. Layton later developed Alzheimer’s and died at 93. Cohen gave the eulogy and joked that “I taught him to dress, he taught me how to live forever.”

(Arthur Barker, 1957–U.K. 1st ed.; uncredited artist; photo: Lingard, Ottawa; very scarce inscribed ed.)

(Coach House, 1981 pb; inscribed by author)

(Marlyn’s typed critical quotes for Ribs, laid into above book)

John Marlyn (1912-2005) was an Austro-Hungarian who grew up in Winnipeg through the lean years of the 1930s. He served in the Canadian army, relocated to Ottawa, wrote SF under the pen name Vincent Reid, taught creative writing at Carleton U, and retired to live in the Canary Islands where he died of a heart attack. His Under the Ribs of Death reveals what Winnipeg was like from the late ’20s into the 1930s as well as the struggles of urban ethnic newcomers during the depression.

This book was a real eye-opener in my second year CanLit course with Walter Swayze at U of W–that good CanLit writing was possible and had happened in my hometown of Winnipeg. Other Manitoba writers I had first contact with then included Gabrielle Roy and Margaret Laurence (when it came out, that’s when and where I first saw Rachel, Rachel –the successful movie adaptation of A Jest of God).

(Canada Post’s well-done salute to McLuhan, Northrop Frye, and Roger Lemelin)

(his most famous book; 1983 ed. of 1963 original; this one a rare signed)

(Harcourt, Brace : 1963 pb, rare flatsigned)

(rare 1976 signed reply letter to Margaret Beach–includes Beach’s letter)

(perhaps the most insightful book (Dundurn, 2014) into Frye’s mind, sensibility, and ideas; John Robert Colombo who compiled this labour-of-love book has done over 200 books himself, many on Canadian writers; I would also highly recommend his Canadian Literary Landmarks, Hounslow Press, 1984. Colombo has been a significant contributor to the record on and information about CanLit and its authors.)

(Herman) Northrop Frye (1912-1991) was born in Sherbrooke, PQ and educated in Moncton, at U of T, and Oxford. He was briefly a United Church minister out west before returning to U of T. to become a renowned professor and critic pursuing scholarly studies. His first ‘hit’ was Fearful Symmetry, an amazing, insightful opus about William Blake’s work and imagination; this book began his international reputation. In Fables of Identity, he pared down the most basic patterns in literature, and in his best, most influential book–The Educated Imagination, he ‘explained literature’ and what was ‘really going on in it’ for the average person.

(The latter, in particular in 1976, changed and influenced the way I taught literature for the rest of my 30-year-career as a high-school English teacher and the way I approached writing and editing some 60 plus books and guides. For me, Frye made very clear the patterns, themes, motifs, symbols, and metaphors of all literature and much of pop culture.)

As early as 1958, Frye deservedly won the Lorne Pierce Medal for outstanding service to CanLit.  He also went on to write The Great Code (about the Bible’s influence on and connection to literature), The Bush Garden (an overview of CanLit), and edited one of his own mentors’ works: The Collected Poems of E.J. Pratt.

Highly recommended: Harry Rasky’s documentary The Great Teacher: Northrop Frye and John Ayre’s Northrop Frye: A Biography as well as Colombo’s Frye quotations book pictured above.

(along with Birney’s satirical Turvey and Smart’s novella By Grand Central Station, this unsung novel is also important WWII reading; Faber: 1946 dj, uncredited design; rare inscribed ed.)

(as interesting was this McClelland & Stewart 1965 pb ed.; cover: Jane Brook & John Zehethofer; N.B. the original ed. was trimmed about 1/3 by the author; this ed. restored the 1/3 originally taken out and is the author’s preferred ed.)

Edward F. Meade (1912-2005) was born in Winnipeg in 1912. During WWII, he served as a platoon commander in a tank transporter outfit . It was then that he wrote Canada’s Great WWII Novel Remember Me in France, sending the manuscript home to his wife in installments (two installments got lost in war action). He finished writing the book in 1945; a condensed version appeared in the Montreal Standard, and a fuller version was published in 1946.

However, it wasn’t until the 1965 McClelland & Stewart printing that the author’s complete and final version was finally realized and published. Meade settled in Campbell River, BC and became an amateur archeologist, interested in the culture of Northwest Coast First Nations Peoples.

(1972 McClelland & Stewart 4th printing of this popular book; the attractive cover design was done by Bob Teringo)

(the very rare VHS of the recommended movie adaptation starring Harold and Maude‘s Bud Cort in 1980 the 2nd largest grossing film in Canadian history; Ebassy Home Entertainment /Quartet Films Inc., 1984)

(Rex) Max(well) Braithwaite (1911-1995) was born in Nokomis, SK and was an underpaid teacher in SK and AB during the Depression–reflected in the subject matter of the above- pictured book. He also wrote articles about the appalling conditions of education on the prairies back then. Braithwaite also wrote tv and radio plays, broadcast scripts, and textbooks. He eventually relocated and settled down in Orangeville, ON.

(Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1972 dj with rare inscription by McLuhan; jacket design: Ken Braren)

(left: the popular 1967 Bantam pb, co-ordinated by Jerome Agel; right: the 1967 Columbia LP version, co-ordinated by Agel, produced by John Simon; cover: Sandy Speiser, Columbia Records Photo Studio–both recommended for McLuhan fans)

(recommended for anyone trying to understand McLuhan’s ideas; 2003 NFB DVD Collector’s Ed.; design: Trace Pictures; very well-done)

Prominent internationally-renowned media expert (Herbert) Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) was born in Edmonton and his childhood home has been recently restored and reopened to the public. McLuhan was educated at U of MB and Cambridge, going on to teach at U of T. where he became Director of the U of T Centre for Culture and Technology in 1963.

Author of the GG-winning Gutenberg Galaxy, he early on established himself as a popular and significant guru, oft-quoted on such sixties TV shows as Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In and memorably featured in a literal walk-on in Woody Allen’s comedy classic Annie Hall. He also wrote Understanding Media and in 1970 was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.

McLuhan was ahead of his time predicting such phenomena as the Global Village and leaving us with many famous quotes such as “The medium is the message” and “The medium is the massage”. He and Northrop Frye were Canada’s two outstanding superstar critics.