The Literary Legacy of the Macmillan Company of Canada: Making Books and Mapping Culture 9781442699656

Citation preview

THE LITERARY LEGACY OF THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA: MAKING BOOKS AND MAPPING CULTURE

This page intentionally left blank

RUTH PANOFSKY

The Literary Legacy of the Macmillan Company of Canada: Making Books and Mapping Culture

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

© University of Toronto Press 2012 Toronto Buffalo London www.utppublishing.com Printed in Canada ISBN 978-0-8020-9877-1 (cloth)

Printed on acid-free, 100% post-consumer recycled paper with vegetable-based inks.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Panofsky, Ruth The literary legacy of the Macmillan Company of Canada : making books and mapping culture / Ruth Panofsky. (Studies in book and print culture) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8020-9877-1 1. Macmillan Company of Canada – History. 2. Publishers and publishing – Canada – Biography. 3. Book editors – Canada – Biography. 4. Publishers and publishing – Canada – History – 20th century. 5. Canadian literature – 20th century – History and criticism. I. Title. II. Series: Studies in book and print culture. Z483.M3P35 2012

070.50971

C2011-906929-6

This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).

For Bram who appreciates good books and in memory of my father

This page intentionally left blank

Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

Abbreviations xiii Introduction

3

1 The Rise of Macmillan 1905–1921: Frank Wise 21 2 The Triumphant Second Reign 1921–1940: Hugh Smithurst Eayrs 65 3 Interregnum 1940–1946: Ellen Elliott

126

4 The Resplendent Reign 1946–1969: John Morgan Gray

149

5 The Final Reign 1969–1976: Hugh Pyper Kane 209 6 Editorial Coda 1974–1986: Douglas Maitland Gibson Notes 265 Select Bibliography 301 Illustration Credits 317 Index

319

Illustrations follow p. 154

234

This page intentionally left blank

Acknowledgments

This book is the result of archival journeying to Great Britain, the United States, and Canada which has been generously supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Bibliographical Society of America, the Bibliographical Society of Canada, and Ryerson University. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to these organizations for their vital encouragement of my work on the Macmillan Company of Canada. I welcome this opportunity to acknowledge the invaluable assistance provided by archivists, curators, librarians, and others whose cooperation underwrote my research efforts: curators Jamie Andrews and Elizabeth James of the British Library; archivist Alysoun Sanders of Palgrave Macmillan; the staff of Special Collections, University of Reading; the staff of the Manuscripts and Archives Division, the New York Public Library; the staff of the Harry Ransom Center, the University of Texas at Austin; the staff of Library and Archives Canada; Beverly Bayzat, Kathleen Garay, Kimberly Kerr, Adele Petrovic, and Carl Spadoni of the William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections, McMaster University; the staff of Queen’s University Archives; art director Fernanda Pisani and marketing manager Meaghan Strimas of Quill and Quire; the Interlibrary Loan staff of Ryerson University Library; Marlys Chevrefils of Special Collections, University of Calgary Library and Cultural Resources; Brian Hubner and Shelley Sweeney of Archives and Special Collections, University of Manitoba; John Shoesmith and his colleagues at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto. I have benefited from the scholarly expertise of colleagues at Ryerson University who helped me in the early stages of this project:

x Acknowledgments

Dennis Denisoff, Michael Finn, Irene Gammel, and Lorraine Janzen. Carole Gerson of Simon Fraser University offered me her usual discerning advice and sound direction. Carl Spadoni, an inexhaustible source of information and encouragement, shared his deep knowledge of the Macmillan Company of Canada fonds, which he oversees as director of McMaster University’s William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections. For careful readings and invaluable insights into portions of this book, I wish to thank Shannon Culver; James Eayrs, professor emeritus, Dalhousie University; Vivian Holland; Sean Kane, professor emeritus, Trent University; and Walter Meyer zu Erpen of the Survival Research Institute of Canada. I am grateful, as well, to the University of Toronto Press’s anonymous assessors for their incisive and constructive suggestions toward revision. The genuine enthusiasm elicited by my numerous requests for interviews and information sustained me throughout the writing of this book. I am indebted to the following individuals for granting me interviews and graciously allowing me to cite from our personal and telephone conversations: Michael Byron Davis, Ramsay Derry, Kildare Dobbs, Virgil Duff, James Eayrs, Douglas Gibson, John Anthony Morgan Gray, Vivian Holland, John W. Irwin, Sean Kane, and the late P.K. Page. Many others have helped with this project, and I am pleased to take this occasion to thank them for their generous assistance: Nigel Beale, for promoting my work on Macmillan on his radio program, the Biblio File; Patricia Demers, for her interest in female publishers’ readers; Judy Donnelly, for her knowledge of the Macmillan Company of Canada fonds held at McMaster University; James Eayrs, for connecting me with John Anthony Morgan Gray, Walter Meyer zu Erpen, and for sharing his youthful story, ‘The Lost Prince: A Tale’; Debra Huron, for sharing her published work on Gladys Neale; Paul Hjartarson, for leading me to Margaret Stobie’s 1970 interview with Ellen Elliott housed at the University of Manitoba; Sheila Latham, for her interest in Ellen Elliott; Eli MacLaren for sharing his work in progress on copyright and the Canadian book trade; Roy MacSkimming, for sharing the transcript of his 1998 interview with Gladys Neale; Larry McDonald, who authored a review of Morley Callaghan’s 1977 novel, Close to the Sun Again; Maria Meindl, for sparking my interest in Mona Gould and for permission to cite from the Mona Gould papers housed at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto; John Spiers, for his probing study of series publication and his interest in Macmillan’s

Acknowledgments

xi

many series; Jack Stoddart, for providing details about Ellen Elliott; George A. Walker, for procuring me an autographed copy of Frank Newfeld’s Drawing on Type; and Rex Williams, for his generous gift of several Macmillan books and invaluable information on Toronto-based publishing. Dennis Lee granted me ready access to his restricted papers held at the University of Toronto’s Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, and Esmee Rees gave me permission to cite from the Mazo de la Roche papers, also housed at the Fisher Library. For research assistance I owe special thanks to a number of energetic students for their dedicated efforts and unflagging determination to mine several archives pertaining to the Macmillan Company of Canada: Michelle Coyne; Shawna Ferris; Emily Johansen; Marlee Kostiner; June Liu; Evan Mauro; Heather Milne; Suzanne Rintoul; and Melissa Sky. The enthusiastic endorsement of editors Virgil Duff, Jill McConkey, and Siobhan McMenemy of the University of Toronto Press, and Leslie Howsam, general editor of the Book and Print Culture series, spurred me on throughout the research and writing of this book. Sections of this book have appeared, in other forms, in articles in English Studies in Canada; Epilogue: Canadian Bulletin for the History of Books, Libraries, and Archives; International Journal of Canadian Studies; Journal of Canadian Studies; Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada; and WWR Magazine: The Official Magazine of Women Writing and Reading. Portions of my work in progress were presented at several conferences, most recently the Archives in Canada Conference; the British Association for Canadian Studies; the Canadian Association for the Study of Book Culture; the Culture of the Publisher’s Series 1700–2000; the History of the Book in Canada; the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing; the Society for Textual Scholarship; TransCanada Two: Literature, Institutions, Citizenship; and Women Writing and Reading: Past and Present, Local and Global. Audience members kindly shared their valuable comments, scholarly critique, and research advice. Finally, I wish to thank my husband, Gary Gottlieb, for his constant support of my research endeavours and interest in my work on authors and publishing, and our children, Bram and Liza, for graciously accepting their mother’s protracted residency in the House of Macmillan.

This page intentionally left blank

Abbreviations

BL LAC MCC NYPL RR UT UTA

British Library Library and Archives Canada Macmillan Company of Canada fonds New York Public Library Reader’s Report University of Toronto University of Texas at Austin

This page intentionally left blank

THE LITERARY LEGACY OF THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA: MAKING BOOKS AND MAPPING CULTURE

This page intentionally left blank

Introduction

In the early 1840s, Daniel Macmillan, Scottish founder of the Macmillan publishing empire, invoked the divine power of booksellers. ‘We booksellers,’ Macmillan declared, ‘are aiding our great Taskmaster to reduce the world into order, and beauty, and harmony … As truly as God is, we are His ministers, and help to minister to the wellbeing of the spirits of men. At the same time it is our duty to manage our affairs wisely, keep our minds easy, and not trade beyond our means.’1 Although Macmillan had yet to publish his first title – A.R. Craig’s The Philosophy of Training, which argued for the training of ‘teachers for the wealthier classes,’2 appeared in 1843 – the profound sense of vocation expressed in this early statement shaped his life and career. Macmillan’s view of the bookseller-publisher – who risked publication and also needed to make a profit3 – as being close to God, serving a high, moral purpose by issuing important books on serious subjects, educating and refining a growing readership, and, at the same time, acting as a responsible businessman, guided his work in publishing. That view also came to define the culture of Macmillan and Company, established by Daniel (1813–57) and his younger brother Alexander (1818–96) in February 1843 at 57 Aldersgate Street in the City of London. Under the skilled leadership of several generations of Macmillan men – among them Harold Macmillan (1894–1986), British prime minister from 1957 to 1963 – who upheld the publishing credo articulated by its founding father, Macmillan and Company became a thriving enterprise. Over the course of two centuries, it grew into a highly profitable publishing company whose influence on the literary culture of Britain and the Englishspeaking world, via its firm in New York and branch offices in India, Australia, and Canada, was undisputed.

4

The Macmillan Company of Canada

In an effort to capture the American market, a New York distribution agency was opened in 1869 under the management of George Edward Brett (1829–90), the first of four generations of Bretts to serve Macmillan. In 1891, the London and New York houses separated; five years later, the Macmillan Company of New York was incorporated, although Macmillan and Company remained its majority shareholder. The Bretts sought continually to expand their operations through original publishing, which increased significantly at the turn of the century, but they were frequently rebuffed by the more cautious parent company. Nonetheless, under the astute stewardship of the Bretts, who were always more entrepreneurial in spirit than the Macmillans, the New York company flourished. By early 1907, the Macmillan Company of New York had a subsidiary office in Chicago and agencies in Boston, Atlanta, and San Francisco. It would continue to build its success on solid educational and landmark trade publishing – including fiction by C.S. Lewis, Enid Blyton, Jack London, Joseph Conrad, and Margaret Mitchell – supplemented by departments that specialized in medical, children’s, and horticultural books.4 By mid-century, having grown larger and more lucrative than its British parent, it sought independence from Macmillan and Company. Although they did so reluctantly, in 1951 the British principals relinquished their shares in the American company and the two firms became separate entities. By the end of the nineteenth century, as Macmillan scholar Elizabeth James details, London’s Macmillan and Company had established itself ‘as a senior member of the booktrade … the chosen patron and publisher of a galaxy of established writers … with valuable reputations to protect and promote.’5 When the Macmillan Company of Canada opened in Toronto in December 1905, the Macmillan imprint was highly respected worldwide, associated with the work of renowned writers such as Alfred Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, Christina Rossetti, Lewis Carroll, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, H.G. Wells, and Rudyard Kipling. Macmillan’s arrival in Canada, alongside other branch-plant operations and newly established companies, signalled the transformation of local publishing and was greeted with much fanfare by members of Toronto’s book trade.6 Like its American cousin, the Canadian branch was first an agency operation, established to disseminate books published by Macmillan in London and New York. It also served as agent to several British firms whose books were distributed by the two houses of Macmillan. The triangular link between the British, American, and Canadian offices of Macmillan, at once deep and binding, was central to the development

Introduction

5

and institutional culture of the Toronto-based Macmillan Company of Canada. I The nineteenth century in Canada was characterized by religious publishing, dominated by the Methodist Book and Publishing House under the direction of book steward William Briggs,7 W.J. Gage, and Copp Clark, publishing firms that operated simultaneously as printing plants. English- and French-language publishing were entirely separate, and only a handful of major authors had emerged by the 1890s, among them prose writers Ralph Connor, Sara Jeannette Duncan, and Gilbert Parker, and poets Charles G.D. Roberts, Bliss Carman, and Archibald Lampman. A permeable border made Canada especially vulnerable to the incursion of cultural goods – notably books, magazines, and newspapers – produced in America. Until 1891, American copyright protection was extended to American citizens or residents alone. As a result, the Canadian market was saturated with inexpensive, unauthorized books – often unauthorized reprintings of British publications – issued in the United States. The rise of English-language book publishing based in Toronto can be attributed, in large part, to changes in copyright law and new government incentives. The American International Copyright Act of 1891 (the Chace Act), for example, no longer focused on authorship. Instead, books manufactured from type set in the United States, with two copies deposited at the Library of Congress on or before the date of first publication and prior to subsequent publication elsewhere, were granted copyright protection. In accordance with the new manufacturing stipulation, Canadian publishers could arrange for the printing and publishing of works in the United States and distribute their American-made editions locally. Even more significant was the Canadian Copyright Amendment Act 1900, endorsed by Britain and Canada and passed in July 1900, which permitted local publishers ‘to arrange with an author for a local edition, and to prohibit importation into Canada of any other editions of that work that were published in the Empire.’8 Further, publishers who held the Canadian rights to a work were free to import an edition or sheets and to oversee the local marketing of that work. In spite of these gains, the Copyright Amendment 1900 facilitated the development of the agency system and the establishment of branch-plant operations, which func-

6

The Macmillan Company of Canada

tioned to decelerate the pace of original Canadian publishing. Many publishers became exclusive Canadian agents under contract to British and American publishers; they handled the distribution of foreign books and thereby protected foreign copyrights. In an agency agreement, as publishing historian George Parker outlines, ‘the agent agrees to distribute his principal’s books in return for a percentage of the profits in the agent’s territory, while the principal agrees to refer enquiries from wholesalers and retailers back to the agent. The agent’s name does not appear on the title-page imprint; when it does the local publisher is no longer acting in his capacity as agent.’9 In addition, as Parker further notes, in 1897 the Liberal government instituted changes to tariffs ‘for importing bound books, sheets, and plates’10 intended to encourage the establishment of branch-plants in Canada. Foreign-owned branch-plants were usually subsidiary businesses, often controlled – to a greater or lesser degree – by parent companies. At the same time, across the country provincial governments were offering newly available lucrative, long-term contracts to publishers of educational books. These legislative modifications and publishing opportunities spurred new publishing ventures. In particular, British publishers, with ties to the former colony, sought to secure the Canadian educational market for themselves by setting up branch offices in Toronto. Several British firms, lured by legislative and financial incentive, established a presence in Canada. In addition to Macmillan, the early twentieth century saw the arrival of Oxford University Press (1904), Cassell (1907), J.M. Dent (1911), Hodder and Stoughton (1911), and Thomas Nelson (1913) – companies with a strong interest in educational publishing – as well as the formation of new Canadian publishing houses McLeod and Allen (1901), University of Toronto Press (1901), and McClelland and Goodchild (1906). Amended copyright legislation and changes to tariffs did little, however, to advance the development of original Canadian trade publishing – books marketed to a general or non-specialist audience and sold through bookstores and to libraries. In 1955 John Morgan Gray, Macmillan’s fourth president and one of Canada’s ‘most highly regarded publishers,’ conceded ‘doubt that any Canadian publisher derives any important part of his revenue (or any net profit) from Canadian general [i.e., trade] publishing; his commercial welfare is therefore not identified with that of Canadian writers. Similarly, those Canadian writers who derive any important part of their income from their books (apart of course from text-books) do not earn it in Canada and are not

Introduction

7

dependant on a Canadian publisher.’11 As Gray’s comment implies, mid-century publishing in Canada was still a precarious enterprise. English-language publishers derived little or no profit from original Canadian publishing; instead, they relied on educational publishing and agency sales for financial stability. The sheer bulk of educational publishing generated regular and substantive revenue and provided a much-needed financial base on which to build a trade publishing program – always a risky undertaking and an unreliable source of income for Canadian publishers. Moreover, although it was unintentional, the agency system made local publishers dependent on the distribution of foreign books and further impeded the development of Canada’s book trade. The distribution of agency trade titles, for example, intensified the competitive market for original Canadian trade books. As if to exacerbate prevailing conditions, local publishers were loath to issue Canadian titles since they were rarely remunerative. Those Canadian authors whose works had the potential for large sales were obliged to pursue publishing opportunities outside of the country, most often in London and the proximate literary centres of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. Canadian authors sought wider distribution for their books and more profitable authorpublisher arrangements, but British and American publishers, who treated Canada as part of their own domestic markets, were unwilling to grant authors rights to a separate Canadian market and retained ‘the lucrative foreign and subsidiary rights to Canadian authors.’12 Often, local publishers were prevented from publishing the most popular of Canadian authors whose work would have generated the profit necessary to support other original Canadian trade ventures. Internationally, however, significant changes were having an effect on the book trade as publishers embraced reduced book prices, the advent of the best-seller, and the rise of paperback publishing. One publishing company to grasp the opportunities presented by turn-of-the-century Canada was Macmillan, whose principals (or foreign owners) in London and New York were themselves visionary publishers of the first order. They recognized an emerging Canadian nationalism that would increase over the course of the century, reaching its peak in 1967, Canada’s centennial year. Along with Ryerson Press and McClelland and Stewart, the Macmillan Company of Canada – foreign ownership notwithstanding – became one of Canada’s three most important publishing houses of the twentieth century. From 1905 – when the Toronto branch of Macmillan was established as offspring of

8

The Macmillan Company of Canada

its parent company in London and cousin to its affiliate house in New York – to 1986 – when the imprint went into decline – Macmillan was a crucial catalyst in the shaping of Canada’s literary heritage, instrumental in fostering a literary aesthetic, a culture of authorship, and a modern literature for Canada. Throughout its history, the Macmillan Company of Canada combined the roles of agency publisher, branch-plant, and original publisher in its operations. Early in that history, Macmillan successfully negotiated its cultural inheritance to achieve autonomy and produce Canadian books of lasting influence. First and second presidents Frank Wise and Hugh Eayrs, for example, understood that their responsibility as publishers was to serve the interests of Canadian readers and indigenous culture as much as it was to satisfy the agency needs of the parent and affiliate houses in London and New York. Eayrs, in particular, used the advantage of Macmillan’s reputation as a prestige publisher to attract important authors, including popular humorist Stephen Leacock, best-selling romance writer Mazo de la Roche, and renowned British-born naturalist Grey Owl. From 1921 onward, through a vigorously diverse publishing program that included works of fiction, poetry, and drama, folklore, history, and literary criticism that, in large part, was supported by profits from textbook sales, Eayrs established a literary culture for Canada. Subsequent presidents Robert Huckvale and John Gray and editors Ellen Elliott and Kildare Dobbs consolidated the growth of the company from a branch-plant operation to a mature publishing house that continued to operate during the Second World War when all publishers struggled with rising production costs and shortages of personnel. Latterly, president Hugh Kane and editor Douglas Gibson oversaw a publishing company rooted in Canada with an enviable stable of writers. Macmillan’s success, when read against the international backdrop of historic, economic, and cultural upheavals of the twentieth century, attests to the sustained commitment of the parent company in London and the support of the Macmillan Company of New York. It also exemplifies the drive and acumen of its presidents and editors – each of whom enriched the cultural life of Canada – and the allegiance of major novelists such as Hugh MacLennan, Robertson Davies, and W.O. Mitchell – to the publishers and editors who helped shape a culture of authorship for Canada. Macmillan’s triumph was clearest, however, in its meticulously edited, tastefully designed books and the enduring influence of such landmark works of fiction as Maria Chapdelaine (by Louis Hémon; translated

Introduction

9

by W.H. Blake, 1921), Who Has Seen the Wind (by W.O. Mitchell, 1947), The Watch that Ends the Night (by Hugh MacLennan, 1958), Fifth Business (by Robertson Davies, 1970), and The Moons of Jupiter (by Alice Munro, 1982). Macmillan championed a group of leading Canadian authors which included Stephen Leacock, Mazo de la Roche, E.J. Pratt, Grey Owl, Ethel Wilson, Donald Creighton, Morley Callaghan, P.K. Page, J.M.S. Careless, Mavis Gallant, Adele Wiseman, Alice Munro, and many others who were proud to be associated with the company. In 1967, late in the career of John Gray, he acknowledged that ‘the personality and the ethos of a publishing house are complex as a result of the trade’s mixed, and sometimes muddled purposes. Many houses swing unevenly between the clear-cut demands of business and the temptation to behave like a prestigious literary foundation. A Canadian publishing house’s personality is at once the cause and effect of its publishing policy (or perhaps that of a parent house in London or New York); changed by the inter-action of its own traditions and the attitudes of the senior executives and of the people they have gathered around them.’13 Gray’s incisive rendering of branch publishing and the fraught position of the Canadian publisher caught between the demands of foreign owners and those of his own constituency of authors and readers – to say nothing of his own professional aspirations – goes to the heart of this study. The practiced Gray knew the challenges facing the publisher who struggled simultaneously to satisfy the claims of his principals – to whom he was bound fiscally – serve the needs of his agents – whose books he represented and distributed – and develop an original domestic publishing program in an effort to negotiate a distinctive ‘personality’ for his firm. In light of his long career and the range of difficulties he overcame, usually with considerable panache, it is not surprising that he experienced publishing as ‘mixed, and sometimes muddled.’14 In view of the vast material available, my research into the Macmillan Company of Canada could have yielded any number of books – a business history, an examination of international copyright legislation and its effect on the firm, a study of audience/reader reception, an analysis of book design and illustration, to cite just a few possibilities. My training as a literary scholar instead has shaped this literary and cultural history of the Macmillan Company of Canada, which concentrates on the firm’s initiatives in original trade publishing. For much of the twentieth century, however, the publication of Canadian trade titles was underwritten by educational publishing that was fundamental to the growth of the book trade. Hence, this book also illustrates the impor-

10

The Macmillan Company of Canada

tance of educational titles to Macmillan’s financial profile and wide cultural influence – educational books reached into the classrooms and libraries of the country – to underscore the essential links between educational and trade publishing. Similarly, this volume’s focus on writers of prose and poetry is the result of my long-standing interest in Canadian literature. Like A.B. McKillop’s The Spinster and the Prophet: Florence Deeks, H.G. Wells, and the Mystery of the Purloined Past, which is equal parts publishing and legal history – much of it pertaining to a plagiarism suit implicating the Macmillan Company of Canada – and compelling biographical narrative – its dramatis personae include publishers, editors, authors, academics, lawyers, and judges – this volume crafts a publishing history centred on individuals working against the cultural backdrop of twentieth-century world events. It foregrounds literary production and the people who were in privileged positions to facilitate that production, for the personalities and achievements of Macmillan’s publishers and editors were as fascinating and exceptional as those of the authors they published. This book investigates the five presidencies of Macmillan, in particular the relations among the publishers, editors, and authors, both major and minor, who advanced a modern literature for Canada. Of necessity, the male presidents and editors at the helm of Macmillan occupy centre stage, but this study seeks to widen the historical canvas, which has tended to obscure the importance of women in Canadian publishing, to include, among others, a full consideration of Ellen Elliott, secretary to Hugh Eayrs, and Gladys Neale, head of the education department under John Gray. Elliott, for example, served as editor from 1940 to 1946 and successfully managed Macmillan during the difficult years of the Second World War, while Neale became one of the leading educational publishers of her day. Alongside male editors, I also probe the significance of female readers, including the poet Gwendolyn MacEwen, to Macmillan’s publishing program. My aim here is to extend knowledge of how large publishing companies such as Macmillan, with its contemporaries Ryerson Press and McClelland and Stewart, helped shape Canadian literary culture through their publishing programs and their influence on authors and readers. Like publishing historian Alistair McCleery, who endeavours to return ‘the publisher to book history,’ my work critically positions the ‘autonomous’ publisher as the ‘agent of change’ at the head of Robert Darnton’s communications circuit.15 McCleery believes ‘a more general erasure of the human from book history’16 has elided the publisher’s contribution

Introduction

11

to book production and literary culture. He also argues that the ‘prejudicial view’ of modernist writers influenced the contemporary contempt for the publisher as commercially driven and narrow minded, with little regard for ‘artistic integrity.’17 That much literary biography endorses this negative perception has served to further castigate the publisher. To denigrate or ignore the publisher is not only incorrect, however; in the case of such significant publishers as Macmillan, it is impossible. As McCleery does in his 2002 article on British publisher Allen Lane, founder of Penguin Books, this book studies the persons who successfully shepherded the Macmillan Company of Canada through the twentieth century, whose ‘decisions made a difference and whose career[s] merit … rigorous and dispassionate scrutiny.’18 It represents my attempt to understand the nature of ‘success’ in publishing, the ‘role of the one agent at the center of the [communications] cycle, the publisher,’19 and to show the profound influence of the publisher on the cultural development of a nation. As a ‘newer academic specialism,’ publishing history is ‘still a significant gap in the perspective of many scholars.’20 Literary critic and book historian Carole Gerson articulates ‘the need to examine more fully the structural factors governing the creation of Canadian literary culture,’21 and asserts the corollary need for research on publishers’ archives as cultural repositories. Gerson endorses Wayne Templeton’s 1977 analogy of publishers as ‘architects of culture’ and his enduring claim that ‘a study of publishing in Canada is not so much a survey of Canadian publishing as a statement on Canadian culture, of which publishing, writing, and national self-awareness become points of a vital triangle of mediation with publishing at the apex. A nation’s self-awareness, in the cultural context, is created by writers … a nation’s literature in turn is created by publishers.’22 This work, by illuminating Macmillan’s essential role in encouraging numerous authors and fostering a modern literature for Canada, aims to underscore the centrality of publishing and publishers to Canada’s cultural enterprise and national imaginary. ‘The makers of books are generators of meaning,’ asserts publishing historian Andrew Nash, ‘and the meanings they generate influence the meanings taken by different readers even if they will never wholly encompass them.’23 In 2000 the scholarly journal Studies in Canadian Literature published a special issue titled ‘Canadian Literature and the Business of Publishing.’ In their introduction, editors Jennifer Andrews and John Clement Ball admitted: ‘It is fair to say that without our indigenous publishers, and the companies and authors they have nurtured, we would have nothing

12

The Macmillan Company of Canada

like the Canadian literature we know today. Yet as academics we tend to take much of their work for granted.’24 This book attends to that neglect. It seeks to elucidate Macmillan’s publishing practice and its influence among authors and readers to show that between 1905 and 2002 Canada’s literary aesthetic and culture were conceived and created as much by the men and women of the Macmillan Company of Canada as by the writers they published. II My work on this literary and cultural history of the Macmillan Company of Canada has entailed extensive research in several Macmillan archives. From 1905, when it opened in Toronto, until 1973, when it was sold to Maclean Hunter, its British parent in London owned the Macmillan Company of Canada. Until 1956, the New York company also held shares in the Canadian branch of Macmillan and for many years oversaw its operations. Hence, any analysis of the Canadian company requires a deep understanding of its tripartite nature that can only be achieved through careful archival investigation. In 1990, book historian Warwick Gould called the Macmillan and Company archive – ‘incomplete as it is’ – ‘the finest publisher’s archive in the world.’25 My own experience of research in the British archive corroborates Gould’s large claim for the status and significance of this particular publisher’s archive. Macmillan and Company’s archive is dispersed, housed primarily in the British Library and the University of Reading, with more recent material remaining in-house at Basingstoke, England, the site of the Macmillan Group’s head office. The New York Public Library, the archival repository of the Macmillan Company of New York, also houses material pertaining to the original company in England and its branch operations. Finally, most notable for the purposes of this book is the branch archive of the Macmillan Company of Canada housed at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. My experience of working in the various Macmillan archives in Britain, New York, and Hamilton exposed what Gould describes as the scholar’s ‘impossible dreams of what an archive might contain’ and ‘hopes compromised by realities.’26 In practice, each Macmillan archive was developed and maintained in the interest of signalling the company’s importance as a cultural enterprise and its ideological preference for serious and enduring over popular and ephemeral works. In particular, my archival research unveiled the Macmillan Company of Can-

Introduction

13

ada’s high-minded commitment to cultural production. Extant archival artefacts also confirmed that my portrayal of the Canadian branch of Macmillan would be tenaciously resistant to alternative readings. A call for conference papers on the subject ‘The Archive and Everyday Life’ in 2010 describes an archive as operating ‘to contain, organize, represent, render intelligible, and produce narratives. The archive has often worked to legitimate the rule of those in power and to produce a historical narrative that presents class structure and power relations as both common sense and inevitable. This function of the archive as a machine that produces History – telling us what is significant, valued, and worth preserving, and what is not – is enabled through an understanding of the archive as neutral and objective (and too banal and boring to be political!). The archive has long occupied a privileged space in affirmative culture and, as a result … has been revered from afar and aestheticized, but not understood as a potential object of critical practice.’27 The archive of Macmillan and Company of London is an example of one such collection: culled and organized for express purposes, it is often extolled for its seemingly objective historical, cultural, and aesthetic riches. In 1965 the archive of Macmillan and Company for the period 1855 to 1939 was put up for sale by auction at Sotheby’s. Simon Nowell-Smith, whose Letters to Macmillan appeared in 1967, was commissioned to prepare the archive for auction. To maximize profit, Sotheby’s advised Nowell-Smith to cull the archive of material prior to 1939 that was not to be kept or sold, and to gather ‘major authors’ letters’ into ‘attractive and saleable lots.’28 This sale of a publisher’s archive was unprecedented, but it was not the first sale of Macmillan material. In 1957 the letters of Lewis Carroll had been sold to the Rosenbach Foundation (now the Rosenbach Museum and Library) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Nor was the Macmillan archive otherwise complete when it came into NowellSmith’s hands; correspondence dated from the 1850s only, when it began to be preserved in random fashion, and the letters of Tennyson were missing and had likely been destroyed. Through strategic categorization, Nowell-Smith managed to safeguard much material from destruction and assemble it into saleable bundles, while the University of Reading willingly accepted all correspondence that did not meet Sotheby’s criteria. In an effort to retain the integrity of Macmillan’s invaluable historical record, Nowell-Smith had tried to convince Harold Macmillan, then chairman of the company, to either give or sell the complete archive to

14

The Macmillan Company of Canada

the British Museum. He had also encouraged the British Museum to initiate discussions with Macmillan. Since neither party would accede to his urging, the unsavoury task of dismantling, sorting, and parcelling the archive took place. By June 1966, however, the British Museum had reconsidered its position and sought to purchase the Macmillan and Company archive, complete and intact. On 20 October 1967, in a rather ironic turn of events, the Museum’s Department of Manuscripts (now the British Library) became home to the Macmillan archive (up to 1939), but the record was neither complete nor intact since the archive that was acquired by the British Museum for its library was based on the material prepared by Nowell-Smith. Today, that archive is complemented by supplementary holdings at the University of Reading. In 1990 Macmillan offered a second installment of its archive, which covered the period 1940 to 1970, for sale through Sotheby’s. The British Library also acquired this material, which, like the earlier portion of the archive, had been culled and reassembled. That material now forms part of the larger Macmillan archive housed in the British Library. A substantive and historically recent portion of the archive remains inhouse at Basingstoke. In the United States, the New York Public Library is the key repository of the Macmillan Company of New York archive. In 1967 the Berg Collection of the New York Public Library acquired letters by Victorian theologians that date from 1852 to 1863. This collection of correspondence, which includes letters by luminaries such as Matthew Arnold, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Christina Rossetti, did not form part of the initial archives sale overseen by Nowell-Smith. In his article on the bibliographical significance of the Macmillan archive, William Fredeman speculates that these letters at one time ‘may have been segregated for some purpose.’29 In addition, the Macmillan Company of New York’s own correspondence files, which in 1966 were presented to the New York Public Library, contain significant material that bears on the complex relationship between the parent house in London, its New York office, and Macmillan branches worldwide. Finally, for the Canadian side of Macmillan a researcher must consult the archive of the Macmillan Company of Canada, one of several branches worldwide that operated under the aegis of Macmillan and Company in London. The Macmillan Company of Canada’s archive is one of many publishers’ archives housed at McMaster University. Under the direction of special collections librarians Bruce Whiteman and his successor Carl Spadoni, McMaster has become the leading repository

Introduction

15

of Canadian publishers’ archives. Today, book historians from all disciplinary backgrounds visit Hamilton to plumb McMaster’s riches. Fortunately, the Macmillan Company of Canada archive is largely intact, although by no means complete. Much is missing – critical items such as private correspondence, readers’ reports, and the majority of manuscripts, for example – but the archive remains an incomparable record of the company’s history, which spanned most of the twentieth century. These details, seemingly incidental, are presented here in barest outline for two fundamental reasons: one, to limn the connections that linked the London, New York, and Toronto offices of Macmillan; and two, to provide an overview of Macmillan’s complicated history of archival deposit. That history, which underwrites the challenges facing the intrepid scholar determined to research and write a cultural history of the Toronto branch of Macmillan, should underscore the general need for meticulous management of publishers’ archives. As book historian Robert Darnton recognized nearly three decades ago, when publishing history was an emerging field of inquiry, publishers have had a ‘key role’ in shaping literary culture and their papers remain ‘the richest of all sources for the history of books.’30 The researcher who consults the Macmillan archive in New York or Toronto will appreciate the guiding vision at the heart of each collection: the publisher’s decision to retain the integrity of its archive and present it to a single institution that honours its provenance. In contrast, as Fredeman laments, ‘the decisions taken regarding the London archive have in a very real sense violated a major collection of primary documents … Dispersed to four libraries on two sides of the Atlantic [the British Museum, the University of Reading, the Rosenbach Foundation, and the New York Public Library], and stripped of its chronological sequence, the Macmillan [and Company] archive can never again be consulted as a unified historical record.’31 Although this study officially began in April 2006 when I was awarded a SSHRC Standard Research grant in support of the project, I had already made extensive use of the Macmillan Company of Canada archive in connection with my earlier scholarship on Mazo de la Roche and Adele Wiseman whose novels were published in Canada by Macmillan. Previous experience had taught me that the material available in Hamilton, although comprehensive to a large degree, would lead to further research in various archives in North America and the United Kingdom. For my publications on de la Roche and Wiseman, for example, I consulted archival collections in the United States and Britain, including the Macmillan and Company archive in London. I recognized, however,

16

The Macmillan Company of Canada

that no amount of research would uncover the full, historical record, that archival inquiry was serendipitous in nature – one of its particular pleasures, in fact – and that it was incumbent upon me as an informed researcher to assemble a plausible historical analysis of the Macmillan Company of Canada out of the extant record and to account for the inevitable lacunae in that record. Scholarly study of the Canadian branch of Macmillan is supported by the wealth of archival material I have described here. In fact, the breadth and depth of research facilitated by the various Macmillan archives is rare, for publishing companies often neglect the state of their archives while attending to the day-to-day demands of business. In the course of my research, I have been struck repeatedly by the foresight and judgment evident in Macmillan’s assiduous preservation of its archival material. Hence, the discussion that follows should not be construed as jeremiad; rather, it aims to highlight the degree to which the Macmillan archives have been constructed out of their constituent parts to offer a coherent representation of the company. That representation of a publishing empire bound primarily to high moral principles reflected in serious works intended to improve its devoted readership is one I seek to complicate in this rendering of the Canadian branch of Macmillan. To do so has required significant scholarly effort. The Macmillan and Company archive in the British Library is a vast collection of material, both catalogued and uncatalogued. Prior to visiting London on two major research trips, I wrote to Jamie Andrews and Elizabeth James, the curators responsible for the Macmillan archive, requesting access to material relevant to the Canadian branch. My first extended trip proved exploratory in nature. I uncovered essential material pertaining especially to the closing years of the Toronto branch, when Hugh Kane was president of the company and was obliged to oversee its sale in 1973 to Maclean Hunter. Although it was always linked financially to London, the Toronto branch, for much of its history, functioned as an autonomous publishing house. After seven historic decades in operation, the Canadian branch was sold by Macmillan and Company; the difficult decision was largely financially driven. Since the transfer of Macmillan to the Canadian media conglomerate Maclean Hunter took place in Toronto, a researcher might expect to find in the McMaster archive a full record of the extenuating circumstances leading to the sale of the branch. Instead, the Canadian archive lacks crucial correspondence that records the decision to sell Macmillan and its purchase by Maclean Hunter. It was completely fortuitous, in fact, that my

Introduction

17

research in the uncatalogued portion of the Macmillan archive housed in the British Library uncovered the larger narrative surrounding the sale of the Canadian company. The sequestering of so essential a part of the Macmillan story was undertaken, ostensibly, to protect the interests of Macmillan and Company, which continued its operations in Britain and elsewhere, as it does today, albeit in a radically altered incarnation as the Macmillan Group. The scholar who does not probe beyond the details available in the McMaster archive might be misled to believe that the transfer of Macmillan to a Canadian concern was undertaken in the best interest of the Toronto branch, the public claim of its principals in London at the time of sale. It was only through international investigation and fortunate research findings that I have been able to contextualize and analyse the cultural significance of the 1973 sale of the company. My second research trip to London was made in conjunction with a conference on publishers’ series where I conversed with Elizabeth James, one of the curators of the Macmillan archive. Her guidance ensured that I was given access to key materials relevant to the Canadian company. Without her assistance, I may never have located seminal documents that I had always hoped to uncover during my research travels. I discovered important information pertaining to the dismissal of Frank Wise, the company’s first president; the untimely death of Hugh Eayrs, the firm’s second president; the circumstances surrounding the forced resignation of Ellen Elliott, a long-serving female editor; the complicated separation of the New York company from Macmillan and Company, and the impact of that break on the Toronto branch. Moreover, I accessed original documents used by McKillop in his groundbreaking work, The Spinster and the Prophet: Florence Deeks, H.G. Wells, and the Mystery of the Purloined Past, which recounts a high profile case of plagiarism that involved the Macmillan Company of Canada. All of this material was clearly private and shared only among the directors of the company. Its potentially incendiary nature likely led to strategic filing, another instance of archival sequestering. If not for my discussions with Macmillan curator Elizabeth James, the ready access she provided to material she knew intimately, and my determination to pursue various research threads, the private side of Macmillan – presidential misdemeanours, sexist company practice, and irreconcilable conflict between the London and New York directors; in other words, the more tantalizing details – may still be concealed in the British Library. My research in the Macmillan archive held in the New York Public Library was similarly rewarding. Due to the connection that existed

18

The Macmillan Company of Canada

between George Brett Sr, president of the New York company, and Frank Wise, inaugural president of the Macmillan Company of Canada, the formative years of the Toronto branch are best evoked by archival material available in New York rather than Hamilton. For ten years, Wise worked in the New York office of Macmillan under Brett. Latterly, he was head of the education department, an extended apprenticeship that served him well in his role as president of the fledgling Toronto branch. It was Brett, in fact, who initiated the formation of a Canadian branch of Macmillan. From his vantage point as a proximate neighbour, he saw the potential in securing the Canadian market for Macmillan’s books. The parent company agreed with Brett’s assessment and the branch opened in December 1905 with Frank Wise as president. Had it not been for Brett’s trust in his employee – as significant a factor as Wise’s longtime connection with Macmillan and knowledge of American publishing practice – Wise would not have been appointed president. When Wise resigned in 1921, Hugh Eayrs was designated his successor, again upon the recommendation of Brett. The degree of influence Brett wielded with the directors in London and the extent and nature of his involvement in the Canadian company are only fully revealed through diligent examination of the Macmillan archive in New York. A researcher who relies exclusively on extant archival material housed in Britain and Canada might conclude that Brett’s connection with the formation, early success, and sustained development of the Toronto branch was secondary to that of Wise and his principals in London. In fact, Brett’s cooperation and advice were primary throughout Wise’s presidency and also well into the presidency of Hugh Eayrs. The scant material in Canada and Britain attesting to Brett’s (and subsequently his son George Jr’s) decisive but at times contentious association with the Macmillan Company of Canada marks a significant gap in the two archival records. Whether the gap was the result of archival culling cannot be determined, but the reasons for the imbalance in extant evidence are of less concern than the archival imbalance itself. Hence, for the scholar whose work must be as accurate and complete as possible, the Macmillan archive in New York is an indispensable resource; it affirms the strong links binding the three offices of Macmillan and offers an invaluable window onto the tripartite character of the Macmillan Company of Canada. Moreover, it highlights the early alliance between the American company and its Canadian cousin. Of the several repositories, the Macmillan Company of Canada

Introduction

19

archive at McMaster University is the most comprehensive, comprising nine accruals. Although it is an immense archive that includes material dating from 1897 to 1996, as I have noted it lacks key documents that may only be accessed in Britain and New York. The result is a striking absence of detail, which has been one of the ironic challenges of this project. The archive in Hamilton also lacks material that was permanently lost or scrapped – John Gray admitted in 1970 that the company ‘destroy[ed] an awful lot of paper’32 – and that absence, to some extent, has dictated the scholarly focus of my work on Macmillan. Given my particular interest in textual and editorial matters, for example, I lament the paucity of manuscripts in McMaster’s collection. Moreover, manuscripts are often unique sources of primary details, including editorial modifications, the reasons for editorial changes, the responsibilities and personalities of editors, and exchanges between editors and authors. The absence of manuscripts has meant the loss of information that could elucidate the daily operations of Macmillan. Further, since much editorial work was undertaken by women – I am also deeply invested in establishing and analysing the role of women in English-language book publishing in Canada – I am especially troubled by the small number of manuscripts in the McMaster archive. The Canadian archive also lacks a comprehensive collection of readers’ reports, another resource that could unveil the nature of women’s important work at Macmillan. Since manuscript assessment was regularly undertaken by women readers, both in-house and freelance, a complete record of their reports would likely reveal much about their worlds, both professional and personal. An extant cache of readers’ reports from the 1950s and 1960s, for example, illuminates the compelling ways in which Macmillan’s cultural and literary values were espoused by its readers – male and female – and transmitted through their reports. If only more such documents existed to deepen and extend my understanding of the editorial work undertaken at Macmillan, particularly by women. As I conceded earlier, however, lament does not drive this preamble. I recognize my privileged position as a scholar who has had access to a staggering quantity of primary material on which to base this study of the Macmillan Company of Canada. But my efforts were also hampered by the nature of the archival collections that served as the foundation for my work. First, the documentary record was formidable. Publishing history, as John Sutherland explains, ‘is very demanding. Dauntingly so. There are vast continents of data for the ambitious publishing historian

20

The Macmillan Company of Canada

to digest … [since] Publishing History suffers (the term is appropriate) from a surplus of what is often lacking elsewhere – primary materials.’33 Indeed, to synthesize a pointed narrative out of the immense archival record pertaining to the Macmillan Company of Canada was no mean task. Second, each archival collection – its contents and organization – was shaped to reflect the core values of Macmillan as a long-established, highly respected publishing company known for producing serious works, usually of high moral tenor, meant to enrich readers’ experience of the world. The result was an ideological bias embedded in each archive that I struggled to overcome. Finally, each collection lacks material that might facilitate a reading that counters the traditional view of Macmillan. The want of such evidence delimited my attempt to offer an alternative reading of Macmillan – although this introduction should convey the force of my determination to forge a nuanced account of the Macmillan Company of Canada. As Sydney Shep notes, ‘research follows [the archival] record,’ and Antoinette Burton affirms, scholars must engage ‘with the limits and possibilities of the archive as a site of knowledge production, an arbiter of truth, and a mechanism for shaping the narratives of history.’34 Akin to a puzzle, this project has straddled three countries, multiple archival repositories, and countless artefacts. While many pieces fit together neatly to form a coherent narrative, there remained many stray parts. Those stray parts intrigued me deeply and steered my research trajectory; to the extent possible, they also inform this cultural and literary history of one of Canada’s premier publishing houses of the twentieth century.

1 The Rise of Macmillan 1905–1921: Frank Wise

Frank Wise: Macmillan’s Founding President Frank Wise’s term as first president of the Macmillan Company of Canada spanned fifteen years, from 26 December 1905 to 2 February 1921. From the outset, Wise understood that his responsibility as publisher was as much custodial as it was to satisfy the agency needs of the parent company in London and its affiliate house in New York. Wise sought to serve the interests of Canadian readers and indigenous culture. He used the advantage of Macmillan’s cultural inheritance to build a strong educational division for the Canadian branch and encourage a fledgling literary culture for Canada through a publishing program that included works of history, fiction, and poetry that, in large part, was supported by profits from textbook sales. In the first two decades of the company’s history, Macmillan’s literary aesthetic and culture, which endorsed serious, moral works over popular, ephemeral writing, were conceived and created as much by Wise as by the books he published. Wise’s strategic and vital role in advancing indigenous literary culture, although preliminary, underscores the centrality of Macmillan’s early publishing program to Canada’s cultural enterprise. In late 1905, Frank Wise arrived in Toronto to establish the Canadian branch of Macmillan. The company was incorporated on 15 December 1905 with $20,000 in capital, a staff of three or four, and a supply of books issued by Macmillan of London and New York. New York president George Platt Brett Sr had recommended the formation of a Canadian branch and the appointment of Wise as president, at an initial salary of $2,500 (by 1913 his salary was $6,000). For more than ten years, beginning in April 1895, Wise had worked for the New York office and

22

The Macmillan Company of Canada

Brett had had ample opportunity to assess his employee’s potential to effectively manage the newly formed branch. The first directors of the Macmillan Company of Canada included Wise, Toronto lawyer Robert L. Johnston, George Platt Brett Sr, Frederick Macmillan, and George Augustin Macmillan. To rectify his inadvertent omission from the board, Frederick Macmillan’s brother Maurice was elected director on 13 August 1906. As primary shareholder, Macmillan and Company of London owned fifty and one-half shares in the Canadian branch. Given the proximity of New York to Toronto, however, Brett was designated overseer of Canadian operations. Management of the company was left to Wise, while Brett – whose knowledge of the Canadian book trade and copyright legislation was superficial – agreed to offer ‘advice and direction from time to time.’1 In 1890, upon the death of his father, George Edward Brett, George Platt Brett Sr had become manager of the Macmillan Company of New York. Brett inherited a successful publishing company with an annual business in 1890 of approximately $50,000.2 Over the course of his long career – his presidency spanned 1896 to 1931 – Brett’s commanding personality, driving ambition, and business acumen ensured the remarkable growth of Macmillan New York. Described by his publishing colleague William Targ as a ‘bantam rooster of a man’ – ‘short, stocky, proud’ with a ‘thrusting chin’ – Brett was perceived as a ‘father-figure’ and ‘the best all-around publisher in American publishing history.’3 A consummate professional, Brett was ‘interested in every detail of his domain, including the royalty terms of every contract drawn by his firm … [H]e kept his own counsel, conspired secretly, and acted with sound business judgment, literary taste, and a warm humanity.’4 Harold Latham, a director of the New York company, corroborates Targ’s depiction of Brett as highly influential: austere and autocratic, he was a man of great integrity who ‘lived publishing’ and belonged ‘among the really great in his field.’5 That Wise was judged worthy of the position of first president of the Canadian branch of Macmillan attests to the quality of his work undertaken under the watchful eye of Brett. It also affirms Brett’s positive assessment of Wise and the trust he placed in his long-time employee. Despite his loyalty to Britain – which made Brett uncomfortable – and a tendency to try the patience of colleagues with his obstreperousness, Wise rarely disappointed Brett’s faith in him. In grooming Wise for the position of president of the Canadian branch, Brett had emphasized the importance of maintaining Macmillan’s publishing standards and literary reputation. As he once articulat-

The Rise of Macmillan 1905–1921

23

ed for Wise, the company ‘stood for something better than the usual run of published books … [and] the Macmillan name … stood for superiority in manufacture over most of the other publishing houses.’6 Brett’s comment resonates in Macmillan scholar Elizabeth James’s assessment of a ‘large, well-organized operation’ whose ‘imprint had a reputation for quality.’7 Wise’s inheritance as first president embraced much more than the parental name and the powerful cultural influence attached to the Macmillan imprint. It also included Macmillan titles published in London and New York and a significant number of agency agreements, among them E.J. Arnold and Son, Adam and Charles Black, Bohn’s Libraries, Cambridge University Press, Constable, J.M. Dent, and James MacLehose and Sons. London and New York had arrangements with these foreign houses to distribute their books in Canada. Previously, two Toronto publishers had acted as agents for Macmillan. Copp Clark had represented Macmillan and Company of London, while the successful George Morang had represented the Macmillan Company of New York. The new Toronto branch took over representation of both parent and affiliate houses. Brett, in particular, sought to secure the Canadian market for himself and conceded that the ‘intention was, in establishing the Canadian house, to work thoroughly in that market our many and important new books.’8 From London, Frederick Macmillan reinforced Brett’s position and offered Wise cautionary advice: ‘You say something about the necessity of having money in hand in case some profitable publishing venture came in sight, but as to this I may say at once we should be more than a little surprised and displeased if you embarked on any “publishing venture” of importance without first consulting us. The primary business of the Macmillan Company of Canada is to sell the publications of the New York and London houses, and the only kind of publishing which ought to originate in Canada is the production of school books authorized by one or other of the Provincial governments.’9 The Canadian branch of Macmillan was conceived and established as an agency to distribute foreign books in the local market. As George Parker explains, Canadian ‘agents promoted their principals’ books, for which the contracts, editing, design, production run, royalties, and occasionally the Canadian marketing were decided elsewhere. Normally Canadian publishers held only Canadian rights for foreign and Canadian authors because British and American publishers … retained world rights … Foreign publishers preferred to export manufactured books to

24

The Macmillan Company of Canada

colonial markets because it was more cost effective than printing copies in Canada that could be sold only within Canada.’10 Brett and Macmillan assumed ‘that the Canadian branch would follow in the tradition of the parent company’11 and they sought to restrain Wise’s ambitions. A study of the early years of the Macmillan Company of Canada by publishing historian Danielle Hamelin, however, ‘reveal[s] a company searching for a distinctive character and purpose, rejecting the limited role of simply transmitting a culture created by others, and groping towards a way of responding more adequately to the needs and tastes of the Canadian market.’12 The early twentieth century was a heady time for Canadian publishing. From the mid-1890s to the First World War, as Parker notes, fourteen publishing houses were established in Toronto, the centre for English-language publishing in Canada.13 Many branch-plant operations – including Oxford University Press (1904), Cassell (1907), Hodder and Stoughton (1911), J.M. Dent (1913), and Thomas Nelson (1913) – and new companies – such as McLeod and Allen (1901) and McClelland and Goodchild (1906) – sought access to Canada’s educational market. Macmillan scholar Eli MacLaren reads the expansion into Canada as part of the continual growth of Macmillan New York, which by 1907 included a subsidiary office in Chicago and agencies in Boston, Atlanta, and San Francisco, and he posits several reasons for the establishment in December 1905 of the Toronto branch of Macmillan: the opportune moment of increased industrialization in Ontario, which coincided with an unprecedented boost in the Canadian economy; the chance to compete for newly available government contracts to publish Ontario textbooks; and, perhaps less significant, a desire to be rid of Wise, whose ideological attachment to Britain Brett may have perceived as a potential threat to his New York business.14 MacLaren goes on to describe the ways in which Brett helped launch the Canadian branch. For the first two years of operation, for example, Brett provided the Macmillan Company of Canada with books on consignment and unsold books could be returned without penalty. From 1908 onward, he agreed to sell Wise stock at 5 per cent off the wholesale price and he provided presentation copies of books free of charge.15 In return, through Wise’s painstaking efforts to win government textbook contracts, the directors in New York and London hoped to secure as much as possible of the Canadian market for their educational and trade books. Frank Wise was born on 15 June 1868, the second of ten children and

The Rise of Macmillan 1905–1921

25

the eldest son of George Wise and Elizabeth Ann Knowles. Wise was raised in Boston, Lincolnshire, England and educated at Boston Grammar School. He immigrated to the United States as a young man and, until the age of twenty-seven, worked in banks as a clerk and cashier and on the Kansas City Times, both on advertising accounts and as a reporter. In April 1895 he joined the Macmillan Company of New York, where he worked for more than ten years and latterly was head of the education department, an extended apprenticeship that served him well in his position as president of the Canadian branch. In New York, Wise sang baritone in the choir of the French Church of St Esprit. On 28 October 1898 he married Hilda Johnson of Rahway, New Jersey; she died the following year, soon after giving birth to their daughter Margaret. At the time of his appointment as president of Macmillan, Wise was ‘dapper in appearance … a balding man of white shirts, dark suits, and tie pins. His short eyebrows, light eyelashes, and hooded eyes gave him a dignified but at times melancholic look.’16 The walls of Wise’s first Toronto office were lined with ‘literary treasures.’17 Located in the Clarendon Building at 25–27 Richmond Street West, a building shared by the Canadian branch of Oxford University Press – Richmond Street was known among the trade as Booksellers Row – the office was tastefully appointed with ‘dark-stained wood and dark green paper, with office furniture and rugs to match.’18 Wise was a member of the Empire Club, the National Club, and the Royal Canadian Yacht Club; he and his new wife, Gertrude Sargent of Kansas City, Missouri, lived mid-town at 191 Madison Avenue and soon became involved in Toronto’s social life. Cultural theorist Pierre Bourdieu analyses the position of the publisher as ‘cultural businessman’ who ‘consecrates a product which he has “discovered” and which would otherwise remain a mere natural resource; and the more consecrated he personally is, the more strongly he consecrates the work.’19 Wise understood that a trade list of important Canadian books – thoughtful works of contemporary relevance – would consecrate his position among the country’s ‘intellectual elite,’20 and he went to great lengths in his professional and social life to secure that position of privilege for himself. Wise ‘made useful contacts in business, government, and … departments of education,’ met regularly with ‘school boards, teachers, and authors,’21 and knew members of the press across Canada. He also served for three years as chair of the book publishers’ section of the Toronto Board of Trade, the main professional body of the Anglo-Canadian book trade. Wise’s determination to develop a Canadian trade list should not be interpreted, however, as

26

The Macmillan Company of Canada

merely self-serving. Archival evidence, as well as the published record, confirms that Wise was an ardent proponent of Canada’s burgeoning nationalism; his interest in local politics and cultural identity, heightened by the First World War, reflected a personal and public engagement with Canada that was both deep and genuine. As one of Canada’s first publishers, Wise’s material legacy remains the educational and trade titles originated by the Macmillan Company of Canada between 1906 and 1920, several of which are discussed later in this chapter. During much of his presidency, however, Wise wielded a broad cultural influence. As early as 1906, for example, soon after his arrival in Toronto, he was called upon to testify at the 1906–7 Ontario textbook commission, which was mandated to study the prices and quality of contemporary school books. Among agency publishers in Canada between 1910 and 1920, Wise ‘was perhaps the most knowledgeable … on copyright matters’22 and an outspoken advocate for copyright reform. In a provocative article, published in the October 1911 issue of University Magazine and in pamphlet form by George Morang, he argued against the inclusion in revised copyright legislation of a manufacturing clause, intended to protect only those books manufactured in Canada. By 1911 Wise knew first-hand the prohibitive costs associated with producing original editions and the impossibility of recouping those costs within the small and dispersed Canadian market. He also decried the northern flow of books published in the United States, which functioned to undersell books issued by royalty-paying Canadian publishers. Wise may have had an understanding of copyright practice, but, as MacLaren argues convincingly, it took him many years to fully grasp and comply with the imperial Copyright Act 1842 and the Canadian Copyright Amendment Act, 1900, legislation meant to protect the Canadian publisher who secured a licence from a British copyright owner to reproduce work in Canada, and which ought to have governed his original publishing ventures from 1906 onward. Regardless, Wise perceived the vulnerable position of the Canadian publisher in relation to large British and American companies and he articulated that position for colleagues in the book trade, government officials, and laypersons alike. Wise was well respected as a Toronto publisher, public speaker, and advocate for improvement in copyright legislation. He also wrote articles that appeared in Canadian, American, and British newspapers and book trade publications, including the Montreal Gazette, the Globe, the

The Rise of Macmillan 1905–1921

27

Winnipeg Telegram, Bookseller and Stationer, and Canadian Bookman; the Chicago Tribune and the Nation; and the Times. Wise addressed such subjects as the importation of books to Canada; the influence of American books, newspapers, and magazines on Canadian readers; the market for books in Canada; and the role of the publisher in fostering Canadian literature.23 He even tried his hand at satirical poetry. Wise’s desire to strengthen ties between Britain and Canada was expressed in his articles and various activities. Along with two prominent correspondents, historian George MacKinnon Wrong and journalist John Stephen Willison, for example, he was associated with the Round Table movement, ‘study groups organized between 1909 and 1911 in England and the Dominions to examine imperial issues.’24 The movement published a quarterly magazine, The Round Table, and study groups met to discuss members’ papers that probed the relationship between Britain and Canada. Wise served on the governing board of the British Welcome League and was the Toronto representative for the Central Emigration Board of London, which encouraged emigration to Canada. He helped organize the Bureau of Municipal Research – he served on its board and council – as well as the Citizens’ Research Institution of Canada. He was also a member of the Navy League and the Canadian Political Science Association, a national organization that gathered to study problems of Canadian society. In November 1918 Wise and several other publishers, including Samuel B. Gundy of Oxford University Press Canada, John McClelland of McClelland, Goodchild and Stewart, and George J. McLeod of McLeod and Allen, established the World of Books, a monthly periodical that promoted contributing publishers and advertised their books. Although it was short-lived – World of Books ceased publication in February 1920 – Wise’s participation in the project shows the range of his interests and the depth of his involvement in Toronto’s publishing circle. Loyalty to Britain and a deep knowledge of Macmillan suited Wise to the position of first president of the Macmillan Company of Canada. He did not feel inhibited by either the constraints imposed by the parent company or its significant cultural influence. Despite his long residence in North America, he ‘remained fiercely proud of his British heritage’ and openly endorsed the cause of British imperialism; as he announced to the book trade at the time of his appointment, ‘I am glad to get back under the Union Jack again.’25 Under the Macmillan Company of Canada imprint, Wise published his own pamphlet, The Empire Day by Day (1910), subtitled A Calendar Record of British Valour

28

The Macmillan Company of Canada

and Achievement on Five Continents and on the Seven Seas. His citizenship and connection to the parent and affiliate houses of Macmillan did not prevent him, however, from embracing Canada’s burgeoning nationalism and recognizing the publishing opportunities the country offered. In the excitement of inception, for example, he proposed as ‘motto for the Canadian branch … “Canada pro Canadienses.”’26 Although he later dismissed this ‘fit of banter,’27 the proclamation suggests the appeal Canada held for Wise, an appeal that would increase significantly over the course of his career as publisher. Wise and his colleagues in the book trade were inspired by the open frontier of publishing that greeted them upon arrival on Canadian soil. The freedom to negotiate a largely uncharted literary landscape and the opportunity to affect the cultural development of a vast country with a growing population of slightly over six million was invigorating. As Wise would soon come to realize, however, his own agency as publisher of the Canadian branch was marked by the Macmillan name, for better or worse. In the first instance, the name brought several advantages. The impress of an established business and the long-term stability associated with Macmillan and Company of London extended to its new branch and Wise benefited from the support of local financial institutions, primarily the Dominion Bank. Wise could rely on the advice of experienced colleagues in London and New York to guide him in his Toronto venture. Finally, Macmillan was ‘a known, recognized name,’ as Bourdieu explains, ‘implying a power to consecrate objects [namely books] (with a trademark or signature) or persons [such as authors] (through publication, exhibition, etc.) and therefore to give value, and to appropriate the profits from this operation.’28 Publishing scholar Shafquat Towheed ties Macmillan’s ‘cultural and material worth’ to its entrenched ‘brand’ of ‘respectability,’ articulated most potently and succinctly by Frederick Macmillan himself: ‘I am proud of my firm and jealous of its good name.’29 To members of the local book trade, the establishment of the Toronto branch of the well-respected Macmillan, alongside other branch-plant operations, was ‘evidence of the growing importance of the Canadian field in the eyes of English publishers’30 and signalled the rise of national publishing. Canadian authors, including Stephen Leacock, for example, sought publication by Macmillan, an imprint that carried significant cultural capital and consecrating power. As Carl Spadoni has described in a foundational essay, Leacock understood that successful Macmillan books, those that proved both culturally influential

The Rise of Macmillan 1905–1921

29

and remunerative, would profit publisher and authors alike. Although Macmillan did not publish Leacock’s work until 1926, the author’s early correspondence with Wise regarding a possible book on Canadian tariff serves to underscore the cultural value Leacock – along with other local writers – recognized in the Macmillan Company of Canada imprint.31 The powerful Macmillan name also worked to constrain the development of the Canadian branch, however. The directors in London and New York, the ‘prestigious sponsors’32 of consecrated works, did not look favourably on Wise’s desire to build a list of Canadian titles. Macmillan books produced in London and New York dominated Wise’s publishing program and he was required to promote them across Canada, where often they were received with hostility or indifference. The majority of Canadian booksellers and readers were ‘apathetical to things English and also to things American’ and Wise discerned that it was ‘not possible for any publisher, large or small, to make over the taste of the people.’33 He further recognized ‘the perils of propinquity’34 – Canada’s geographical and cultural closeness to the United States – and sought to mitigate the pervasive literary influence of so powerful a neighbour through his own articles on the subject and the books he published under the Macmillan Company of Canada imprint. His ability to produce original domestic books was curtailed, however, by the very agency commitments, such as Bohn’s Libraries, J.M. Dent, and Cambridge University Press, which helped sustain the Toronto branch. Moreover, since much of the profit generated by the Toronto company was distributed among shareholders, there was little money available to produce Canadian books. Equally significant was the impracticable expectation that the president of the Canadian branch conform to Macmillan’s business ethos of professional behaviour governed by traditional moral values. For a man of Wise’s temperament – irascible, bold, and shrewd, further characterized by Parker as ‘long-winded, argumentative, and defensive, inclined to annoy his authors and booksellers’35 – and situation – the head of a new publishing company in a highly competitive and dispersed market – that mandate was anathema. Wise’s difficult personality was evident early in his tenure as publisher of the Canadian branch and his predilection for derision, defensiveness, and aggressive business tactics only increased over time. An insulting depiction of James L. Hughes, Ontario’s leading inspector of schools – chief ‘of all the blatant wind-bags who monoplane through the heavens of theory without touching even the high pots of practi-

30

The Macmillan Company of Canada

cal earth’36 – exemplifies Wise’s capacity for perfidy. A demanding colleague, he took for granted the privileges accorded him by his principals. Forceful and impatient, he complained vociferously about billing practices and the difficulties associated with shipping books from London and New York to Toronto. He expected immediate responses to his numerous queries and was discourteous to the staff members who handled his requests. Moreover, when salesmen and booksellers provoked his ire, Wise retaliated by withdrawing their supply of Macmillan books. Macmillan employees and professional associates alike bore the brunt of Wise’s lack of decorum. Eventually his reputation – founded on his ability to quickly establish a sound and impressive publishing business and his participation in public life – was so tarnished that several of his trade associates filed complaints with his superiors in London and called for Wise’s dismissal. Wise’s early success, however, won him the support of the directors in London and New York who tolerated his aggressive ways for many years. From the start, Wise envisaged his branch as distinctly Canadian. He perceived that Canadians were ‘very much interested in their Dominion, Provincial and local political situations’ and, if his principals permitted the publication of books on ‘these three situations,’ for example, he predicted ‘an enormous sale.’37 He declared himself ‘extremely anxious to build up this side of the business’38 and fully intended to do so. His early optimism, which may appear naive from our historical perspective, signals the degree of confidence he felt in his new undertaking. All that was required to ensure the successful launch of the Macmillan Company of Canada, he intuited, were books that appealed to Canadian readers. It would take a number of years, once a solid financial base had been built on a strong educational list, but Wise eventually would show that Canadian readers did, indeed, appreciate Canadian books. Only the Methodist Book and Publishing House (subsidized by its authors) and McClelland, Goodchild and Stewart made similar early commitments to Canadian publishing and issued volumes of poetry and prose. Two best-sellers, Robert Service’s Songs of a Sourdough (1907) and Nellie McClung’s Sowing Seeds in Danny (1908), were published by the Methodist Book and Publishing Company, for example, while McClelland, Goodchild and Stewart issued Lucy Maud Montgomery’s The Watchmen and Other Poems (1916) and Ralph Connor’s The Major (1917). On 1 July 1919, the trade division of the Methodist Book and Publishing Company was renamed Ryerson Press and one year later Lorne Pierce was hired as Ryerson’s literary editor.39 Pierce

The Rise of Macmillan 1905–1921

31

enjoyed an illustrious editorial career at the helm of Ryerson Press and collaborated with Hugh Eayrs, Macmillan’s second president, on a joint educational series published during the 1930s. Although Wise’s primary directorial relationship was with George Brett – his former employer for more than ten years, the driving force behind the establishment of the Canadian branch, and a source of invaluable counsel throughout their long association – he soon established a connection with Frederick Macmillan. Macmillan, who himself had served five apprentice years (from 1871 to 1876) in the New York office working under George Edward Brett, was head of the British company when Wise established the Toronto branch. Frederick Orridge Macmillan was the eldest son of Scots-born Daniel Macmillan who, along with his brother Alexander, established the house of Macmillan in 1843. Like George Platt Brett, Frederick Macmillan was born into a publishing family; both were natural bookmen who relished all aspects of the publishing business. Described by Shafquat Towheed as ‘almost certainly the single most influential man in the world of Anglo-American letters in the period,’40 Macmillan’s reach as publisher was impressive. He was instrumental in establishing the Publishers’ Association and served separate terms as its treasurer, vice-president, and president. The Copyright Act 1911 (UK) bore his influence, and he worked tirelessly throughout his career to protect the rights of authors and publishers, both within and outside the United Kingdom, including India where Macmillan ‘had a near-monopoly’41 on the textbook market. Macmillan is best remembered, however, for his part in crafting the Net Book Agreement, which took effect on 1 January 1900 and stabilized the British book trade. The Net Book Agreement allowed publishers to offer discounts to book retailers, but obliged them to sell books at a designated ‘net’ rate. This practice, which ensured the consistent pricing of books, also guaranteed the livelihoods of publishers and authors. Highly regarded both as a publisher and an individual – he was known as ‘even tempered’42 – Frederick Macmillan enjoyed a remarkably successful career founded on the respectable and gentlemanly values of his firm. J.C. Squire’s obituary in the Bookman offers a glimpse of ‘an ordinary man with ordinary men and a poet with poets. He was a businesslike publisher and rejoiced in being able, because of his commercial success in other directions, to publish occasional magnificent, unprofitable, justifying things … one might say that he was a jolly, kindly, chuckling gentleman who was the soul of honour and who loved Homer, Shakespeare, Pall Mall, and a good cigar.’43 Fred-

32

The Macmillan Company of Canada

erick Macmillan’s positive interactions with authors were the result of his congenial personality. That Frank Wise’s temperament did not match that of either Macmillan or Brett was a regrettable cause of conflict throughout his career. Setting up House Despite their different characters, Frederick Macmillan and George Brett were united in their interest in the Canadian branch. Both the London and New York companies were financially invested in the Macmillan Company of Canada, and Macmillan and Brett hoped to disseminate their respective books through the Toronto office. They were also deeply committed to Frank Wise and offered him regular encouragement and sound business advice. Brett’s periodic trips to Toronto established his position as overseer of the branch. His reports to London provided clear-sighted analysis of Wise’s business affairs and showed concern for the welfare of the Canadian branch. It was both inevitable and necessary that Brett would serve as conduit between London and Toronto, but it was difficult at times for Wise to occupy the middle position between two powerful directors. Wise courted success in an effort to win their approval and trust but he would also chafe under their supervision. Wise was exasperated, for example, by recurring complaints that the Toronto branch did not sell sufficient numbers of Macmillan books produced in London and New York – the branch’s raison d’être in the common view of Macmillan and Brett. Neither director would accept Wise’s explanation, founded on a deep understanding of the market, that Canadians were less interested in books by British and American authors. British writers showed differing tastes, an ‘ignorance of [Canadian] conditions’ and ‘local colour’;44 distaste for American writers was a by-product of anti-American sentiment which increased following the Reciprocity Agreement of 1911 and in the early years of the First World War when many Canadians grew wary of closer trading ties with the United States.45 Wise conceded, however, that writing by Canadians was often ‘of so local an interest that it would not pay a publisher in London or New York to produce it or even take a fair quantity if produced in Canada.’46 During Wise’s tenure as president, the few Canadian books issued by local publishers – at great financial risk – did not fare well in a small, diffuse market. To mitigate the risks associated with original domestic publishing,

The Rise of Macmillan 1905–1921

33

Wise undertook series publication, an effective means of establishing financial stability for a fledgling branch and securing a wide, at times captive, readership. An ardent student of publishing practice and former head of the education department in New York, Wise had learned from the parent and affiliate houses that educational series, when adopted by boards of education across the nation, could prove both lucrative and culturally significant. He also understood that readers were attracted to Macmillan’s series for their familiarity and the cultural authority wielded by the Macmillan imprint. As critic John Kijinski affirms, ‘that Macmillan was the publisher gave the general reader an assurance these books would present respectable, reputable treatments of the topics covered.’47 More important, however, was the powerful cultural influence of Macmillan’s numerous series, which ‘worked to establish for a wide readership a notion of a shared, organic English culture, one that united all citizens of the [British] nation regardless of class or region.’48 Throughout his presidency, Wise published educational series that sought to capitalize on his readers’ confidence in the Macmillan product and to similarly nurture a ‘shared, organic’ Canadian sensibility. As book historian Leslie Howsam points out, series publication has always involved constructing systems – she cites the Victorian examples of the Cornhill Library of Fiction, the Aldine Edition of the British Poets, and Redway’s Shilling Series – whose ‘sum of the collected books was greater than their individual parts.’49 Such systems, Howsam goes on to argue, were ‘invented and refined by publishers, in whose minds the marketing of books as commodities ranked equally with or above literary considerations. The launching of a series was an opportunity for entrepreneurship. It provided a focus for advertising, and standard formats made it cost-efficient.’50 Between 1835 and 1900 Macmillan and Company of London published a large number of series across several genres, including many literary, educational, and juvenile series. By late 1905, when the Toronto branch was established under Wise, Macmillan and Company was known for its long established, reputable series and its principals understood the economic and cultural value of series publication. Over the course of the twentieth century, the Macmillan Company of Canada issued a plethora of series. Some of the company’s early series undoubtedly had equivalents with the British company: Macmillan’s Literature series, the St Martin’s series (Classics, Literature, and Shakespeare), and the Macmillan War Pamphlets series, for example. The

34

The Macmillan Company of Canada

last of these had a Canadian offshoot in the Macmillan War Pamphlets (Canadian series). The bulk of Macmillan’s series were established for educational purposes, some for textbooks used in particular provinces, and they covered practically all curricular subjects. As Macmillan scholar Bruce Whiteman explains, in the early period ‘the majority of Macmillan [Company of Canada] textbooks … were English or American Macmillan books,’51 issued with cancel title leaves. Textbooks could prove lucrative, but they were also costly and risky to commission, illustrate, and publish. Hence, Wise acted expediently by putting his Canadian imprint on Macmillan books produced in London and New York. Wise’s earliest efforts as publisher were devoted to establishing a strong list of educational titles through series publication, for two key reasons. First, he required a secure financial base upon which to build his firm, and he knew that successful educational series showed considerable and consistent economic return over time. Second, although his primary obligation was to promote Macmillan’s educational titles published in London and New York, his superiors granted Wise the opportunity, tentatively at first, to issue books that had been sanctioned for use by provincial boards of education. His experience in the New York office of Macmillan had taught Wise that a superior educational list provided necessary financial security, and Brett urged ‘that no stone should be left unturned to capture this business, as the backbone of your sales must always … be formed from the sales of books for the schools; and the larger this department of your business is made the better for the stability of your sales and the possibility of continued profits.’52 Moreover, since Canadian publishing houses could not survive solely on trade books, profits from the sales of educational titles were essential to underwrite trade publication. Through his connections with teachers and textbook authors, university presidents and faculty members, as well as a close friendship with editor Andrew Macphail of McGill’s University Magazine, Wise was well positioned to judge the educational market in Canada. His contacts and public profile facilitated access to publishing contracts, which often were granted in Ontario ‘on the basis of a handshake between [influential] gentlemen.’53 The first books to carry the Macmillan Company of Canada imprint were, indeed, educational books: George W. Mitchell’s An Introduction to Latin Prose (1907), John Waddell’s A School Chemistry (1907), and H.S. Hall’s Junior Algebra for Schools (1908). Mitchell and Waddell were both Canadians. Mitchell was a professor of Classics at

The Rise of Macmillan 1905–1921

35

Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, and Waddell was a professor of Chemistry, also in Kingston. Neither book was produced in Canada, however. By 1908 the Macmillan Company of Canada had been awarded the Ontario contract to publish Hall’s Junior Algebra and, by 1909, the Ontario High School Laboratory Manual in Chemistry. As their title pages announced, the minister of education for the province of Ontario authorized these textbooks. Subsequent educational titles included L.H. Bailey’s Beginners’ Botany (1911), Grove Karl Gilbert’s High School Physical Geography (1912), and William C. Morey’s High School Ancient History (1912). Whiteman affirms that Wise ‘was remarkably successful in securing contracts for textbooks,’54 which helped establish a solid financial footing for the Canadian branch. Profits for 1906, Wise’s first year in business, amounted to $2,185.57. The next year saw an impressive profit increase to $8,114.98. By 1909, a mere two years later, profits rose to $17,814.33. By 1910, four years following its establishment as a branchplant operation, business had grown sufficiently to warrant construction of Macmillan’s own stately five-storey premises, with an above ground basement, at 70 Bond Street. The 27,000 square foot building was ‘faced grandly with stone’ and ‘featured an impressive extended stone archway above a wide entrance staircase.’55 Designed by the architectural firm of Denison and Stephenson, it cost just over $61,000 for land and construction56 and was named St Martin’s House after St Martin’s Street in London, where the British company had its premises. John Cameron Saul: Macmillan’s First Editor Throughout his presidency, Wise himself successfully pursued government contracts and, in 1912, he hired editor John Cameron Saul, an expert in securing textbook contracts in the western provinces. Saul had lived in Winnipeg from 1880 to 1902 and, as a law student and teacher, had established invaluable contacts among politicians and educators that he brought to his work in publishing. Between 1912 and 1919 Saul was editor in chief, responsible for the educational division. Possibly the most experienced editor in the country, Saul had a deep knowledge of Canada’s book trade. Aggressive and cunning, he facilitated Macmillan’s early success by procuring lucrative contracts for textbooks. As A.B. McKillop notes, Saul also originated approximately forty textbooks – at all school levels, in geography, history, and literature – that were sanctioned by provincial educational authorities.

36

The Macmillan Company of Canada

Ann Cowan and Jacques Michon point out ‘that the profession of authorship in Canada predates that of editor since … the publishers of [early] Canadian writing were largely found in the United States and Britain.’57 Saul was Macmillan’s first and perhaps most renowned editor and his presence at the company during its formative years, as it was struggling to establish a ‘house identity’ separate from the parent company in London and its affiliate house in New York, was fortuitous. As publishing historian David Finkelstein shows, literary/aesthetic value and material production intersect to form a publisher’s ‘house identity.’58 By the early 1920s, that identity, in the case of the Macmillan Company of Canada, was located in the nexus of ideological influence – as arbiter of cultural taste, Macmillan issued educational and trade titles of serious purpose – and commercial success – to sustain its publishing programs and cultural impact, the company sought to ensure fiscal profit by undertaking few risks. Throughout Wise’s presidency, however, the relative looseness of house identity – despite the inheritance of the Macmillan imprint and its cultural sway – gave Saul considerable freedom to exercise his keen judgment when negotiating government contracts to issue provincial textbooks, and when acting as editor on behalf of the Macmillan Company of Canada. Competition spurred Saul’s ambition and, while his business practices were dubious at times, he consolidated Macmillan’s educational division and established the company’s enviable reputation in the field of educational publishing. His ‘invisible hands … moulded the clay’ of the Macmillan ‘literary enterprise’ and his influence shaped its aesthetic ‘sensibilities.’59 Saul’s arrival at Macmillan in June 1912 was the result of the highly strategic – albeit protracted – acquisition of the Morang Educational Company by the Macmillan Company of Canada. Bookseller and Stationer hailed Macmillan’s coup as ‘one of the biggest deals which has ever taken place in the book business in Canada,’ and Whiteman describes the purchase of Morang as ‘unquestionably the most important occurrence’60 during Frank Wise’s fifteen-year term as president of the company. In 1888 the American George Nathaniel Morang arrived in Canada to establish the Toronto office of Appleton and Company; by 1899, he had incorporated his own firm and would soon become the country’s leading publisher of textbooks. Having secured profitable government contracts across the land, particularly in the West where his Alexandra Readers were widely adopted, Morang was recognized as having ‘the best Canadian list of school books.’61 By 1910, however, he had overextended himself and his financial situation was precarious.

The Rise of Macmillan 1905–1921

37

When Wise learned of these difficulties, he approached Morang with an offer to purchase the ailing firm. Wise’s initiative was motivated by the desire to acquire two of Morang’s prize assets: his textbook lists, which would secure the textbook markets of Ontario, Manitoba, and the West, and his editor in chief, John Cameron Saul. Renowned among Canadian bookmen, Saul had worked for Morang since 1902 as a salesman, manager of the education department, and editor. Wise hoped that Morang’s editor in chief might be persuaded to work his considerable skill to benefit Macmillan; as he later conceded, ‘it was chiefly to get Saul that we bought up the Morang business.’62 John Cameron Saul was born in Ottawa in 1869. He moved to Winnipeg in 1880, attended the University of Manitoba, and completed a Bachelor’s degree in 1887. Saul graduated with first class honours in modern languages, for which he was awarded the university silver medal. He went on to complete a Master’s degree in 1891. Following graduation, Saul read law with the firm of Munson and Allan and then taught English for eight years at Winnipeg’s Normal School, where he rose to the position of vice-principal. An abiding interest in literature, however, led to his decision in 1902 to join Morang as editor. The world of publishing was Saul’s natural domain. He could indulge his love of literature, which included detective fiction, and his passion for collecting books – an initial interest in Tennyson broadened and Saul eventually amassed a significant collection of the nineteenth-century poets. He also relished the unconstrained life of a travelling book salesman and the company of other bookmen. A tall man with a slight stoop, Saul wore a wild, untrimmed moustache to complement his unkempt hair, and ‘smoked at a pipe whose intermittent jets of smoke suggested smouldering anger or impatience rather than relaxed comfort.’63 He enjoyed golf, preferred ‘a high standup stiff collar with a straight tie,’ and had the congenial look of ‘a scholar or a bohemian.’64 McKillop describes Saul as ‘widely read, and he seemed to know every potential author, sales representative, librarian, provincial education department bureaucrat, and deputy minister of education in the country. His affable manner made otherwise reserved people open up to him. Saul possessed a knowledge of what was going on that others in the Canadian publishing industry could scarcely hope to approach, much less to surpass.’65 Given Saul’s rare ability to simultaneously market books and edit them skilfully, it is easy to understand why Wise would go to considerable lengths to secure his services for Macmillan.

38

The Macmillan Company of Canada

Extant correspondence between Frank Wise and his principals in London and New York suggests, in fact, that Saul facilitated the merger of Morang and Macmillan in ways that smack of subterfuge. Prior to the merger, for example, in a letter to Frederick Macmillan dated 9 June 1911, Wise referred to contracts and financial statements he had received from Saul for use in negotiations with Morang. Wise knew that securing Morang’s assets would ‘mean a great deal of hard work,’ but he believed the acquisition would ‘almost double our turn-over at the cost of only this small additional expense and … we should have gained an increased standing in Canada the value of which it would be hard to calculate.’66 Wise further noted that Saul had alerted him to imminent changes in the allocation of textbook contracts in the western provinces which could benefit Macmillan. Several possible reasons exist for Saul’s duplicity. First, and perhaps most important, was his awareness of Morang’s failing finances. A long-time employee of the Morang Educational Company, Saul was also personally connected to George Morang’s family and would have had an intimate understanding of the financial difficulties plaguing the company – accumulated debt over a number of years – and the private challenges Morang faced – having suffered a serious injury as a result of a fall in 1911, Morang’s capacity for work was curtailed. Saul, who knew that Morang hoped to sell his company to recoup some of his losses, was likely looking out for his own best interests by allying himself with Frank Wise at Macmillan. Saul also recognized the career opportunities presented by Macmillan. The chance to build Macmillan’s educational list in a highly competitive market for textbook contracts would have appealed to Saul, who enjoyed both the business and editorial sides of publishing. Moreover, Saul knew he had considerable expertise as a bookman, as well as valuable connections among politicians and educators, particularly in the West, to employ as leverage in his personal negotiations with Frank Wise. Finally, the cultural influence attached to the Macmillan imprint would not have been lost on the erudite and well-connected Saul, and he relished the possibility of joining the firm. ‘For some time,’ in fact, it had ‘seemed advisable’ to Wise to obtain Saul’s services for Macmillan and prevent him from joining ‘the force of any other concern.’67 Saul’s deep knowledge of Morang’s educational list, impressive editorial abilities, widespread connections, and sheer energy convinced Wise that Macmillan needed Saul to help chart the course he envisaged for the company, that of a major publishing house that would issue books of national relevance. Hence, when Saul

The Rise of Macmillan 1905–1921

39

revealed that he was bound by contract to remain with Morang for an additional two years and therefore would become the legal employee of Morang’s purchaser, Wise took matters into his own hands. From London, Frederick Macmillan issued the dictum that Wise should acquire Morang’s assets alone, not the firm’s liabilities. Unwilling to either delay the purchase or risk the loss of Morang to his rival competitor Nelson, Wise urged Saul to carry out his editorial work – and nothing more – from home. Even Saul’s wife Lilian, concerned that she and her family might suffer financially should her husband’s employer seek bankruptcy protection, was complicit in this scheme devised by Wise to encourage the sale of Morang to Macmillan. Wise admitted that he had conceived ‘this contemptuous programme’68 to force Morang’s release of Saul. Wise understood that, without Saul, Morang’s market value and the company’s appeal to potential purchasers would decline markedly. If Saul felt at all uncomfortable in his newly circumscribed position, he could only blame himself for Wise’s heightened interest in Morang. After all, if not for Saul’s efforts, Wise would know neither the private details of Morang’s financial woes, nor would he have been able to amass $115,000, the price the Macmillan Company of Canada paid in June 1912 for the Morang Educational Company – with further financial assistance from Norwood Press of Boston (which was owed money by Morang) and the New York house, making the total purchase price $270,951.84. Wise may have called it ‘a most disagreeable’ task, but the merger truly was ‘a major victory for the Macmillan fortunes in Canada,’69 as Parker affirms. Throughout their association, Wise regarded Saul as a partner rather than an employee. He paid the editor an annual bonus and promised him the security of a job for life. Although he remained on friendly terms with George Morang and his family, Saul immediately transferred his professional loyalty to Wise whose efforts to secure Saul’s services for Macmillan soon were rewarded. A description of his office provides a glimpse into Saul’s work habits and range of interests: ‘His desk was strewn with bulky files. A pile of manuscripts and folders threatened to topple from it. Books lay in disarray on shelves, organized in no obvious order. They were on all manner of subjects, from nineteenth-century poetry to histories of Russia. A pile of detective stories sat at the edge of the desk.’70 Wise learned that the disarray masked a dedication to work. Saul never spared ‘himself when there is any work to be done’ and, whether he was travelling or in Toronto, he regularly gave ‘up his nights, Sundays, and holidays’71 to complete projects. He was an insightful and scrupulous editor, whose marked-

40

The Macmillan Company of Canada

up pages showed attention to detail and an understanding of the student reader. Saul’s knowledge of Canada’s book trade surpassed that of Wise, who had arrived in Toronto in 1905 after more than ten years with the New York office of Macmillan. Saul knew the changing face of local publishing. As British and American companies began to invest in the local market, publication dates for Canadian books grew increasingly flexible, for example. He was realistic about profit margins from book sales and instructed Wise to abandon the ‘beautiful dream … that no expense whatever should attach to the publication of a book or the securing of its authorization.’72 He understood the competitive nature of the publishing business, which justified both capital expenditure toward book production, as well as his personal expenses while travelling west for the purposes of securing government contracts for textbooks. Certain in his position as senior bookman – in knowledge and Canadian experience, if not title – Saul expressed his strongly held views with particular candour. A discerning editor in chief, he knew an unwavering concern for the financial bottom line would reflect well on Macmillan’s president and branch operations. His knowledge also afforded him a privileged position in the trade that he was not loath to use to his own advantage – and Macmillan’s – when he deemed it necessary. Extant correspondence in the Macmillan Company of Canada archive offers a clear sense of Saul’s ventures during his years at Macmillan. Letters reveal Saul’s unmistakable grasp of the book trade, his ability to successfully market Macmillan’s books, and his executive skill in securing textbook contracts. Most striking is the amount of travelling Saul undertook on behalf of Macmillan. As a former resident of Winnipeg, where he had been both a law student and a teacher, he was especially well connected to educators and politicians in the west. The successful promoting of Morang’s books in the western provinces had been part of Saul’s appeal for Wise and, soon after the merger of the two companies in June 1912, Saul travelled west to ply Macmillan’s trade. Saul travelled regularly, visiting such western cities as Winnipeg, Moose Jaw, Regina, Saskatoon, Calgary, and Edmonton, in addition to Sherbrooke, Quebec, and nearby Boston. When business travel extended over several months, Saul was obliged to leave his wife and three children in Toronto. Happiest when he ‘was on the jump every minute’73 and invigorated by work, he was not unwilling to be apart from his family. Saul negotiated with authors, championed Macmillan over its competitors, and fought a number of hard-won battles over textbook contracts, all the while attending to the manufacture of many former

The Rise of Macmillan 1905–1921

41

Morang books and editing the Alexandra Readers, as well as numerous other titles, free of royalty payment. Along with the majority of Morang’s books, the merger had transferred to Macmillan Saul’s rare combination of drive, intellect, and practical connections, all of which served Macmillan well during his six years of hard work for the company. One of Saul’s most remarkable coups was a successful month-long bid in November 1913 to protect Macmillan from potential plagiarism by the rival firm W.J. Gage. In this highly politicized case, a former Macmillan author wrote a mathematics textbook for Gage. When the Gage and Macmillan books were shown to be similar in content, Gage sought to prevent circulation of the Macmillan text. At the end of a protracted battle, Saul could report to Wise from Winnipeg – earlier, Wise had urged his editor not to ‘mince matters with any of these people but make it a personal fight of your own’74 – that the Gage text had been judged by Manitoba’s educational advisory board to be a revised edition of the Macmillan book. Having successfully rallied support among educators and politicians in an effort to win the case, Saul could rightly assert that social alliances matter most ‘in the book authorization game,’ and that he ‘had not made a single mistake in the whole business.’75 Saul’s conduct in ‘the whole business’ would trouble neither Wise – as we have seen, Macmillan’s president sanctioned his editor’s pugilistic zeal – nor the Manitoba advisory board whose members ruled on cases of potential plagiarism. In 1913, when the Macmillan Company of Canada’s house identity – linked inextricably to its list of publications – was yet in its infancy, Wise deemed a solid financial footing, attainable only through successful educational publishing, more valuable than a guiding ethos of professionalism based on moral values and courtesy. Similarly, in the early part of the twentieth century, when Canada’s developing book trade was in the throes of adolescence, personal allegiances often trumped professional mores. Saul’s taste for conflict may have led to several inspired professional victories, but it was not good for his health. Just prior to his trip out west, for example, where the battle was waged between Gage and Macmillan, he became seriously ill on an extended business trip to Boston from July to September 1913. Whether Saul’s breakdown in Boston was the result of heat prostration, nervous anxiety, stress from overwork, or excessive alcohol consumption cannot be established. What is certain from extant correspondence, however, is that he worked feverishly while travelling on business – evidently the case during his lengthy stay in Boston, where he was editing several textbooks and overseeing their printing and binding – and that at least once in the past he had

42

The Macmillan Company of Canada

experienced severe fatigue and memory loss that left him in a similarly weakened state. While in Boston, Saul’s wife Lilian nursed him back to health; she also carried out some of the editorial work that had been delayed over several days. Wise accepted Saul’s explanation that he could not tolerate extreme heat and regularly suffered from heat prostration. Whether or not he believed his editor in chief is immaterial, however. In all likelihood, Wise was concerned more with meeting production deadlines and less troubled by Saul’s poor health. His persistent letters to Saul and secondary appeals to Saul’s wife suggest worry for his colleague’s wellbeing; they also belie a determination to secure information pertaining to the work Saul had been assigned in Boston. Macmillan’s success depended almost entirely on the timely production of textbooks for the educational market and, while Saul lay sick abed in Young’s Hotel in Boston, Wise was not about to sit passively at his Bond Street desk in Toronto; rather, he inquired, prodded, and urged Lilian Saul to travel to Boston – to attend to her husband and Macmillan affairs. In actual fact, Saul’s work on behalf of the company was exceptional, as Wise himself admitted to Frederick Macmillan in 1917: ‘I can only say that there is no one in Canada who can better get to the bottom of things than Mr Saul. I know this from his efforts on our behalf as well as by repute, and therefore I accept his advice in tote [sic].’76 Wise’s admiration for his colleague increased during their six-year partnership. He was particularly impressed by Saul’s penchant for work and uncanny ability to negotiate book deals to Macmillan’s advantage, a success due, in large part, to Saul’s charismatic personality that won him favour among bookmen. Hence, when the far less amiable Wise – who was known as aggressive and tactless – learned that Saul had accepted a position with a rival firm, he was understandably incensed. That Wise took his associate’s departure as a personal betrayal signals the degree of loss he felt. In all likelihood, Saul’s decision to leave Macmillan was prompted by Wise’s own behaviour. By 1919 Frank Wise’s term as president of Macmillan was coming to an inauspicious end as a result of fraud and gross mismanagement of the company. Not surprisingly, Saul, who would have intuited the seriousness of Wise’s misdemeanours, strategically chose to remove himself from impending scandal in which he could have been implicated. Saul’s timing was impeccable, for he left Macmillan just as the difficulties that would force Wise’s resignation in January 1921 began to escalate.

The Rise of Macmillan 1905–1921

43

In January 1919 Saul accepted a position with W.J. Gage, the same company he had subdued in the 1913 mathematics textbook éclat. Having lost that battle to Saul, Gage appreciated the skill of its newly hired editor. Wise well understood the extent of his own loss; however, feeling apprehensive about his increasingly tenuous position at the helm of Macmillan, he sought to lay blame for his troubles on Saul as defector. A campaign to discredit Saul served only to exacerbate the trade’s negative perception of Wise and further elevate the status of his former editor. Wise complained openly of Saul’s neglect of work, destruction of files, and false promises to authors, but he also conceded candidly that he had ‘always looked upon Saul as a life attachment for us, especially since he had been so instrumental in increasing our educational business.’77 Wise’s loss proved to be Saul’s gain, for he eventually rose in rank at Gage and, until his death in June 1939 at the age of seventy, remained one of the most important and colourful figures in Canadian publishing. His reputation as a bookman was not pristine but, unlike Wise who eventually was caught up in a criminal web of his own making, Saul eluded legal censure while steering the course of Macmillan’s fortunes. Between 1912 and 1919 – during his editorial reign, Saul secured valuable book contracts, edited and marketed numerous textbooks, and oversaw the educational division – Macmillan’s house identity was sufficiently fluid to accommodate his particular brand of intransigence. Saul was one of the most renowned editors to serve the Macmillan Company of Canada during its long history. His facility for procuring lucrative textbook contracts helped establish a solid financial base for the firm and advanced Macmillan’s reputation as an educational publisher. Unhampered by codes of professional behaviour that attach to a publishing company with an established house identity, Saul fulfilled his editorial role with particular zeal as he negotiated freely and exercised his critical judgment on behalf of Macmillan. As a result of his tireless effort, John Cameron Saul must be credited – somewhat ironically in light of his wily ways – with fostering Macmillan’s distinctive identity as a reputable publisher that respected and encouraged indigenous literary culture. Macmillan’s Publishing Program Following the 1912 acquisition of the Morang Educational Company, Macmillan’s publishing program expanded considerably. Wise

44

The Macmillan Company of Canada

announced his ‘intention to go in strongly for Canadian publications, both of an educational and general character,’78 and series publication began in earnest. The transfer to Macmillan of Morang’s invaluable educational lists – which Wise had coveted for years – is a striking example of ‘how often sheets, stereo-plates, binding cases and the titles of series moved between publishers.’79 Without the critical financial backing of the London and New York houses Wise would not have been in a position to purchase Morang, and he grasped the need to build Macmillan’s fortunes on the foundation of his newly acquired list of textbooks. Immediately, Wise set out to secure the trust of his superiors and repay a considerable debt, and he did so largely through series publication. Among the numerous Morang titles that Macmillan reissued in series format were Laurence H.J. Minchin’s The King Edward Music Readers, authorized for use in the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia; the Nova Scotia Readers, authorized for province-wide use; E.W. Hagarty’s Introductory Latin Grammar and First Latin Reader and David M. Duncan’s The Story of the Canadian People, titles in Macmillan’s Canadian School series; Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Tanglewood Tales, J.E. Wetherell’s Poems of the Love of Country, and John Burroughs’s Sharp Eyes and Other Essays in Macmillan’s Literature series; John Ruskin’s The King of the Golden River or The Black Brothers: A Legend of Stiria in Macmillan’s Eclectic series; Rudolph Baumbach’s Waldnovellen in Macmillan’s German Classics series; and Eugène Labiche’s Le Voyage de Monsieur Perrichon in Macmillan’s French Classics series. Wise supplemented these with additional titles that originated in Macmillan’s offices in London, New York, and Toronto. Of the many Morang titles acquired by Macmillan, the Alexandra Readers were perhaps the most successful. The Alexandra Readers was a series of primers prepared by W.A. McIntyre and the indomitable John Cameron Saul and authorized by the departments of education of Alberta and Saskatchewan. In 1900 Morang published the first Alexandra Phonic Primer and, by the time Macmillan inherited the series, the Readers had been ‘twelve years in use with practically no criticism.’80 No doubt, Saul’s own commitment to the project, both as editor and salesman, accounted for its continued success. When he transferred his professional loyalty from George Morang to Frank Wise, he also shifted his energy and ambition to the promotion of Macmillan’s books. Wise’s entrepreneurial skill, Saul’s editorial acumen, and a marketable series of educational titles combined to provide a solid financial base for the

The Rise of Macmillan 1905–1921

45

Toronto branch of Macmillan. Important series such as the Alexandra Readers and the Nova Scotia Readers, which were reissued regularly for classroom use, helped establish Macmillan’s role as an educational publisher, its reputation as a signal producer of textbooks, and ensured the company’s financial viability. Moreover, as Whiteman notes, Wise’s autonomy grew in proportion to the success of the Toronto branch: ‘The freedom to issue books of its own was only granted to the company by its directors because of Wise’s ability to make the Toronto branch financially successful in a very short time.’81 By February 1921, when Wise left publishing, the Macmillan Company of Canada had a flourishing list of series. Although educational titles provide financial stability, a publishing company’s aesthetic reach and cultural influence have always been tied to a trade list. Wise understood that literary reputation and cultural authority were intrinsically linked to the ideology of a publishing company and he set about articulating that ideology through a publishing program that included works of history, fiction, and poetry. An overview of Macmillan titles published under Wise unveils his desire to encourage and develop Canadian writing and publishing. That the directors in London and New York sanctioned the production of Canadian books, few though they were in number, was due to Wise’s publishing acumen. Through a series of trade books that bore the powerful Macmillan imprint and reflected his personal interests, Wise sought to establish his position as arbiter of literary values for a growing nation. Between 1906 and 1920, the Macmillan Company of Canada published a total of 217 titles, most of which were Canadian issues or joint publications of British or American books, including the work of such popular writers as Rudyard Kipling, H.G. Wells, and Jack London. In keeping with company policy, the thirty-one trade titles published during Wise’s presidency ‘had a serious purpose.’82 In an effort to improve ‘standards of reading,’ Wise was determined ‘to foster, to produce and to disseminate a native literature which shall be first of all good literature; second, typical of Canada and Canadian life and conditions, and third, not so local that it can interest only those who are acquainted with the locality in which the scene is laid.’83 The majority of Wise’s trade titles were works of history, economics, and biography, although he also issued one novel and one volume of poetry. Hamelin identifies four overarching themes linked to nationhood that shaped Wise’s list: ‘the Canadian past, the British connection, the [First World W]ar, and the nature of good citizenship.’84

46

The Macmillan Company of Canada

As early as 1908, Wise issued a work of history by University of Toronto professor George M. Wrong. As was frequently the case with early Canadian publications, the author himself assumed the printing costs for A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs: The Story of a Hundred Years 1761–1861, hailed as ‘a fascinating narrative of early days in Lower Canada’ that drew on ‘valuable historical material.’85 Two local histories by Walter S. Herrington followed: History of the County of Lennox and Addington (1913) and Pioneer Life among the Loyalists in Upper Canada (1915). A lawyer living in Napanee, Herrington was himself a descendant of United Empire Loyalists. The Globe ranked Herrington’s county history ‘with other books fit for a library in its perspective, its assemblage of interesting information, its form and its literary style.’86 Toronto lawyer William Hume Blake’s Brown Waters and Other Sketches (1915) recorded the author’s fishing and hunting expeditions in Quebec and celebrated the French Canadians he came to admire. Wise’s emergent nationalism was reflected in biographies of prominent Canadians, including George Etienne Cartier (1914), written by Montreal poet and journalist John Boyd; Isaac Brock (1918), a ‘compact’ and ‘readable account’87 written by Hugh Smithurst Eayrs, who joined Macmillan’s educational department in October 1916; and northwest explorers (1920), written by University of Alberta historian Morden H. Long. These books, first efforts to foster appreciation for Canada’s unique past and key historical figures, reflected Wise’s determination to shape the literary tastes of a growing readership. Early in his career he recognized that the staple fare of British and American reissues, a necessary and invaluable source of financial stability, worked to undermine the development of an indigenous literary aesthetic and culture. As Wise discerned, books that originated in Canada – however small their market – would build Macmillan’s reputation as a publisher of culturally relevant books for Canadian readers, and he undertook to make those books available. Wise’s positive view of imperialism also informed his list of trade titles, which included Colonel George T. Denison’s The Struggle for Imperial Unity: Recollections and Experiences, issued in 1909. A descendant of United Empire Loyalists and a Toronto police magistrate, Denison decried any form of union with the United States in favour of imperial federation. Unlike Wise, the Globe did not admire Denison’s brand of imperialism and derided the author for caricaturing those who do ‘not share his opinions … There is something doing all the time, and usually Colonel Denison is doing it. The real thing is the saving of the Empire.

The Rise of Macmillan 1905–1921

47

And the Colonel saved it.’88 In 1910, in an effort to rouse support for ‘the Empire … [from] her sons all over the world,’ Wise compiled and published his own pamphlet, The Empire Day by Day, ‘a good selection of … events which will inspire the mind with imperial achievements and ideals.’89 Other titles that supported imperialism included Lionel Curtis’s The Problem of the Commonwealth (1916), corporate lawyer Z.A. Lash’s Defence and Foreign Affairs: A Suggestion for the Empire (1917), and William Wood’s Flag and Fleet: How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas (1919). The Globe’s estimate of these volumes offers one measure of Canadian support for the imperialist cause during the war years. Although Curtis brought ‘a lucid and judicial mind’ to his subject, the Globe confessed to having ‘no heart at this time of crisis for the discussion of the great and far-reaching questions of Imperial reorganization … the Canadian people, confronted with a daily casualty list containing the names of hundreds of young Canadians … will [not] have ears for any topic not connected with the one supreme issue – the winning of the war.’90 Lash also wrote with ‘clarity and incisiveness,’ but his ‘evident desire to see Canada remain a nation’ contradicted his call ‘for control of Imperial defense and foreign affairs through a central representative Imperial authority.’91 Wood was taken to task for Flag and Fleet’s anti-American sentiment, which implied ‘an insulting insinuation of profiteering’ during the First World War;92 in direct response to the Globe, Wood revised two of three passages that had given rise to offence. Wise’s pro-war sentiment spurred his 1914 decision to print 40,000 copies of Edward Cook’s pamphlet Why the Empire Is at War: The Causes and the Issues, which provides reasons for Britain’s involvement in the First World War. The federal government purchased 10,000 copies for distribution through members of parliament, while the Saskatchewan government distributed 4,000 copies to colleges, schools, and businesses. A work of immense popularity in English, the federal government placed an advance order for 10,000 copies of the 1915 French translation, Pourquoi l’Empire est en guerre: naissance et développement du conflit.93 Two 1917 publications also supported the war effort. Colonel William Hamilton Merritt’s Canada and National Service argued that an improved military system and universal military training would foster national identity, and R.C. Wood’s The Soldier’s First Aid: A Simple Treatise on How to Treat a Sick or Wounded Comrade was published for the Canadian troops. In keeping with his burgeoning desire to use his publishing program

48

The Macmillan Company of Canada

to foster national consciousness, several of Wise’s trade titles were explicitly concerned ‘with the development in Canada of good citizenship.’94 James J. Harpell’s Canadian National Economy: The Cause of High Prices and Their Effect upon the Country (1911) analysed the economic impact of Canada’s protective tariffs. The Globe praised Harpell’s optimism and recommended the ‘trustworthy information on the practical and important subject with which he deals.’95 Clarus Ager’s The Farmer and the Interests: A Study in Economic Parasitism (1916) argued that Canadian farmers were being exploited by government regulations. In The Canadian Railway Problem (1917), E.B. Biggar advocated for state ownership of the national railways. With skilful accuracy and vigour, Biggar consolidated ‘a mass of the most readable and interesting data’96 to build his argument. From his informed perspective as a Calgary rancher and founding editor of the Farm and Ranch Review, ‘the first agricultural monthly in the west,’ C.W. Peterson addressed key political and social issues in Wake Up, Canada! Reflections on Vital National Issues (1919), a work of ‘enlightened patriotism’ made more attractive by its ‘striking’97 dust jacket, illustrated by Canadian artist R.E. Johnston. Macmillan’s early encouragement of good citizenship often took the form of didactic writing. John D. Hunt, clerk of Alberta’s executive council, wrote The Dawn of a New Patriotism: A Training Course in Citizenship (1917), a study guide designed for school and community use. Intended to educate readers in the principles of democracy and government structure, it urged them to become informed and engaged citizens. Hunt’s Democracy in Canada, issued in 1918, outlined the country’s constitutional history. Lydia Mary Parsons, identified as an official lecturer to women’s institutes, published Mrs Parsons’ Manual for Women’s Meetings (1918) as a means of introducing her female readers to business practice. The following year, Macmillan brought out The Young Men’s Parliamentary Guide – with the exception of the revised male pronoun, a text identical to Mrs Parsons’ Manual for Women’s Meetings. That Wise saw fit to publish one novel and one volume of verse confirms his view that a broad publishing program would serve to enhance and deepen the nation’s emerging cultural identity. It also shows Macmillan’s early commitment to literary publishing. Wise understood that historical and political analyses alone would not establish a literary aesthetic for Canada, and that works of the imagination probed humanistic issues that were as necessary to cultural development.

The Rise of Macmillan 1905–1921

49

Issued in 1915 under the pseudonym of Goosequill, W.H.P. Jarvis’s As Others See Us: Being the Diary of a Canadian Debutante offers a fictional record of Elsie Travers’s debutante year, spent amid high society in an unidentified large Canadian city. Elsie’s diary entries, in which she exposes the superficiality of social climbers and the nouveaux riches, become a vehicle for the author to show that ‘our people need a truer appreciation of proper values; when they have this, they will be second to none among the peoples of the world.’98 The book reviewer for Saturday Night was sufficiently enraged by the ‘crude’ workmanship and ‘mal-odorous ooze’ of the novel to pen a lengthy condemnation of its ‘attack on Toronto and Ottawa society, which is represented as made up almost entirely of vulgar grafters and their even more vulgar wives and daughters, of dissolute young swine who try to seduce their mother’s guests, and of girls who get drunk in public restaurants and have to be carried away unconscious.’99 Two years following the publication of Macmillan’s first novel, Wise brought out a volume of poetry by Thaddeus A. Browne. The Belgian Mother, and Ballads of Battle Time includes poems on the themes of war, love, empire, and nation and is dedicated to ‘The Great War Veterans living, and dead, by whose exalted patriotism and heroic sacrifice in war the British Empire was preserved.’100 Through lofty verse that proclaimed it honorable for Canadian soldiers to ‘Give! Give! Give! / That the Empire yet may live,’101 the volume gave expression to Wise’s dual allegiance to Britain and Canada. The publication of Goosequill’s novel – read today for its sociological examination of contemporary city life and personal relationships – and Browne’s poetry – important for the cultural values it espouses – signalled an interest in literary titles that would come to characterize Macmillan’s publishing program from 1921 onward, the year it issued W.H. Blake’s English translation of Louis Hémon’s Maria Chapdelaine, a landmark fiction that enjoyed international acclaim. At a time when few publishers would undertake such financial risk, Wise ascertained the cultural significance of creative works and sought to make them available to Canadian readers. Although he could not have anticipated Macmillan’s future role as a major literary publisher – or the impact of literary publishing on Macmillan’s growing reputation – Wise laid the ground for success in the field. In fact, Wise enjoyed many successes over the course of his career. He seized every opportunity to build his trade list of original domestic titles as a way of deepening and extending Macmillan’s reputation

50

The Macmillan Company of Canada

as a publisher of significant works. While remaining steadfast in his imperialism, he served his constituency of readers by issuing books and pamphlets, writing articles, delivering speeches, and participating in community clubs and organizations that showed his commitment to Canada and encouraged the Dominion’s growing sense of cultural autonomy. Regrettably, Wise’s temperament, ill suited to the administrative tasks concomitant with publishing, worked against sustained success. Despite his achievements, a general lack of decorum, peevishness, and outright defiance finally brought his publishing career to an unfortunate close. Wise’s decline was gradual. The impatience he displayed during the challenging years of the First World War intensified to recalcitrance in the post-war period, and eventually gave way to underhanded activities that could no longer be tolerated by his principals in London and New York. Publishing during the First World War The First World War was a time of triumph and trial for Wise. He was catalyzed into action by the advent of war, which summoned his imperial spirit and sense of loyalty to Britain. Danielle Hamelin describes Wise’s several undertakings following the outbreak of conflict. Incensed by the spread of ‘Prussianism and its attendant barbarities,’102 he spearheaded successful fundraising campaigns for Belgian families and European sailors, for example. In 1916 he embraced the Bonne Entente movement. In June of that year, lawyer J.M. Godfrey and journalist Arthur Hawkes of Toronto formed a group to foster wartime cooperation between Quebec and Ontario. French and English Canadians were at odds on several key issues, such as support for imperialism, language and education, and military service. In an effort to soften their differences, build alliances, and elicit support for conscription, several Ontario representatives twice visited Quebec, first in October 1916 and again in January 1917. As historian Brian Cameron outlines, however, French Canadians were resolute in their attitude and suspicious of the motives of a group of English Canadians who represented business and political interests. Wise next threw his energy into the Win-theWar movement, which he served as secretary. Two conventions, held in Montreal and Toronto respectively, were intended as a ‘means of unifying, organizing and expressing the intense patriotism which undoubtedly exists all over Canada.’103 Such exalted goals, high-minded and untenable, suggest the intensity of Wise’s support for the war effort.

The Rise of Macmillan 1905–1921

51

Wise disseminated his pro-war and imperialist views through public and private means. He flew the Union Jack in front of 70 Bond Street, for example. In trade publications, he admonished Canadian booksellers to purchase paper and other stationery goods from Britain rather than Germany, a regular source of supply prior to the onset of war. The extent of his public anger and private angst was felt most powerfully, however, in a message he stamped at the top of a Macmillan Company of Canada letter, dated 10 May 1918: TO WIN THE WAR MURDER, RAPE, ARSON, PILLAGE, GAS, POISONED WELLS: NURSE CAVELL, CAPTAIN FRYATT, CRUCIFIED CANADIANS, MURDERED SEAMEN, TORTURED PRISONERS: THE LUSITANIA, LOUVAIN, RHEIMS, SCARBOROUGH. REMEMBERING THESE THINGS, IF WE PRESERVE THE WILL TO WIN, WE CAN AND WE SHALL WIN THE WAR.

Notwithstanding the hyperbolic tone of the message, this zealous attempt to serve the war effort underscored Wise’s feelings of powerlessness, his imperialist sensibilities, and the empathy he felt for victims of battle. After ‘an economic downturn’ in 1913 which affected central Canada and the western provinces, the First World War, as Parker observes, ‘had a very positive effect on the market for books, which had been in fairly good shape throughout the past decade.’104 Four years of war saw a significant rise in book sales in Canada. The unprecedented demand for books on all subjects was all the more striking given the steady rate of inflation, the increased costs of raw materials, equipment, transportation, and labour, and, by 1916, an acute shortage of paper. The price of books rose by one third and production costs doubled. Between February and April 1917, Wise, as chair of the publishers’ section of the Toronto Board of Trade, brought the issue of rising paper prices and the increasing cost of producing provincial textbooks to the attention of several government officials, including Thomas White, Minister of Finance; George Foster, Minister of Trade and Commerce; R.A. Pyne, Minister of Education; and William Hearst, Premier of Ontario. Wise’s protestations helped launch a government investigation into the pric-

52

The Macmillan Company of Canada

ing practices of local pulp and paper producers, including the Toronto Paper Company, the Provincial Paper Company, and the Canada Paper Company. The lack of affordable paper was but one of many difficulties Wise and his publishing colleagues suffered during the war. A shortage of labour reduced the efficiency of local printing and book binding facilities. Since the Macmillan Company of Canada relied heavily, however, on sheets and books imported from London and New York, Wise was especially frustrated by serious delays in overseas shipping and land transportation caused by the war. By March 1915 he admitted that business was being negatively affected by the conflict, and by October he was ‘barely struggling along in the face of a gross financial set-back, the effects of which have been augmented by the War.’105 Wise’s Canadian operation was deeply affected by competing ironies of war. While Frederick Macmillan urged Wise to disseminate Macmillan books as widely as possible, it was exceedingly difficult to acquire British books. Shortages of material and labour and increased costs facing British publishers, combined with the obstacles of overseas shipping, severely hampered the passage of books between London and Toronto. Moreover, the war adversely altered Canadians’ taste for British reading material. They regularly chose American over British books and, whenever possible, elected to read North American perspectives on the world conflict. That the reading preferences of Canadians had matured would become even more apparent in the post-war years when the demand for books that reflected indigenous experience rose markedly. As Parker confirms, the First World War ‘had a devastating effect on the market for British books in Canada.’106 Wise’s first-hand experience of the challenges facing publishers in North America and Great Britain did not prevent him, however, from being disgruntled. Nor did he hesitate to express his general dissatisfaction. Routinely, for example, Wise found fault with the London office for not supplying his branch with sufficient numbers of books, for not supplying them in a timely fashion, and for their high cost. In light of his persistent complaints, it is remarkable that regular correspondents G.J. Heath and Frederick Macmillan retained their composure and their patience. Wise would not accept their oft-repeated explanations that book production was severely curtailed as a result of the war, paper was not available locally and legislation prevented the importation of foreign-produced paper, and the London office was hampered by a lack of staff. As consummate professionals, Heath and Macmillan

The Rise of Macmillan 1905–1921

53

offered lucidity, reason, and calm to counter Wise’s misapprehension, distemper, and impatience. Unfortunately for Wise, the vagaries of war brought out his aggressive tendencies and inflexibility, character flaws that tested his relations with the London house. Frank Wise and Rudyard Kipling Wise’s cantankerousness, evident throughout his career but exacerbated by the uncertainties of conducting business during the First World War, shaped his connections with publishers, booksellers, and writers, most notably Macmillan and Company author Rudyard Kipling. Kipling was regarded as a highly valuable writer by the London office – Kipling’s work wielded cultural influence and generated significant income – and Frederick Macmillan sought to secure the Canadian market by disseminating Kipling’s books through the Toronto branch. In his foundational study of Kipling’s association with the Macmillan Company of Canada, MacLaren argues that the imperial Copyright Act 1842 and the Canadian Copyright Amendment Act 1900 did not protect Wise’s right to sell Kipling’s work in Canada, and he reads weak copyright legislation as over-determining the connection between Wise and Kipling. MacLaren offers the following explanation: ‘Canadian copyright granted control only over works first published in Canada – a small category in comparison to works first published elsewhere and then sold in Canada. British books sold in Canada because Canada was part of the empire. American books sold in Canada because of proximity and because the imperial Foreign Reprints Act 1847 allowed American reprints of British copyright works into Canada as long as an import duty was paid to the British copyright owner.’107 There is no doubt that copyright law forestalled the production of original domestic editions – of works by Canadian and foreign authors alike. Moreover, when it was invoked at all, copyright legislation offered insufficient protection against competing editions of Kipling’s work, both authorized and unauthorized, that regularly made their way into Canada from the United States and less often from Britain. What MacLaren’s analysis ignores, however, is the human element, and the fact that Wise’s negative predisposition toward Kipling – evident in extant executive correspondence – was in large part responsible for the difficulties that ensued between Kipling and Macmillan’s Canadian branch. In June 1906 Wise declared Kipling ‘pretty dead’ in Canada and

54

The Macmillan Company of Canada

the United States, and he asserted that North Americans had ‘taken a very strong dislike to the man’s personality.’108 He further lamented the availability in Canada of rival editions and inexpensive piracies of Kipling’s work. Certain that Canadian readers had lost their taste for the author, unwilling to lose money on Kipling’s works, and unable to avail himself of copyright protection to stem the encroaching tide of competitor’s books, Wise expressed a desire to limit Kipling’s royalty payments, but Frederick Macmillan would not consider such an arrangement. Although Wise’s caution may have been well founded, his principals in London did not share his view of Kipling and they were loath to alienate so lucrative an author. In spring 1907 Wise held a meeting with Kipling and his wife in Toronto. They discussed the possibility of the Macmillan Company of Canada issuing a four-volume set of Kipling’s collected poetry using sheets acquired from Methuen’s colonial edition of his verse. Although the project never materialized, Kipling was so annoyed by Wise’s behaviour during extended negotiations that Frederick Macmillan intervened on behalf of the author. On 9 October 1908, Macmillan warned Wise that future communication between the Canadian branch and Kipling should be limited and directed through the author’s literary agent, A.P. Watt and Son. A vengeful Wise sought retaliation by adamantly refusing to reprint Kipling’s Letters to the Family: Notes on a Recent Trip to Canada, which he first issued in 1908. Unwilling to provoke Kipling’s ire, the parent company chose to reissue Letters to the Family in 1910, with a cancel title leaf that bore the Toronto branch’s imprint. Wise, who would never indulge an author, went further to notify booksellers that Kipling’s collected poems would not appear in a Canadian edition, when, in fact, an American edition published by Doubleday was readily available in Canada. Later, while he awaited a shipment from London of The Fringes of the Fleet (1916), Wise antagonistically notified Kipling that the book was out of print. Not surprisingly, Frederick Macmillan was incensed by Wise’s shenanigans and reprimanded him repeatedly, to no avail. Wise countered that Macmillan’s feelings for Kipling were ‘of a more rapturous character that [sic] we seem able to maintain with the Atlantic between us.’109 He would not concede to London’s view of Kipling as a valuable author who deserved special consideration and coddling. Moreover, during the First World War, when Canadian taste turned to non-fiction, Toronto publishers experienced a drop in fiction sales. When the discontented Kipling finally decided in October 1920 to sever

The Rise of Macmillan 1905–1921

55

ties with the Macmillan Company of Canada in favour of Oxford University Press Canada, Frederick Macmillan felt regret but not surprise. As he informed Wise, ‘I need not say that I am sorry for the change on your account, but we cannot kick against it; it would be very unwise on our part to attempt to interfere with a change which Mr Kipling has the power and wish to make.’110 Cantankerous Frank Wise Such debacles between Wise and Kipling were characteristic of Wise’s presidency. Another persistent source of conflict between Wise and the parent company was his unwillingness, for example, to stock Macmillan’s Colonial Library, which had captured a vast readership in India. Although he heeded G.J. Heath’s lament that ‘The Macmillan Company of Canada Ltd. was created to assist us in finding a large market for all of our publications in Canada,’111 Wise repeatedly refused to promote Colonial Library titles. He offered several reasons for his rejection of the series. First, he claimed that Canadian readers were not interested in British novels: ‘I do not like to hurt your feelings by criticizing your novels, but Canadian readers in their present mind will not swallow … books which it is quite possible you find will go down in England without any trouble.’112 Second, the inferior quality of Colonial Library bindings led to breakage and warping and he found the design of the books altogether uninspired. Finally, the low cost of Colonial Library editions ensured too little profit.113 When Heath threatened to circulate the Colonial Library through other Canadian agents, Wise stood his ground. He was determined to issue attractive books of superior quality, his confidence born of a deep understanding of the local market, especially the weak appeal of foreign fiction in Canada. His arrogance, on the other hand, reflected his abrasive personality, obvious in his surly invitation to Heath ‘to see for yourself that our life here as your representative is not one of merely innocuous desuetude.’114 Wise’s disposition was the source of much discord. His career was punctuated by disputes, large and small, that resulted from a lack of generosity and an inability to control his temper. While Wise’s crass manner alienated some members of the book trade, booksellers, in particular, appear to have been his preferred targets of attack and ridicule. Booksellers who were offended by Wise’s manner had little recourse, however, if they hoped to stock Macmillan books. Two separate disagreements with booksellers, compellingly similar in nature, can be

56

The Macmillan Company of Canada

reconstructed through extant correspondence between Frank Wise, Frederick Macmillan, and George Brett. In early 1914, Toronto bookseller William Tyrrell wrote to Frederick Macmillan in London to complain of Wise’s aggressive behaviour and refusal to supply him with Macmillan books. Bookseller and publisher had reached an impasse, the result of miscommunication between Tyrrell’s shop manager, Mr Lomas, and several members of Macmillan’s staff, which Wise was unwilling to overlook. Frederick Macmillan asked Brett to intercede and help bring about a resolution to the conflict. Throughout their professional association, Wise was more inclined to accept the intervention of Brett over that of Macmillan. Ten years of employment under Brett had established a rapport between the two men and had convinced Wise of Brett’s sound business sense. Moreover, Brett’s skilful negotiation between Toronto and London ensured both Wise and Macmillan that their mutual interests were being served. When Wise learned that Tyrrell had written to Macmillan, he unleashed his epistolary fury on Lomas. In a confidential letter to Brett, he condemned Lomas as ‘a grafter and I am quite sure that eventually it will be found out that he is robbing his employer right and left. He is a man without any means but is building a house for himself and always has plenty of money, I should say largely in excess of any surplus that could remain from his salary.’115 It is not surprising that so many members of the Canadian book trade recoiled from Wise, whose wrath, so easily provoked, is on display in this private letter to Brett. Although Brett eventually convinced Wise to reverse his decision to close Tyrrell’s account, it was not an easy victory. Nor could Wise resist a closing opportunity to further condemn the bookseller and tout his own achievements as publisher: ‘Not only the success of the Canadian Macmillan house but of myself has been the cause of a great deal of jealousy here both among individuals and concerns.’116 Wise went on to enumerate his triumphs: the Macmillan Company of Canada had instituted uniform discounts for booksellers; the company’s educational list was impressive; and Macmillan was housed in a stately building on Bond Street. Unfortunately, Wise was blind to his failings and did not perceive his own arrogance. A second altercation with two Ontario booksellers soon followed. After an argument, during which Ottawa bookseller A.H. Jarvis ‘was of necessity forced to use plain talk,’117 Wise refused to supply him with Macmillan Company of Canada books. At the same time, C.L. Nelles of Guelph, in a letter to Frederick Macmillan written on behalf

The Rise of Macmillan 1905–1921

57

of the booksellers of Canada, suggested ‘that a change in the Canadian office would be a great help to the good name of The Macmillan Co.’118 Nelles’s claims that he had been ‘bulldozed enough by the manager’ and ‘three out of five [Canadian booksellers] do as little business as they can with your firm’119 ring true in light of archival evidence that testifies to Wise’s prickly character. When Frederick Macmillan brought these complaints to Wise’s attention, he was met with a trademark response of anger and defensiveness. In uncomfortable situations, Wise always reacted with undue aggression. He dismissed Jarvis as a ‘maniac’ and a liar and Nelles for his ‘lack of sobriety.’120 Wise eschewed professional decorum and would not accept responsibility for his inappropriate behaviour. Over the years, Frederick Macmillan had received multiple complaints about Wise and his frustration was increasing. In an attempt to forestall further conflict and reinforce the value of moral propriety, the heart of the Macmillan enterprise, he offered a gentle reprimand: ‘You are a little too fond of writing letters which have the air of being intended to put your correspondent in the wrong and yourself in the right, rather than settling the little matters which may be in dispute. Every publisher must be occasionally worried by customers and others who are unreasonable, but it is always wise in such cases to control your temper and not to let violent language on the part of your correspondent be answered by any similar terms.’121 Unwilling to heed the sage counsel of Macmillan or Brett, Wise chose to follow his own course of action – to speak boldly and act rashly. In 1916, following further wrongdoing when Wise tried to undermine Gordon and Gotch, purchasers of large quantities of Macmillan and Company titles, Macmillan did not try to hide his frustration: ‘I am very sorry to find that you are still inclined to get at loggerheads with people with whom you are doing business. It is a most unwise course to pursue and cannot lead to anything but trouble; nothing is worse for a man of business than to get the reputation of being quarrelsome and difficult.’122 As Frederick Macmillan recognized, Wise’s inability to control his anger was corrosive – to himself and the Canadian branch. Frank Wise’s Folly The scandal that eventually brought Wise’s publishing career to an ignominious close remained private until 2000, the year McKillop pub-

58

The Macmillan Company of Canada

lished his groundbreaking article on Wise’s final years at Macmillan. In 2001, McKillop’s award-winning full-length history, The Spinster and the Prophet: Florence Deeks, H.G. Wells, and the Mystery of the Purloined Past,123 presented the complete narrative of Wise’s misdemeanours while president of Macmillan. The full story, having been told so recently and so well, does not require retelling here. To underscore the degree of power wielded by Wise in his position as publisher and the extent to which he felt free to abuse the privilege of authority accorded him by his principals and his cultural position, this account will reiterate key points raised by McKillop. The circumstances leading to Wise’s departure from Macmillan dated from 1912 when he became involved with the Empire Home Reunion Association. The Home Reunion Association, created to help reunite British families, was both a charity and a business. As McKillop explains, the association advanced money to British workers who wanted to bring their families to Canada and ensured that wages paid to workers in Canada remained in the country. Wise helped establish twelve branches of the Home Reunion Association in Ontario and Montreal and was president of the Toronto branch. In July 1913, Wise also founded the British Employment Association, his own labour bureau that helped find employment for British-born workers.124 Located in offices on Simcoe Street, the British Employment Association was a private undertaking, separate from Wise’s responsibilities at Macmillan. Between 1912 and 1920, Wise’s various business ventures would interfere with his work at Macmillan in ways that were not only inappropriate but also illegal. Macmillan’s Bond Street building, for example, housed the Toronto branch of the Empire Home Reunion Association and Macmillan staff members were regularly called upon to serve the association. Wise’s efforts at the helm of the British Employment Association were also suspect. He negotiated contract work through such companies as the Canadian Northern Railway and charged British immigrants for the cost of inexpensive transportation to job sites. As he admitted privately, the intention was ‘that capital and labor shall be made to kiss each other properly.’125 Finally, his private company, Sales Unlimited, was set up – also at 70 Bond Street – to sell a history of the First World War that was being prepared by the Times of London, an arrangement that clearly conflicted with his obligations as head of a separate publishing house. Moreover, the Winnipeg sales and distribution agency, MacVicar-Newby, which managed the business generated by Sales Unlim-

The Rise of Macmillan 1905–1921

59

ited, was soon threatening to sue the Macmillan Company of Canada over Wise’s mishandling of its account. In October 1917, when he offered no reason for his sudden decision to dismiss William Whitney, secretary-treasurer of the Macmillan Company of Canada since 1905, and replace him with Horace Purver, ‘our finance man and subscription Manager,’126 Wise’s actions ought to have raised suspicion. Instead, Frederick Macmillan and George Brett were focused on the financial profile of the Canadian branch: expenses had reduced its annual gross profit of 30 per cent to a net profit of a mere 6 per cent. The discrepancy resulted in close scrutiny of the company’s finances by its principals, attention that made Wise uncomfortable. Wise’s concern was well founded for he had been courting trouble for five years. The damages incurred through his business ventures and his neglect of Macmillan – thus far concealed with impunity – were soon to be exposed. Macmillan and Brett continued to monitor the worsening financial state of the Toronto branch. By 31 March 1919, the indebtedness of the Macmillan Company of Canada had increased considerably: it recorded some $40,000 in unpaid accounts, owed the New York house approximately $70,000 and the London house about $24,000. Even more significant, however, was a series of startling revelations contained in an unsolicited anonymous letter sent in June 1919 to George Brett in New York. The letter, reprinted in full in McKillop’s published account, evoked a company in distress as a result of arrant negligence and listed Wise’s misdemeanours: (i) the president and most of his staff were occupied, almost exclusively, with the Times history of the First World War; (ii) the Macmillan name was being used to sanction the project and solicit orders for the history; (iii) Purver and other associates were untrustworthy; (iv) the education department was in disarray; and (v) reliable staff could not be retained. Finally, the correspondent predicted the demise of the company within a year. Brett’s decisive act to send a copy of the letter to London initiated the course of events that would lead to Wise’s resignation from the company. In September 1919, Brett consented to act on behalf of the London directors on all matters pertaining to the Canadian branch since ‘threecornered correspondence … [was] both confusing and unsatisfactory.’127 He felt burdened by the additional responsibility, but Brett succeeded in reestablishing equilibrium in Toronto. On Brett’s advice, Wise agreed to resign from Sales Unlimited and dismiss Purver. In an unconvincing attempt to deflect criticism and deny responsibility for his actions,

60

The Macmillan Company of Canada

Wise blamed John Cameron Saul – in January 1919 Saul had resigned from Macmillan to accept a position with Gage – for trying to discredit the Macmillan Company of Canada. Brett also succeeded in assuaging the concerns of Frederick Macmillan who, by 17 November 1919, had broached the possibility of replacing Wise with ‘somebody who has had American training and experience.’128 Brett’s intervention won Wise a reprieve. Convinced that Wise had learned ‘a severe lesson’ and certain that Canadian sales and profits for 1919 would be ‘gratifying,’129 Brett deferred the need for immediate action. When Brett learned through an advertisement in the Canadian Medical Quarterly, however, that Sales Unlimited was still housed at 70 Bond Street, Wise’s duplicity was exposed. Brett was taken by surprise since he had assumed that Wise had severed his ties with the private company. An immediate trip to Toronto to investigate the goings-on at the Canadian branch confirmed Brett’s suspicions that Wise had misrepresented himself. He also gleaned the damage caused by Wise’s multiple indiscretions. Since his brief stay did not allow for extensive discussion with Macmillan staff members, however, Wise’s secretary, May Mercer, was invited to write a letter to Brett presenting her view of current conditions at the company. That letter, dated 19 May 1920, stands as a compelling account of a company in decline and a record of Wise’s mismanagement of Macmillan. Since McKillop’s article on Wise’s departure from Macmillan reproduces Mercer’s letter in full, it will suffice here to reiterate Mercer’s main points. She claimed that (i) Wise was unscrupulous, not trusted by his staff, colleagues in the book trade, or government officials – even the janitor of 70 Bond Street would not trust Wise ‘as far as the corner’; (ii) he was insulting to business associates and staff alike; (iii) the medical department was losing large sums of money and was staffed by Wise’s ‘favorites,’ most notably Purver – he doctored the accounts to Macmillan’s advantage – Dr Routley – ‘whose car is at Mr Wise’s disposal, and his medical service within call of the Wise household’ – and Mr Britton and Mr Thomas – ‘thoroughly worthless’ men who were ‘making a good thing out of Macmillans’; (iv) staff morale was extremely low; and (v) Wise was neglecting Macmillan business in favour of his own interests.130 May Mercer’s letter was shared with Frederick Macmillan and it made its point. Mercer’s painstaking account corroborated Brett’s own assessment of the Toronto branch. He advised Wise to sell the monthly Canadian Medical Journal, which had lost more than $7,000 over two years, and to subsume the medical department under general trade,

The Rise of Macmillan 1905–1921

61

a department managed by twenty-six-year-old Hugh Eayrs, Wise’s colleague who had won Brett’s favour as ‘an able and on the whole trustworthy person and one likely to be of considerable value to the business in the future.’131 The final six months of 1920 sealed Wise’s fate. He refused to carry out the requests of his principals, continued to publish the Canadian Medical Journal, and did not keep regular business hours. When Brett proposed Eayrs – an energetic, enterprising young man who possessed ‘a fairly good taste in literature and matters pertaining to books’132 – as a potential successor to Wise, Frederick Macmillan was prepared to accept the recommendation. Before Christmas 1920, Eayrs travelled overseas – ostensibly to visit his ailing father – where he made so favourable an impression on the London directors that they believed they ‘could not do better than put him at the head of the Canadian business, which he seems thoroughly to understand.’133 Wise learned of his imminent dismissal through an uncle in London, who visited his old friend Frederick Macmillan on New Year’s Day 1921, was told that his nephew would soon lose his position with the Macmillan Company of Canada, and wrote immediately to inform Wise. Although his letter of termination was dated 4 January 1921, Wise chose to resign instead and informed Brett on 27 January 1921 that a formal letter of resignation was forthcoming. Several days later, the first reign of the Macmillan Company of Canada came to an inauspicious close. On 2 February 1921 Macmillan’s board of directors accepted Frank Wise’s resignation as president. At a board meeting held the next day, Hugh Eayrs was appointed in his stead. Within the hushed walls of 70 Bond Street, the news of Wise’s departure brought great relief. Publicly, however, his resignation was received differently. The Bookseller and Stationer, for example, claimed that ‘the book trade of this country loses a most valuable member’ with Wise’s withdrawal from Macmillan.134 The same article catalogued Wise’s many achievements as a publisher and public figure who had championed numerous causes. Read today in light of Wise’s notorious lack of collegiality and reputation for appalling behaviour, the Bookseller’s celebratory tone rings false. Nonetheless, when he most needed support, the book trade offered Wise a professional farewell that would have brought him a measure of satisfaction – not enough, however, to counter the private humiliation he undoubtedly suffered. Wise’s departure from Macmillan heralded a dark period in his life. In December 1922 he sought employment with the department of over-

62

The Macmillan Company of Canada

seas trade, development, and intelligence, but Frederick Macmillan’s poor assessment of his former ‘Manager of our Canadian business. Had we found him thoroughly satisfactory he would probably be there now’135 lost Wise the position. McKillop outlines an interval when he was employed as a bookbinder, followed by several years of criminal activity as a forger of visa documents for Italians hoping to immigrate to Canada. After a trial held in April 1929, during which he pleaded guilty to forgery, Wise was sentenced to thirty months’ imprisonment in Kingston Penitentiary, beginning on 14 May 1929. Following his early release one year later, he moved to Montreal where he spent the rest of his life. In Montreal, life was quieter for Wise. He returned to bookbinding and was a printer of fine watercolour illustrations. Later, he moved into the Nesbitt Anglican Residence in Cowansville, Quebec, where he died on 19 December 1960, at the age of ninety-one. Wise’s fifteen-year term as president of the Macmillan Company of Canada left a definite impression on his character. In early 1933 a repentant Wise wrote to Frederick Macmillan offering to remit the sum of $300, which he had falsely charged as expenses while employed at Macmillan. Wise further conceded that the resentment he had felt following his departure from the firm in 1921 was ‘unjustifiable.’136 That Frederick Macmillan accepted the apology but refused the offer of $300 may have rankled the penitent Wise. Ten years later, he wrote a threatening letter to Ellen Elliott who was invited to address a meeting of the Canadian Authors Association in Montreal. Elliott joined Macmillan in 1919 and, for a brief period, had worked under Wise. In his letter to Elliott, Wise demanded that she publicly credit him for the work he had carried out at Macmillan. Although he did not hear her address, Elliott recognized him ‘at the reception that followed later [when he] resolutely kept his back turned to me.’137 The obvious relief Elliott felt at being spared a late confrontation with Wise attests to his irascibility and the enduring memory of his unpleasant character. In 1951, at the age of eighty-three, an impecunious Wise wrote to John Morgan Gray, head of the Canadian branch, requesting a small pension and claiming that he had been ‘forced out [of the company] by pique, fomented by [Hugh] Eayrs.’138 When Gray, with his usual diplomacy, offered to present the unlikely petition to Daniel and Harold Macmillan in London, Wise – not surprisingly – abandoned the appeal. Nonetheless, in retirement, when a local reporter asked about his life’s work, the elderly Wise responded: ‘Originated the publishing house of “Macmillans in Canada” at Toronto; bought [a] large property in sight of

The Rise of Macmillan 1905–1921

63

the large [downtown department] stores [Eaton’s and Simpson’s] and erected a notable building.’139 It was an unfortunate irony that 70 Bond Street, so central to his conception of Macmillan, was also the backdrop to the scandal that ended Wise’s career in publishing. Clearly, the years Wise spent at the helm of the Macmillan Company of Canada remained the most significant and memorable of his long and troubled life. That Frank Wise’s publishing career ended in scandal should not diminish his achievement as president of the Canadian branch of Macmillan. In fact, for much of his career – to the extent possible for one of Canada’s first publishers restrained by practical and financial considerations and the conservative tenets of his principals in London and New York – Wise functioned ‘as an autonomous individual, rather than as an agent subordinating personal will to impersonal forces emerging from the nexus of cultural change, the marketplace, and legal liabilities.’140 The example of Frank Wise, through his publishing activities and foresight, affirms the centrality of the human being to book history studies – as Alistair McCleery advocates – which counters the ‘authorial view of the publisher as enemy rather than as facilitator or collaborator.’141 In 1973, for example – more than five decades following Wise’s departure from publishing – John Gray, Macmillan’s fourth president, was still troubled by the ‘deeply ingrained … distrust of publishers.’142 At a time when Canadians were asserting a taste for educational texts and trade books that evoked a sense of their place in an expanding and changing world, Wise facilitated access to those books. In addition to educational titles that entered countless classrooms and school libraries and influenced the daily lives of Canadian students, he published works of history and economics, biography and literature that struck a chord with contemporary readers. Through his publishing program, constrained as it was since most of the ‘revenue from Macmillan’s sales did not remain in Canada,’143 Wise helped lay the ground for a Canadian literary aesthetic, a culture of authorship, and an indigenous readership. Whether or not he aspired to consecration as high priest of Canadian literary values is less significant than his broad cultural achievement as publisher. Despite misdemeanours that tarnished the final years of his publishing career, Wise recognized the need for books by and for Canadians and undertook to publish them. In arguing for the importance of Frank Wise as cultural worker, this chapter invokes the wide view of Morris Eaves who, as long ago as 1977, saw publishers ‘as part of a larger history that includes all the

64

The Macmillan Company of Canada

aspects of culture that affect and are affected by publishing.’144 Wise believed that publishers, although ‘merely human,’145 had a duty to ‘a larger history,’ that in order for a publishing company to succeed it had to reach readers and the surest way to do so was through culturally relevant texts. In 1911, for instance, frustrated by London’s refusal to countenance his understanding of the market for books in Canada, Wise asserted himself. Notwithstanding his usual forceful manner, he displayed a keen grasp of Canadian publishing and a strong commitment to Canadian readers: ‘There is no earthly use of our buying books which cannot be sold. Therefore it is up to your authors surely to write books which should have more interest to our readers.’146 Wise’s determination to serve a constituency of readers through the publication of Canadian titles helped shaped a house identity for the Macmillan Company of Canada, distinct from its British parent and American cousin, which sought simultaneously to respect imperial ties between Britain and her Dominion and celebrate an emerging Canadian nationalism. The ambitious publishing opportunities afforded Hugh Eayrs early in his presidency were Wise’s legacy to his successor, the direct result of his foundational efforts at the helm of Macmillan.

2 The Triumphant Second Reign 1921–1940: Hugh Smithurst Eayrs

Hugh Smithurst Eayrs: Barometer of Change Hugh Eayrs was president of the Macmillan Company of Canada from 3 February 1921 to 29 April 1940. His nineteen-year presidency was distinguished by an ability to forge a distinctive house identity for Macmillan, support an emerging culture of indigenous authorship, and foster a contemporary literature for Canada. Under Eayrs’s dynamic leadership, Macmillan matured into a successful publishing house with a culture and interest separate from its parent and affiliate houses in London and New York. By expanding Macmillan’s list of educational series and trade titles, Eayrs, so encouraging of Canadian writers, advanced the company’s ‘enviable reputation for publishing Canadian books.’1 His early success was built partly on ‘the publishing autonomy that had eventually been granted’2 to Frank Wise by his principals in London. Eayrs seized the career opportunity afforded him by Wise’s ignominious departure from Macmillan, ‘wasted no time in consolidating his position’ as president of Macmillan, and soon ‘put his own stamp’3 on the company. A visionary with a deep commitment to promoting Canadian literature, Eayrs’s roster of important writers included Mazo de la Roche, Grey Owl, Stephen Leacock, E.J. Pratt, and Morley Callaghan. Charismatic and complex, at once dedicated bookman and hard-living hedonist, for his entire career Eayrs was a pivotal figure at the centre of English-language book publishing in Canada. By early 1940, when he succumbed to a heart attack at age forty-six, he had succeeded in realizing his lofty goals for the Macmillan Company of Canada and Canadian literature. Hugh Smithurst Eayrs was born on 11 March 1894 in Leeds, Eng-

66

The Macmillan Company of Canada

land, the second of three children – an elder daughter and two sons – of Dr George Eayrs, a Methodist minister, and Clara Wagg Smithurst. A fourth child died within weeks of his birth in 1895. Eayrs was raised in Yorkshire and educated at Batley Grammar School, Rawdon Baptist College, and Ashville College. He attended the University of London and served as parliamentary reporter in England before immigrating to Canada in May 1912, at the age of eighteen. Eayrs’s sister Winifred and brother Charles (known as Carl) followed him to Toronto. Winifred Eayrs joined the Macmillan Company of Canada and Carl Eayrs became a journalist. Eayrs’s father was a leading authority on the history of Methodism; his book on the subject, A New History of Methodism (London, 1909), became a standard work in the field. In his later study, John Wesley: Christian Philosopher and Church Founder (London, 1926), George Eayrs’s veneration for Methodism’s founder is hyperbolic: ‘The English-speaking peoples have no nobler representative than Wesley in the files of their history; neither King Alfred, nor Roger Bacon, nor Milton, nor Cromwell.’4 His further claim that Wesley represented ‘the seventh age of man upon the earth’ aligned his hero with Socrates, Aristotle, Jesus, Augustine, Erasmus, and Cromwell, each of whom represented the six earlier ages, although Eayrs conceded that ‘Wesley’s religious convictions would not have permitted his name, or that of any man, to have ranked alongside that of Jesus Christ our only Lord and Saviour.’5 It seems more than likely that Hugh Eayrs’s upbringing was strictly in accordance with Methodism’s general tenets; hence, his early decision to leave home and immigrate to Canada. Released spiritually and distanced geographically from his family, Eayrs could exercise his taste for freedom and self-indulgence.6 On 8 January 1916 Hugh Eayrs married Nora Kathleen Shipsides whom he later divorced. He married for a second time in 1930, at the age of thirty-six; his second wife, Dora Whitefield, was born in Britain of Jewish descent. Eayrs adopted Dora’s son James George from a previous marriage, and the couple had another son, Michael, whose twin died at birth. The Eayrs household staff included a chauffeur, cook, maid, and governess. Eayrs was a kind, if inattentive, father to James and Michael. In 1935, in a playful show of affection for James, Eayrs published ‘The Lost Prince: A Tale.’ The imprint on the cover of the three-page document reads ‘Published for the Author (in a strictly limited edition of 10 copies, each copy numbered and signed by the Author) by his Daddy at St Martin’s House, Toronto, January 26, 1935.’

The Triumphant Second Reign 1921–1940

67

Eayrs added a fatherly comment on the second page: Jimmy Eayrs ‘is now somewhat over eight years of age, and his Daddy, as a wise publisher should do, has secured an option on all his further literary works.’ Eayrs was truly the prescient publisher, for James Eayrs went on to become a renowned political scientist – he taught at the University of Toronto and Dalhousie University – and prolific scholar who was lauded as a ‘superb stylist and an influential pioneer in the study of twentieth-century Canadian foreign and defence policy.’7 James Eayrs was often embarrassed by his stepfather’s narcoleptic lapses and penchant for drinking, but the published story remained a cherished memento from his childhood years with Eayrs. Dora and Hugh Eayrs were great entertainers who enjoyed socializing with literary figures, including such close friends as English professor Pelham Edgar, poet E.J. Pratt, and novelist Morley Callaghan. Their evenings were spent either at parties, the theatre, or concerts. They also hosted numerous dinners and parties in their grand home at 90 Scarth Road in Toronto’s upscale neighbourhood of Rosedale, and in their magnificent mansion at 32 Heath Street West, into which they moved in 1934. A Steinway grand piano stood at one end of the spacious and luxuriously appointed living room of 32 Heath Street West, which could accommodate thirty or forty guests. In the basement, the recreation room was renovated ‘to resemble the play deck area of an ocean liner. Its most striking feature was the bar, constructed to resemble the side of a lifeboat, complete with the liner’s name painted on the bow and the attached life-buoy, “Hudora.” Along one side of the room was a lifelike liner railing, and an oil mural of ocean and sky was painted on the wall.’8 The Macmillan Company of Canada’s Christmas party was held annually at the home of Dora and Hugh Eayrs. Eayrs’s vital character was further reflected in his membership at the exclusive Toronto Club, his preference for bridge and golf, and his choice of automobile – a Stutz Bearcat touring car. On Sundays the entire Eayrs family, including members of the household staff, set out on afternoon drives, often to Malton Airport to watch the airplanes take off or to the Guild of All Arts, an artist collective on the Scarborough Bluffs. Before joining Macmillan, Eayrs, a natural and inspired bookman, served as editor of the weekly Canadian Courier, a general interest journal, advertising manager of Bookseller and Stationer, contributor to Financial Post, and assistant editor with Maclean Publishing. A writer himself, he collaborated with Thomas B. Costain in a novel, The Ama-

68

The Macmillan Company of Canada

teur Diplomat (1916), issued by Hodder and Stoughton of London, and he published a biography of Isaac Brock (1918) in Macmillan’s Canadian Men of Action series.9 A number of his poems appeared in newspapers and journals, and his later satiric poetry was often a highlight of Macmillan social events. In October 1916 Eayrs was hired by Wise as a travelling book salesman in Macmillan’s education department, an apprenticeship he later recalled without pomp or affectation: ‘In Canada you can get from Halifax to Vancouver in five days. Most of the time spent doing it you have an engaging view which alternates between lakeland and mining area, farmland and river, lumber region and mountain, prairie and fruit-farming peninsula. Every now and then you wake up and find a city. You jump off your train and sell every book you can and then jump on again.’10 Eayrs soon proved to be an invaluable asset to Macmillan. A dedicated salesman, he invested time and energy in his work. His strong personality marked his earliest days at Macmillan when he refused to communicate with anyone other than the head of each department and vied for recognition by his superiors. By 1919 he had risen to the position of company secretary and manager of trade sales. The following year, as Wise’s mismanagement of Macmillan intensified, Eayrs’s responsibilities increased. At the time of his appointment as president in 1921, Eayrs, who was not yet twenty-six, was a young man anxious to please his father. Notwithstanding his zealousness, George Eayrs was a true Wesleyan who valued reading and encouraged his son’s love of books. In a letter dated 10 February 1921 to Ernest Hodder-Williams of Hodder and Stoughton, Eayrs urged Hodder-Williams to announce his recent appointment in the Bookman and the British Weekly, but cautioned that he did ‘not want my youth dilating on nor my age stated. The proudest thing I have to say is that I am the son of my dad.’11 In Eayrs’s office a portrait of his father hung alongside that of Winston Churchill, inscribed ‘For Mr Eayrs with all the infinite respect due a publisher.’12 That Eayrs was generous in spirit is reflected in his 1921 assessment of Frank Wise, who ‘brought the Canadian Company into the world and what it is today he has made it.’13 In appearance, Eayrs was unimposing, short and stocky with ‘just a hint of Yorkshire in his speech.’14 A.B. McKillop describes ‘his sandy hair swept back and to the side and his rather wistful, basset hound countenance.’15 A magnetic character, however, more than compensat-

The Triumphant Second Reign 1921–1940

69

ed for his lacklustre appearance. Eayrs ‘possessed great force of personality and an infectious sense of humour’;16 his imitation of Queen Victoria was especially comic. Spurred by ambition, Eayrs was ‘arrogant, brash, mercurial, supremely self-confident and self-assertive, but he also possessed immense charm, wit, and boyish affability, as well as genuine talent, even genius, for corporate leadership.’17 In 1930 John Morgan Gray was hired by Eayrs to work in Macmillan’s education department and after the Second World War he became head of the company. Fortuitous circumstances led to Eayrs’s hiring of Gray. In 1929, in St Moritz, Switzerland, Gray met Leon (known as Lee) Whitefield, Eayrs’s future brother-in-law. During a visit to Toronto the following year, Whitefield mused that Gray might be suited to publishing and offered to introduce him to Eayrs. When the two met, they connected over bridge and a mutual interest in books. At the time, Eayrs was in need of a young man to replace Bill Clarke, who had recently left Macmillan to found the publishing house Clarke, Irwin and Company together with his wife Irene and brother-in-law John Irwin. Eayrs was impressed by twenty-three-year-old Gray whose enthusiasm for the ‘endlessly fascinating … world of books and writers’18 matched his own distinctive spark. Gray’s memoir, Fun Tomorrow: Learning to Be a Publisher and Much Else, includes a full portrait of Macmillan’s second president. When they first met, Gray was ‘charmed and impressed’19 by the amiable Eayrs. Soon, however, the unpredictable side of Eayrs’s character became ‘a central factor’20 of his life. Easily roused, for example, Eayrs clung to his views even when they were untenable. To make a point, he regularly banged his desk with his fist. He was impulsive, hired and fired individuals on a whim, and, like his predecessor Frank Wise, would refuse to honour a bookseller’s discount if Macmillan’s service or prices were questioned. In later years, Eayrs’s ‘careless brilliance and flair’21 gave way to pompousness and a lack of focus. He spent much time away from the office playing golf and ‘was a leader in a hard-drinking, reckless group in Toronto society.’22 Drinking and socializing took an obvious toll on Eayrs’s health – in the final decade of his life, Eayrs was severely overweight – which further curtailed his capacity for concentrated work. As Gray concludes, not without irony, Frank Wise was succeeded by ‘a man much like himself in character.’23 For most of his career, however, Eayrs was in his prime and his reputation as a premier bookman remained largely untarnished. To the position of president he brought an intense interest in Canada and a

70

The Macmillan Company of Canada

desire to cultivate the literary landscape of his adopted country. To that end, he helped organize the Association of Canadian Bookmen, was an active member of the publishers’ section of the Toronto Board of Trade, and secretary of the Toronto branch of the Canadian Authors Association. He was co-founder of the Central Ontario Drama League, which in 1954 established an annual award in his memory, and a supporter of the Dominion Drama Festival. A skilled orator, Eayrs travelled nationwide to give talks to literary associations such as PEN (Poets, Essayists, and Novelists) Canada, an international human rights organization founded in 1921 in London, England, to advocate on behalf of writers who face political persecution, imprisonment, or are sentenced to death. In 1926, a bilingual branch of PEN was established in Montreal. Poet Irene H. Lewis once recalled Eayrs’s presentation to the Vancouver branch of the Canadian Authors Association, when he spoke ‘on the relationship between author and publisher … and I shall never forget the rapt attention that group of writers gave to the man who set before us the ideal of his heart and mind in his quiet impersonal way and with such telling effect.’24 Eayrs was also a favourite of the Canadian press and his views on cultural matters were cited regularly in trade journals and newspapers across the country. The directors of Macmillan and Company were no less impressed by Eayrs’s ‘cockiness and real capacity [for work]’25 than Gray had been upon their initial meeting. In fact, the decision to appoint Eayrs as Wise’s successor was unprecedented for the conservative principals in London who lived ‘another fifteen years congratulating themselves’26 on their foresight. Eayrs’s initiative and ability convinced the London and New York directors that he should decide what the Canadian branch would publish. After years of mismanagement by Wise, Eayrs’s aim as president was to revitalize an ailing publishing house and reshape its list with a view to promoting Canadian literature. Immediately, Eayrs set himself to this ‘heroic’27 undertaking. A visionary who understood, along with George Platt Brett Sr, president of the Macmillan Company of New York, that a publishing house ‘is deeply and inescapably personal; [and] that only the devotion and individuality of its chiefs can make it or preserve it,’28 the charismatic Eayrs heralded a new age in Canadian publishing. Eayrs’s strong connection with Brett, whom he had met through Wise, was fostered, in part, by the proximity of New York to Toronto. In the aftermath of Wise’s dishonourable departure from Macmillan, Eayrs corresponded regularly with Brett. His early letters reported on

The Triumphant Second Reign 1921–1940

71

recent developments at the Toronto branch and were replete with complaints and concerns that pertained to Wise’s behaviour. On 28 January 1921, for example, just prior to Wise’s departure, Eayrs informed Brett that the ‘situation frankly is intolerable … I do not think it is going to be possible to stay in the same office as Mr Wise for many more days. One really cannot submit to indignities beyond a certain point.’29 Eayrs further noted that Wise was ‘reporting to you on various matters absolutely falsely.’30 Since Wise suspected Eayrs of having coveted the position of president for some time, he directed his frustration and usual belligerence toward the young man who would soon become his successor. Wise could not deny, however, that he was the author of his own demise. Clearly, Wise’s final days at Macmillan were difficult, his leave-taking graceless, and his mistrust of Eayrs exaggerated. Throughout 1921 Wise threatened ‘to injure the business’31 of Macmillan and he interfered in various ways. He continually pestered Macmillan staff members with petty requests that tried Eayrs’s patience. Through the post office, he arranged to have all Macmillan correspondence addressed to him redirected to his home in Toronto and, in one frustrating instance, it took over two weeks for him to forward mail to 70 Bond Street. Through such machinations, Wise kept abreast of Macmillan affairs. More significant were efforts, likely orchestrated by Wise, to tarnish Macmillan’s reputation as an educational publisher. When the Toronto board of education was incorrectly notified on ‘creditable authority’32 that Macmillan’s majority ownership was not British and the company was promoting American over British textbooks, the board refused to pay an outstanding account. In the first year of his presidency, Eayrs was troubled by such vindictive moves by Wise to undermine Macmillan and felt ‘just a little heated that I have to spend so much time fighting a man who does not fight cleanly.’33 His efforts to rebuild the company included valiant and successful attempts to counter false allegations that could severely damage Macmillan’s credibility. With the appointment of Eayrs as president, Brett sought to loosen his custodial ties to the Toronto branch, occupied as he was with the demands of his own publishing company. He remained a source of regular counsel, however. Early on, for example, when Eayrs was reorganizing his education department with the intention of appointing a new manager, he sought the advice of Brett, who characterized the ideal candidate as one who would ‘approach his task in the conviction that it is possible for him to persuade instructors not only to change textbooks, but also at times to change methods of instruction, or even to

72

The Macmillan Company of Canada

create new courses. He must believe that he can influence instructors by his own recommendations in which they will gradually come to have confidence, as a result of his discrimination in making them … much can be accomplished by a judicious use of recommendations of instructors in other institutions, and of information as to adoptions, results obtained by instructors using our books, etc.’34 Brett’s assessment was based on his vast experience as head of the New York company and his deep understanding of educational publishing as fundamental to the success of his firm. Educational titles – issued in large numbers and disseminated consistently and widely over many years – consolidated Macmillan’s broad cultural influence, provided much-needed financial stability in an otherwise risky business, and underwrote the production of trade titles that brought literary prestige to Macmillan’s publishing program. That Eayrs, like Wise before him, saw reason in Brett’s advice is confirmed by his eventual decision to dismiss the educational manager who was ‘not the man for the task in front of us.’35 Through Eayrs’s dedication and foresight, Macmillan soon returned to financial health, a fact that was not lost on Brett who could claim responsibility for recognizing Eayrs’s ability as a bookman. Brett, who appreciated vitality and drive, remained an ally of Eayrs throughout the 1920s. He recommended increases in Eayrs’s salary, along with bonuses for work well done. Perhaps more significant was his defence of Eayrs against allegations of mismanagement. In May 1922, for example, just one year into Eayrs’s presidency, Brett received an anonymous letter condemning Eayrs for drinking and philandering. Brett sought to protect his Canadian colleague, as he had done earlier when he received unsolicited criticism of Wise. Penned by a ‘member of the staff,’ the damning letter urged Brett ‘to make an investigation of the performances’ of Eayrs on five points: 1 He requires two of his clerks to spend a large portion of their time practically everyday driving out to bring him in a bottle of bootleg whiskey. 2 He keeps this whiskey in the office most of the time and his frequent drinking is obvious to most of the staff. He buys about fifty dollars worth of whiskey this way per week. 3 He kept on the payroll until lately a woman with whom he has taken frequent week end trips, buys expensive presents, etc. 4 He told office he was in N.Y. on date early in Feb. when he was ac-

The Triumphant Second Reign 1921–1940

73

tually in Montreal at Place Viger Hotel registered with this woman under assumed name … 5 He has been arrested within the past 6 months for being caught in a bootleggers shop.36 The writer concluded that the clerks who collected Eayrs’s whiskey complied solely out of fear of dismissal. Notwithstanding the legal ramifications associated with procuring and drinking alcohol during the prohibition years of 1919 to 1933 – as well as his past experience of Wise’s misdemeanours – Brett appears to have been unmoved by the contents of the letter. The offhand tone with which he dispatched the missive to Frederick Macmillan suggests Brett’s cavalier attitude toward the criticisms levelled against Eayrs: ‘You will remember that during the period of Mr Wise’s presidency of the Canadian Company we received a number of anonymous letters in relation to Mr Wise and his actions, and that, at any rate at first, we were disposed to pay little attention to such letters. Apparently now we are likely to receive similar complaints in regard to the present president … to judge from the specimen letter which I received this morning and which I am forwarding to you for any attention you may think it worth.’37 Like Brett, who favoured Eayrs, Frederick Macmillan likely did not see much ‘worth’ of any kind in the letter. The lack of extant response to the matter suggests that the complaints were never raised with Eayrs himself. By dismissing the contents of the letter, however, Brett and Macmillan refused to confront key aspects of Eayrs’s character – his undeniable preference for hard drinking and hard living – that would result in his untimely death in 1940, a loss that would prove devastating to the Canadian company. From their first meeting in London, Frederick Macmillan was kindly disposed toward Eayrs, whose vibrant personality, deep understanding of the Canadian book trade, and dynamic vision for the Toronto branch inspired confidence. Macmillan appreciated Eayrs’s efforts to clear up ‘a number of disagreeable tangles’38 left behind by Wise, most notably a financial mess that was resolved through a loan of $20,000 from London and $20,000 from New York out of the Toronto branch’s indebtedness to both houses. Eayrs was encouraged to handle banking arrangements himself and was given the liberty to dismiss an employee with close ties to Wise. Both Macmillan and Brett were so impressed with Eayrs’s performance that, within four months of his appointment

74

The Macmillan Company of Canada

as president, his starting salary of $5,000 was raised to $7,000. Relieved and grateful that Eayrs had taken over the Canadian company, Macmillan admitted that he was ‘under no apprehension lest some action may be taken in our names of which we cannot approve.’39 Although Eayrs was financially accountable to the London house, he enjoyed an autonomy not given to Wise who had laboured under the supervision of his superiors. To Macmillan’s annual financial statement, Eayrs was asked to append a yearly accounting of books produced in Canada – both reissues of British and American books and new editions. He was also authorized to purchase books from London and New York ‘from the point of view of which is better for the Canadian business.’40 Eayrs, like his predecessor, was strongly cautioned by Frederick Macmillan against the publication of ‘anything other than school books,’41 especially works of literature. In light of Eayrs’s early success at the helm of the Toronto branch, however, Macmillan would soon decide to revise that powerful and constraining dictum. Eayrs first set about expanding his list of American agency agreements, which soon included the prestigious publishing companies Alfred A. Knopf and Viking Press. Macmillan also became the Canadian distributor of Random House’s Modern Library and Eayrs went on to form a ‘long and pleasant association’42 with renowned Random House publisher Bennett A. Cerf. Frederick Macmillan was impressed by Eayrs’s ability to secure agency agreements with publishing houses that wielded significant cultural and symbolic capital, and was especially pleased to have the Toronto branch represent Knopf, ‘a publisher whose work I have been following with interest … you are certainly not likely to have anything in your list of which you or we could be ashamed; in fact I think there may be a good many books of which we shall be proud.’43 Ironically, Knopf later gave ‘up fighting for the Canadian market’ since it was ‘an embarrassment’44 when fewer than 500 copies of his books sold across the country. No less distinguished were Eayrs’s British agency agreements, which included Cambridge University Press, Chatto and Windus, Constable, and the Hogarth Press, the publishing venture of Leonard and Virginia Woolf. A further coup arose in connection with British writer and book collector Michael Sadleir. When Eayrs secured a separate Canadian contract with Sadleir for his 1923 novel Desolate Splendour, he hailed the triumph as ‘a good stroke of business’ and hoped to set a precedent for ‘other of the English authors possibly who are not attached to the New York Macmillan list, to give their books, when we can guarantee a

The Triumphant Second Reign 1921–1940

75

quantity sufficient to justify manufacture, to us as their Canadian publisher.’45 Prior to 1921 the Canadian market traditionally was subsumed under contracts with British and American publishers. Hence, Eayrs fully grasped the extent of his success and its potential to foster, however tentatively, a new understanding among authors and publishers alike of Canada as a market distinct from that of the United States. As he proclaimed in the December 1922 issue of Canadian Bookman: ‘The Macmillan Company of Canada, Limited, announce a somewhat new departure. Michael Sadleir, the author of the very brilliant novel, “Privilege,” published two years ago, instead of disposing of his Canadian market as part of the American market, or as part of the English market, has sold it direct. The Macmillans are setting up, printing, and manufacturing his book, “Desolate Splendour,” in Toronto. It is announced for February publication.’46 An edition of 2,000 copies of Sadleir’s novel was printed by the T.H. Best Printing Company of Toronto and was published on 15 February 1923. Eayrs also discerned the indigenous market for educational books and knew when a British textbook neither interested nor served the needs of Canadian students. He induced Macmillan and Company to revise glaring errors in one of its geography texts, for example, which cited Vancouver as a province and Regina as a market for meat and livestock. Since Eayrs’s gentle tone eschewed any hint of reproach, his advice was received as it was intended: to impart his respect for and knowledge of his adopted country; to ensure his readership had access to accurate texts; and to prevent textual errors that might preclude adoption of Macmillan and Company’s books in Canada. A genial manner, sharp mind, and publishing finesse made Eayrs likeable and his criticism palatable to his principals. Moreover, his boundless energy, on show within the first year of his presidency, and remarkable ability to transform the financial profile of the Toronto branch of Macmillan secured their respect and admiration. In 1922 Macmillan’s gross profit was $31,667.98. In 1923 it rose to $37,779.96, with an increased net profit of nearly 45 per cent over 1922. That year, to show his confidence in the Canadian business, Frederick Macmillan counselled Eayrs to declare a dividend of 100 per cent and to pay the staff a bonus of 10 per cent of their salaries. Just two years into his term as president, Eayrs had more than restored the company’s financial health and reformed its publishing program. Macmillan’s gross profit continued to rise in 1924 (to $37,779.56) and 1925 (to $44,940.05). Eayrs was the driving force behind Macmillan. He once described

76

The Macmillan Company of Canada

the demanding, multifaceted job of the Canadian publisher who ‘must employ all the arts and devices he knows … he must travel his territory regularly from coast to coast; he must advertise his wares in the trade papers and in the larger dailies across the country; he must cultivate his potential book buyer mail-servicely; he must seek liaison between his author and the localized public by arranging for audiences for lectures – in short, he must get every possible book sold in every possible way.’47 Under Eayrs’s direction, Macmillan saw unprecedented growth during the 1920s. Given the rapid rise in Macmillan’s fortunes and its sustained development, it is not surprising that Frederick Macmillan and George Brett gave Eayrs increasing autonomy to lead the Toronto branch in directions that had new and exciting implications for Canadian literature and culture. The Call to Serve: Hugh Eayrs as Nationalist Throughout the 1920s, Eayrs remained committed to his early vision for the Macmillan Company of Canada. On the occasion of Canadian Book Week in 1923, two and one half years into his term as president, Eayrs prepared the celebratory volume A Canadian Publishing House to outline his company’s new credo: The Macmillan Company of Canada Limited, seeks the best … The company tries to see its duty and to see it whole. It publishes books. It views this publishing of books as more than mere vocation. It takes the stand that by what it publishes – or, equally important, refrains from publishing – it may conceivably alter the viewpoint and outlook of the people of Canada. It believes it has a serious purpose and mission in the interests of Canadian letters. It feels most strongly that the only way in which there can be built a distinctively national Canadian literature is to see that only such work by Canadian authors sees the light as is good work, measured by the yardstick of accepted British and continental standards. It believes that to say a book is good merely because it is of Canadian authorship is to do a dis-service to the cause of Canadian letters. Publishing … is looked at from more than its merely commercial aspect. We think of it as a high calling and we are striving to ‘press toward the mark of that high calling.’48

Eayrs’s belief in a growing ‘national consciousness’ and a literary ‘renaissance’49 for Canada, the apparent satisfaction he had derived so far

The Triumphant Second Reign 1921–1940

77

from his pioneering efforts to issue Canadian books, and his early success as president of Macmillan are felt in the high moral and nationalistic impulse of this declaration. Eayrs valued the role of publisher as cultural gatekeeper and felt privileged to count himself among those who, by virtue of their consecrating authority, helped shape the literary culture of their country. The cultural and symbolic capital that accrued to Eayrs over the course of his presidency similarly nurtured the Macmillan Company of Canada’s house identity as formidable and respectable, and its imprint as a sign of redoubtable status. During the 1880s and 1890s, as Nick Mount reveals in When Canadian Literature Moved to New York, Canadians who aspired to literary careers relocated to the United States, most notably New York, where it was possible to earn a living as a writer. The first two decades of the twentieth century, the period of Wise’s presidency when Canadian publishing was yet in its infancy, saw little change. A dispersed readership showed a preference for British and American over Canadian writing, authorship was not yet viable for the few local writers, and little money was to be made by issuing their work. In Authors and Audiences: Popular Canadian Fiction in the Early Twentieth Century, for example, Clarence Karr studies the careers of best-selling Canadian authors, including Ralph Connor, Lucy Maud Montgomery, and Arthur Stringer, who found an audience for their work and earned their livelihoods as writers outside of Canada. The Copyright Amendment Act, 1900 introduced exclusive Canadian publishing arrangements, but such legal arrangements were difficult to enforce. By 1921, propitious changes in Canada’s cultural milieu gave rise to Eayrs’s early optimism. First, further amendments to Canadian copyright law, passed first in 1921 and put into effect in 1924, allowed the Canadian publisher to obtain an ‘exclusive license’50 to import foreign copyrights or to arrange for the manufacture of foreign copyrights. Foreign publishers and local booksellers were thereby prevented from saturating the Canadian market with foreign – and often inexpensive – books. In reality, by 1920 Canadian rights to a book could be obtained from the author or a foreign publisher (as the author’s agent), and would reside with a Canadian publisher, an example of which was Eayrs’s publishing contract with Michael Sadleir for his 1923 novel, Desolate Splendour. Although world rights to any book continued to elude Canadian publishers, an especially frustrating situation,51 they were heartened by the improved market for original domestic books, already evident by 1923.

78

The Macmillan Company of Canada

Second, the war years were prosperous ones, remarkable for their significant increase in book sales. A growing population, combined with a fervent nationalism, fed the market for Canadian writing. As Eayrs admitted, the First World War ‘did to Canadian letters what years of academic study might never have done. It taught us our place as a distinct national entity and so awoke national consciousness which found expression through a national literature.’52 George Parker testifies that a ‘new reading public’ emerged during the Great War: ‘Christmas sales from 1914 to the end of 1919 set new records each year, even though book prices rose by a third and costs of production, labour, equipment, and transportation more than doubled.’53 In the wake of the war, book historians Carole Gerson and Jacques Michon attest, ‘books became increasingly important in the transmission and promotion of a national culture that was seen as both a heritage and a projection into the future.’54 Post-war nationalism fuelled a cultural flowering. A first exhibit of Group of Seven paintings was held in 1920. The Canadian Authors Association, founded in 1921, gave voice to the professional concerns of writers. In fact, the association lobbied for the changes brought to 1920s copyright legislation. Several important literary journals, including Canadian Forum (1920– ), Canadian Bookman (1921– ), Dalhousie Review (1921– ), McGill Fortnightly Review (1925–7), and Canadian Mercury (1928–9), were launched to showcase the work of Canadian writers and thinkers. Eayrs saw that Macmillan could partake in the development of local culture by issuing books by and for Canadians. He did so, over the course of his presidency, by several means commonly adopted by resourceful Canadian publishers: (i) he imported flat sheets from London or New York and had them bound in Canada, with a title-leaf (either integral or cancel) that bore the Macmillan Company of Canada imprint; (ii) he imported bound books from London or New York, also with an integral or cancel titleleaf; (iii) he borrowed plates from British or American publishers and had a Canadian impression printed with an integral title-leaf; or (iv) he manufactured books entirely in Canada.55 An ardent nationalist who sought to leave his mark on his adopted country, Eayrs upheld the publisher’s role as arbiter of cultural taste and education. In keeping with Pierre Bourdieu’s view of the publisher as cultural consecrator, Eayrs believed that Canadian literature should fall within the purview of high culture – ‘connecting spiritual development to ideas of citizenship and social morality’56 – far removed from popular and ephemeral entertainment. Moreover, he

The Triumphant Second Reign 1921–1940

79

saw the potential for literature that was both serious and refined to heighten Canadian identity and thereby advance the national imaginary. Eayrs determined that literary works ‘rooted in the Canadian context, the myths and symbols and stories and various identifiers that could evoke a spatial sense of self’57 would represent Canada to its citizens and serve to unify a dispersed readership. Through a vigorous publishing program that included successful educational series, as well as key trade publications – prose works by Louis Hémon, Mazo de la Roche, and Grey Owl, and poetry by E.J. Pratt, for example – Eayrs nurtured Macmillan through adolescence, consolidated its position as an important Canadian publishing company, and helped articulate a modern literary aesthetic for Canada. Whiteman affirms, ‘It was largely through Eayrs’s efforts that Macmillan played so significant a role in the coming of age of Canadian literature which took place in the 1920s and after.’58 Eayrs’s commitment to Macmillan and the authors whose work he sought to support was palpable from the start of his publishing career. Upon his appointment, he publicly announced a change in company policy, that Macmillan would sponsor ‘books by Canadian[s].’59 Moreover, he ‘regard[ed] as a distinct duty the forwarding, by every possible effort, of Canadian production of Canadian authorship. We have not done enough to link the best names in the book world with Canadian work and whatever else we do or don’t do we are going to stimulate by every bit that is in us the discovery to the Canadian reader of the Canadian author.’60 Notwithstanding Eayrs’s hyperbole, which conveys the excitement he felt as the newly appointed president of Macmillan, he could not have anticipated how fully his efforts would soon transform literary culture in Canada. Undaunted by the scepticism of colleagues, in 1921 Eayrs published W.H. Blake’s English translation of Maria Chapdelaine, Louis Hémon’s 1916 novel issued by J.-A. LeFebvre of Montreal. It was the first book to appear under Eayrs’s management and it soon became a classic, bestselling work of fiction. The decision to publish a novel in translation underscores the breadth of Eayrs’s guiding vision for Macmillan: to issue books of artistic merit and national importance that reflected both the range and depth of Canadian experience. The immediate triumph of Blake’s translation boosted the young president’s confidence and established his position as a publisher of Canadian books that would succeed on the international market. A full study of the publication of Maria Chapdelaine by Bruce Whiteman outlines the complicated prov-

80

The Macmillan Company of Canada

enance of Blake’s English translation. Since complete details are available in Whiteman’s 1982 article,61 this chapter emphasizes key points that highlight Eayrs’s drive as publisher and the problematic nature of Canadian copyright in the early 1920s, which gave rise to conflict with the New York house of Macmillan. In 1936 John Gray recalled Eayrs’s daring choice to issue a ‘free idiomatic’ translation of Maria Chapdelaine by W.H. Blake, a lawyer and little known writer, over that of a ‘stiffer and more literal’62 translation by Andrew Macphail, an accomplished author, physician, and professor of the history of medicine at McGill University. Eayrs’s preference for the literary translation, and his zealous view of Hémon’s novel as signalling the rise of a mature Canadian literature, reflected the vision and determination that would come to characterize his presidency. Eayrs was motivated by a desire to redress the wrongs of Frank Wise, to prove his mettle as a bookman, and to make a strong impression on the Canadian publishing scene. That he confronted resistance from Frederick Macmillan – ‘nothing is easier than to drop money on general publishing, and I hope that before undertaking anything other than school books … at your own risk you will consult us as to committing yourself’63 – only served to spur his ambition. Under the impression that J.A. LeFebvre, the Montreal publisher of Maria Chapdelaine, ‘was legally entitled to assign [him] the translation rights,’64 Eayrs proceeded to issue an English-language edition of the novel, with woodcut illustrations by Toronto graphic artist Thoreau MacDonald. In early September 1921 an edition of 3,024 copies was published, priced at $1.50. By 23 January 1922, when he learned that LeFebvre had never registered the copyright for Hémon’s novel and had unlawfully retained all royalty payments received from Eayrs – LeFebvre ought to have forwarded royalty payments to Marie Hémon, legal heir to her brother’s estate – more than 5,000 copies of Maria Chapdelaine had been published to ‘great critical and popular’ acclaim.65 The lack of copyright protection for the novel led to further abuses by LeFebvre, who continued to retain all royalty payments, which included a licensing fee of 7 per cent of sales, as well as 10 per cent in trust for Hémon’s heirs. In 1931, in a decisive effort to circumvent LeFebvre’s machinations, Eayrs was instructed by legal counsel to negotiate a contract with Marie Hémon, who accepted the Canadian publisher’s explanation that he had acted in good faith and had not knowingly infringed copyright by issuing his edition of Maria Chapdelaine. When Marie Hémon agreed to a royalty payment of ten cents per copy and

The Triumphant Second Reign 1921–1940

81

25 per cent of net profit (retroactive to 1 April 1928), LeFebvre was subdued and Eayrs finally acquired legal status as the English-language publisher of what had become Louis Hémon’s landmark novel. By the end of 1928, 18,631 copies of Maria Chapdelaine had appeared under the Macmillan Company of Canada imprint.66 Eayrs’s self-assurance was bolstered by the unprecedented success of Hémon’s novel, as was his determination to make the most of his publishing triumph. Besieged by copyright problems and frustrated by LeFebvre’s misappropriation of royalty payments, he cleaved to his right as publisher and fought a hard-won battle to protect his interests. Eayrs recognized the benefits of early success and would not forfeit them at any cost. He had earned the admiration of publishing colleagues in Canada, the esteem of his principals in London and New York, and the coveted opportunity to publish more Canadian books. Just one month following publication of Maria Chapdelaine, in the immediate wake of the novel’s meteoric rise, Frederick Macmillan reversed his earlier dictum against the publishing of literature and assured Eayrs that he was ‘quite willing that you should make experiments in General Literature when you think fit. We say this because we believe that you are fully aware of the difficulties that anything like carelessness in this respect might lead you into.’67 From his new position of strength, Eayrs was emboldened enough to urge the New York office of Macmillan to purchase the Canadian edition of Maria Chapdelaine: ‘I cannot help thinking the book was a Canadian find and while I should be only too glad and while I shall try to arrange a way in which you can get American rights, I should have thought that in this, our first book of consequence, you would have cooperated with us in our edition rather than desire to make one of your own.’68 In response, George Brett took Eayrs to task for acting solely in the interest of the Canadian house with regard to Maria Chapdelaine. He reproached Eayrs for the confusion over copyright which, Brett presumed, precluded production of an American edition of a potentially lucrative work of fiction. Deeply troubled by Brett’s expressed dissatisfaction, Eayrs wrote a series of explanatory letters elucidating the complicated publication of Hémon’s novel. He also reassured Brett that he was ‘most concerned to see the Macmillan houses as a whole and not merely from the viewpoint of the Canadian house.’69 Mollified by the sincerity of Eayrs’s response, Brett conceded that the majority of publications issued by the Toronto branch were not suited to the American market. Hémon’s novel was

82

The Macmillan Company of Canada

a rare exception, however, and he was disgruntled by the inability to secure copyright clearance for an American edition. Although an American edition of Maria Chapdelaine, in tandem with a British edition, was published by the spring of 1922 – despite the ongoing copyright problems – as senior publisher and head of the highly regarded New York house of Macmillan, Brett chafed when his bookish desires were not immediately met. In this instance, Eayrs, as junior publisher of the fledgling Canadian branch of Macmillan, had acted autonomously and decisively, behaviour that Brett recognized as characteristic of a more seasoned bookman. Hence, when Eayrs offered his view of the copyright situation, Brett felt obliged to accept the account of a publisher whom he regarded as ‘[no] mean judge … of the possibilities of books.’70 This early clash showcased Eayrs’s natural confidence and marked the strength of his position among the triad of Macmillan publishers. While he may have been the youngest and least experienced of the three Macmillan presidents, he was a dynamic and intelligent force, as Brett himself soon realized. In the end, the dispute did little damage to their relationship, for Brett saw the result of Eayrs’s resolute action. The success of Hémon’s novel in translation determined the course of the Canadian branch, which acquired new liberty to handle financial matters and publishing decisions, including the periodic publication of other French Canadian novels in translation, most notably the groundbreaking Thirty Acres (Ringuet, 1940; translated by Felix and Dorothea Walter) and Incubation (Gérard Bessette, 1967; translated by Glen Shortliffe). Eayrs’s ambitious program to stimulate ‘the discovery to the Canadian reader of the Canadian author’71 had been launched. Notwithstanding Eayrs’s continued success, the 1920s were marked by a prolonged, high profile lawsuit involving the Macmillan Company of Canada and other defendants, initiated by would-be author Florence Deeks. In 1918, while Eayrs was an apprentice in the education department, Deeks had submitted a manuscript to Macmillan for its consideration. ‘The Web of the World’s Romance’ was Deeks’s lay history of the world, conceived and written from a feminist perspective. Deeks believed that her manuscript was used by the prominent writer H.G. Wells in preparation of his own Outline of History, serialized in 1919 by George Newnes of London and issued in two volumes in 1920 by Macmillan of New York. She accused the Macmillan Company of Canada of sharing her manuscript with Wells and giving him the opportunity to

The Triumphant Second Reign 1921–1940

83

plagiarize her work. Determined to see justice, in 1925 Deeks launched a lawsuit that took place in Canadian and British courts, extended over many years, and in 1933 ruled in favour of Macmillan and Wells.72 The Deeks suit was yet another unsavoury inheritance from Frank Wise and his colleague John Cameron Saul, to whom Deeks had submitted her manuscript. Although Deeks’s direct contact at Macmillan had been Saul, Eayrs was president of the company for the duration of the lawsuit. Hence, he bore responsibility for managing the company’s legal affairs and the Deeks case claimed much of his attention throughout the 1920s. Eayrs sought to protect Macmillan by keeping the details of the case out of Canadian newspapers. Moreover, when he was required to offer testimony during court hearings in Toronto, he did not hesitate to perjure himself. Under cross-examination by lawyer R.S. Robertson, Eayrs was asked whether he had full knowledge of the misdemeanours that led to Frank Wise’s discharge from Macmillan in early 1921. His reply under oath was an unequivocal ‘No, I do not.’73 Eayrs vented his frustration in a letter to Frederick Macmillan: ‘The silliness of this whole Deeks suit irritates me. To waste good time I could employ in other ways for the business, answering perfectly stupid questions on the part of an equally stupid cross-examiner is an annoyance.’74 In the end, the ‘silliness’ proved costly and emotionally trying. Eayrs lost patience with the extended legal proceedings and resented the fact that he was obliged to oversee a lawsuit that was not of his making. At the close of the case, when Macmillan was found not guilty, Eayrs experienced profound relief. Whether or not the Macmillan Company of Canada was truly culpable, however, is explored in depth by McKillop in his compelling analysis of the Deeks-Wells case, The Spinster and the Prophet: Florence Deeks, H.G. Wells, and the Mystery of the Purloined Past. While Deeks may have lost her suit, McKillop levies archival evidence, and illuminates the known facts and historical context of her claim of plagiarism to suggest that Deeks may have been the victim of a justice system that favoured prominent writers and their publishers over unknown spinsters who aspired to authorship.75 Tempestuous Trio: Hugh Eayrs – Mazo de la Roche – Edward Weeks Hugh Eayrs envisaged a ‘new Canadian literature’76 and his publishing program sought to develop Canadian writers. He described his own practice of ‘sedulously set[ting] aside every year a certain sum of

84

The Macmillan Company of Canada

money to be devoted to the publication of good books by Canadians, whether they are likely to be successful ventures financially or not.’77 Whiteman confirms that ‘textbook profits allowed Macmillan the freedom to risk the publication of poetry and novels which, particularly during the depression years, rarely repaid their investment.’78 For Eayrs, author and publisher were partners: ‘No author and publisher can work together with suspicion on either side: each of them must believe wholly in the partnership idea.’79 In fact, Eayrs enjoyed enduring connections with many writers whose fondness for the publisher is evident in the extensive correspondence included in the Macmillan Company of Canada fonds. Folklorist Marius Barbeau,80 conservationist Grey Owl, literary critic W.E. Collin, humorist Stephen Leacock, poet E.J. Pratt, and novelists Mazo de la Roche, Frederick Philip Grove, and Morley Callaghan were among those who felt fortunate in having Eayrs as their publisher – a man of inspiration who was dedicated to issuing quality work by Canadian writers. Fortunately for his authors and their readers, Eayrs channelled his constant frustration – ‘What other domestic product … [has] to fight its own way so usually as a Canadian book?’81 – into the production of handsome books and the nurturing of writers’ talents. He would not ‘shirk responsibility when the livelihood [sic] of authors and publishers were threatened,’82 and sought to prevent the common practice of piracy by legally registering copyright of his publications. One author who benefited from Eayrs’s vision and encouragement was the best-selling novelist Mazo de la Roche. Their long and important association began in 1921, the same year Eayrs was appointed president; six years later, in 1927, the Macmillan Company of Canada published de la Roche’s award-winning novel Jalna. Although he was at times disingenuous in his treatment of the novelist, Eayrs felt ‘a great affection’83 for de la Roche. When de la Roche lived in Toronto, she and Eayrs would meet regularly for one of their ‘old chins.’84 Later, when de la Roche resided in England, they exchanged frequent and friendly letters that included as much personal detail as discussion of professional matters. When he travelled on Macmillan business from Toronto to Britain, Eayrs visited de la Roche and her family and was ‘Uncle Hugh’85 and official guardian to her two children. In 1938 he published a tribute to the writer and her work in which he praised ‘her honesty, her genius for characterization … her amazing powers of observation … [and] her felicitous style.’86 The novelist’s own regard for Eayrs was conveyed in one of her more playful letters to her Canadian publisher: ‘I am annoyed with you! That is, I am as annoyed as it is possible for me to be with my dearest friend.’87

The Triumphant Second Reign 1921–1940

85

The name Mazo de la Roche is synonymous with Jalna, a series of sixteen novels published between 1927 and 1960 that chronicled the lives of the irrepressible Whiteoak family members. To date, de la Roche’s writing and publishing career and her achievement as a popular author have been largely overlooked by literary scholars.88 In fact, her success was exceptional, indisputable, and due primarily to her own ingenuity as a professional who understood fully the nature of her connections with readers and publishers alike. Throughout her career, for example, she retained her audience by writing precisely those books it wanted to read. De la Roche’s literary success is best understood, however, in terms of her relationships with her publishers, which she negotiated and maintained throughout her writing life. Three of the most influential figures in the novelist’s life were Hugh Eayrs, her Canadian publisher; Edward Weeks, her editor at Atlantic Monthly Press/Little, Brown of Boston; and Daniel Macmillan of Macmillan and Company in London, who was at the head of the British firm during Eayrs’s presidency. While each of these men shaped the life of the writer and her books, their own lives were also greatly affected by de la Roche. Her achievement as a popular author must be considered in terms of her connections with these individuals. The years 1927 and 1940 form the parameters of this analysis, dates which marked monumental changes in the writer’s life. In 1927 Jalna won the Atlantic Monthly’s novel contest which brought the author immediate fame, publication of her manuscript, and a prize of $10,000 U.S., while 1940 saw the untimely death of Hugh Eayrs and an irrevocable change in de la Roche’s professional relationships. The links between Canadian and foreign publishing firms necessitated the close ties that soon developed among key persons connected to de la Roche. Eayrs, for example, conducted business under the aegis of Macmillan and Company and the success of his Toronto branch was largely dependent on the agency system. Despite the distance that separated them, Eayrs and Daniel Macmillan were in regular contact and always maintained a close working relationship. Although the Macmillan Company of Canada was not an agent for Atlantic Monthly Press/ Little, Brown of Boston, which published de la Roche’s works in the United States, Hugh Eayrs and Edward Weeks were allied through their mutual association with de la Roche. For the most part, the publishing triad of Hugh Eayrs, Edward Weeks, and Daniel Macmillan served the interests of publishers and author alike. Problems arose only when the publishers dealt unprofessionally with de la Roche. When Jalna first appeared, de la Roche was already an accomplished

86

The Macmillan Company of Canada

author with a growing list of published works including Explorers of the Dawn (1922), a collection of linked short stories; two novels, Possession (1923) and Delight (1926); and two one-act plays, Low Life: A Comedy in One Act (1925) and Come True (1927).89 With the exception of the short stories, de la Roche’s first works were produced by Macmillan; its London and New York houses published the novels and its Toronto branch issued the plays. Although her work had generated little revenue, she nonetheless enjoyed a congenial connection with the three houses of Macmillan, each of which showed respect for her writing and a willingness to continue as her publisher. De la Roche also had a past affiliation with the Atlantic Monthly which had published two of her early stories, ‘Buried Treasure’ and ‘Explorers of the Dawn,’90 and whose editor, Ellery Sedgwick, had become a friend and mentor, offering advice and encouragement in letters that dated from 1914. When the Atlantic Monthly Press and its joint publisher, Little, Brown of Boston, decided to issue Jalna, they allowed de la Roche to remain with the Macmillan Company of Canada for Canadian publication, but they granted British rights to Hodder and Stoughton rather than Macmillan. Having expressed an earlier wish to place Jalna with Macmillan and Company of London, de la Roche felt obliged to offer Daniel Macmillan the following explanation in a letter dated 20 May 1927: ‘It was one of the conditions of the [Atlantic Monthly] Award that the novel should be handled in the States by Little Brown & Co. of Boston. I made a strong effort to retain Jalna for the Macmillan Co. in Canada and England. It was agreed that I should remain with my Canadian publisher but Hodder & Stoughton are to bring it out in England. I cannot tell you how sorry I am to be obliged to leave you with this book. Perhaps some future time will find me under your imprint again.’91 In May 1927, de la Roche could not have known how soon she would again become a Macmillan author. Two years later, Hodder and Stoughton gave their rights in Jalna to Macmillan on the understanding that the latter take over their remaining stock of the novel and reimburse them £140 in royalties paid to Little, Brown. Except for this brief interlude, throughout her long career de la Roche remained loyal to Macmillan in Britain and Canada, and to Atlantic Monthly Press/Little, Brown in the United States. This is not to suggest, however, that she never wavered in fidelity to her publishers. In fact, the opposite is true. A shrewd negotiator, de la Roche always sought the best possible arrangements for herself and her family, and she was not loath to adopt manipulative tactics to

The Triumphant Second Reign 1921–1940

87

serve her purpose. Moreover, she understood that, as a woman, she was positioned outside the predominantly male world of publishing which nonetheless afforded her and her publishers comfortable livings. With the exception of Daniel Macmillan, for example, the extant letters between publishers and author revealed a warm and amiable exchange but also a reluctance to trust in the other’s good faith. Further, various letters between Hugh Eayrs and Edward Weeks unveiled their orchestrated efforts to undermine the author’s autonomy and deliberately exclude her from their male coterie. De la Roche’s grasp of her own potentially vulnerable situation and her ability to mitigate it through astute negotiations forms a significant subtext in this consideration of her professional relationships. Tension marked the connection between de la Roche and her North American publishers. This claim disputes statements made by Hugh Eayrs and Edward Weeks, each of whom attested only to their abiding friendships with the writer. In 1938, for example, Eayrs affirmed that ‘from the beginning we were not merely author and publisher, but great friends.’92 In 1963, two years following her death, Weeks recalled the pleasures of his ‘long friendship’ with de la Roche, ‘with whom I worked for 35 years [and] whose mind and whose writing were of perpetual delight to me.’93 The surviving correspondence between the author and her publishers, while challenging to interpret, may suggest otherwise. On the surface one reads genuine feelings of friendship and belief in de la Roche’s abilities as a writer. Between the lines, however, lurks an elusive insincerity which is accessible in the dubious tone of their advice to the author, in what they leave unsaid in their letters to de la Roche, in the thoughts the men share in their private correspondence, and in what is reported of them in the letters of others. Soon after the success of Jalna brought the two men together, in fact, Eayrs and Weeks formed a fast friendship that endured until the former’s death in 1940. They communicated regularly through the mail, frequently visited one another, and became golf partners. Moreover, they often exchanged carbon copies of their respective letters to de la Roche in order to keep one another abreast of the contents. In light of their own correspondence, in which they bandied pleasantries about ‘the two girls [Mazo de la Roche and Caroline Clement, her cousin and lifelong companion],’94 their advice to de la Roche often appears to be self-motivated. As early as 16 August 1929, for example, Weeks stressed the impor-

88

The Macmillan Company of Canada

tance of loyalty between author and publisher: ‘Sound business, jealousy, friendship, and a good many other motives prompt me to suggest, as I am sure Hugh will agree, that it is really unwise for you to spread your books in too many baskets. With Hugh and ourselves as capable guardians, I should hate to see you go further afield.’95 No doubt, primary among the ‘good many other motives’ Weeks did not enumerate was the fact that de la Roche generated significant income for her American publisher. Rather than state this outright, however, Weeks posed as the good-natured, paternalistic figure writing out of concern for the author. Both he and Eayrs regularly adopted a patronizing attitude toward de la Roche which nonetheless served to sustain their respective connections with the writer. As Joan Givner, de la Roche’s biographer, explains: ‘Weeks was [not] deliberately assertive of his masculine superiority. He was simply a man trafficking in the conversational currency of his time – the man-to-man approach to fellow publishers, the male cameraderie, [sic] and the unconscious condescension to women.’96 Eayrs’s own shocking and inexcusable duplicity toward de la Roche is recorded in a letter written by author Frederick Philip Grove to his wife, Catherine, dated 26 March 1928: ‘Eayrs said when I confronted him with the misdoings of his firm, “Yes, I could kick myself. I’ve simply been mistaken. I have wanted to build up a Canadian novelist and thought Miss de la Roche was a comer. I know today and have known for some time that she has no future. You have.”’97 Eayrs’s easy dismissal of de la Roche is even more distressing when read as pandering to Grove’s need for reassurance from his publisher. Similarly, Lovat Dickson, de la Roche’s British editor and long-time friend, recorded in an undated note, ‘The fun H.S.E. [i.e., Hugh Smithurst Eayrs] privately made to me about Mazo and her snobbisms. Plainly he had to keep up a flirtatious attitude which neither of them took seriously, but which Mazo would have resented if it had been withdrawn.’98 Archival evidence exposes the exaggerated claims of lasting friendship between the writer and her publishers. De la Roche herself was aware of her publishers’ attempts to undermine her powerful position as an international author, and she consciously and repeatedly manipulated that position to her unquestionable advantage. Her ability to wield the upper hand was apparent by 23 September 1929, when already she coyly played Weeks and Eayrs off one another: ‘Bye-the-way, I have not told Hugh Eayrs that I am beginning a new novel [i.e., Finch’s Fortune (1931)]. When the right time comes I shall tell him but in that skittish

The Triumphant Second Reign 1921–1940

89

soul of mine I feel that the right time has not yet arrived. So please don’t mention it.’99 Having achieved a long-awaited triumph with the publication of Jalna, throughout her career, and particularly in relations with her publishers, de la Roche shrewdly and determinedly took pains to ensure the continuation of that success. Her decision and capacity to act on her own behalf and that of Caroline Clement, her partner in life and letters, are crucial aspects of the publishing history of the Jalna series. De la Roche had not always been self-assured and independent, however. Prior to the publication of her award-winning novel, the author had regarded her publishers as mentors and friends, placing her trust in their experience and knowledge. As a woman and a littleknown writer, she had felt vulnerable and frustrated but had never been passive. Rather than submit to defeat when her short stories were rejected repeatedly, for instance, she remained committed to her craft and often sought the advice of Hugh Eayrs and Ellery Sedgwick. When her books earned her scant critical attention and even less income, she did not consider giving up writing; instead, she gave herself over to her work with impressive vigour, always remaining faithful to the vision that finally produced Jalna and brought her much deserved happiness at the late age of forty-eight. Following the 1927 publication of Jalna – the terms of which satisfied de la Roche100 – the author was comfortable in her new role as literary celebrity and with her publishers, who shared the joy and profit of her triumph. Little more than two years after Jalna appeared in book form, however, de la Roche deliberately initiated a period of disquiet during which her Boston publishers grew fearful that she would leave them for a rival house. In fact, of her three publishers, Atlantic Monthly Press/ Little, Brown received the largest share of de la Roche’s provocations during their many years of association, perhaps in response to Edward Weeks’s committed and careful editing of her novels, which she found particularly irksome. In a letter dated 30 January 1930, one of several similar instances, the author wrote to Weeks: ‘Well, it was about time you wrote! A little longer, and I should have inevitably succumbed to the wiles of the New York gentleman who so far as I can make out, crossed the Atlantic with no other purpose in view but my seduction. That is, to his new publishing house.’101 Whenever she felt neglected by her publishers, de la Roche grew peevish. She relied on their letters, as well as the countless letters from readers which she received throughout her career, to foster her sense of professional connectedness. This falsely light-hearted

90

The Macmillan Company of Canada

reference to a publishing scout probably sounded a cautionary note in Weeks’s reading of her letter, exactly the effect de la Roche would have hoped to achieve. Moreover, this brief comment, tinged with sexual innuendo, implied the superior position of the writer in the authorpublisher hierarchy and constituted de la Roche’s first strategic move toward true power with her publishers. A number of publishers, impressed by the significant sales of the first Jalna novels, attempted to convince de la Roche to join their respective firms. One such company, the Cosmopolitan Book Corporation, made an offer that the author considered seriously. Although she used the rival firm’s offer as leverage in subsequent contract negotiations with Atlantic Monthly Press/Little, Brown, her letters at this time revealed that she had changed significantly from the cautious, self-effacing author of pre-Jalna days. On 24 June 1930 she wrote to Edward Weeks, by now a friend whom she addressed as Ted: ‘If only other publishers would let me alone! So far I have refused to consider a change. But yesterday I had a letter from Elizabeth Marbury with quite a dazzling offer. The Cosmopolitan Book Corporation is the publisher in this case. She gives pages of details of a tremendous advertising campaign. They offer me $3000. as a present. I am simply to “forget about it” … I can’t tell you how repellant the thought of changing my publisher is to me. But I want to make all the money I can. I have relatives I like to help … Please write to me as a friend.’102 Despite her protestation of loyalty to Weeks, de la Roche was preoccupied with Cosmopolitan’s offer. Her growing self-confidence, as well as her determination to establish economic security for her family, was obvious in this and subsequent letters. With the success of Jalna, de la Roche had become a professional. She soon acknowledged her ability to write novels that would please millions of readers, and she did not hesitate to point out this fact to her publishers when the need arose. De la Roche’s letter of 24 June 1930 sent the offices of the Atlantic Monthly Press and Little, Brown into a flurry. When he learned of the possible defection of his prize author, Alfred McIntyre, president of Little, Brown, responded immediately to Edward Weeks in a letter that reiterated the terms of the firm’s publishing arrangements with de la Roche. As early as 20 September 1928, prior to the publication of the second novel in the series, Whiteoaks of Jalna (1929), McIntyre had countered a similar problem in a letter to de la Roche, when he was ‘rather disturbed’103 to hear that she had been approached by a New York publishing company. It was decided that the current situation, however,

The Triumphant Second Reign 1921–1940

91

required a more aggressive response than the pen, and Weeks prepared personally to meet de la Roche’s ship upon her return from a trip to England. ‘Determined to have an early and friendly word with’ the author, he cabled her care of the London Bank: ‘Will meet your ship’s arrival Quebec or Montreal. Cable time and place. Imperative you reserve decision. Cabling as friend.’104 The meeting between Weeks and de la Roche never took place and the author declined her editor’s offer to visit Toronto where they could discuss business matters. Instead, she urged Weeks to write and gave the following information as incentive: ‘[Hugh Eayrs] came to Southampton to see us off looking well and very happy. We talked over the Cosmopolitan offer. He would like me to stay with the Little Brown’s but thinks I should have a 20% royalty. Do you think Mr McIntyre would give me this? All my desire is to remain with you but, as Miss Marbury points out, serialization in one of their magazines would mean a great deal. The difference between $5000 and $25000 … It would be a sad day for me when I should leave the House of which you are a member. Don’t let me do it!’105 Since he had great respect and fellow feeling for the president of Macmillan of Canada, de la Roche understood that having Eayrs as an ally would strengthen her position with Weeks. From early in her career, she could adopt the strategy of playing the two men off one another – perhaps the only recourse available to the author who was regularly excluded from her publishers’ private communications. Moreover, her final beseeching words, however coyly written and playful in tone, underscored the gravity of her purpose and her increasing authority among her publishers. De la Roche’s letter evoked a four-page response from Weeks, in which he detailed the reasons why she ought not to accept Cosmopolitan’s offer and remain with Atlantic Monthly Press/Little, Brown. He urged her to consider her reputation as a serious novelist, which would be tarnished if her work were associated with the popular publications issued by Cosmopolitan. Today, the irony in Weeks’s argument is evident, given de la Roche’s lasting reputation as a purely popular writer. As to royalties, he agreed ‘to the 20% which you feel and I feel has come to be your due,’106 although he qualified the offer by explaining that fewer funds may be allocated to the future advertising of her books. In closing, however, Weeks appealed to the psychological connection between de la Roche and his company, hoping to convince the author that to remain with Atlantic Monthly Press/Little, Brown was

92

The Macmillan Company of Canada

proper and moral: ‘In all of this I have not touched on the spirit of loyalty which I think has been mutually derived from our association. I believe that you appreciate the efforts which we have made in your behalf, and for our part, I hardly need tell you that we regard you as one of our best and most valued authors. We have dealt with you with explicit honesty in the past … I sincerely hope that nothing will arise to disturb the friendly and mutally [sic] beneficial association which has existed between us.’107 As this letter indicated, Weeks could not afford to alienate de la Roche, whose work generated vast revenue. Writing in 1930, during the Depression, he understood that to lose the novelist to a rival firm would have dire financial consequences for Atlantic Monthly Press/Little, Brown. He wrote in earnest to prevent such a crisis. Although de la Roche was convinced and relieved by the tone of Weeks’s letter and his offer of the 20 per cent royalty she had requested, on 25 August 1930, when the contract for Finch’s Fortune (1931), the third Jalna novel, had yet to be signed, she reiterated to Alfred McIntyre that ‘the agent who approached me, still continues to write urging me to reconsider my decision.’108 This incident marked the first real struggle for power between author and publisher and it altered their future relationship. Never again could either Weeks or McIntyre assume that de la Roche was a naive and acquiescent writer. Intelligently, she had manipulated the outcome of this particular conflict to serve her best interests and disrupt the hierarchy of writer and publisher. From 1930 onward, Atlantic Monthly Press/Little, Brown had only to provoke de la Roche and her response – the threat to leave them for another firm – would silence them into submission. This did not prevent Eayrs and Weeks, who by 1931 shared a fast friendship, from discussing de la Roche among themselves. As their letters reveal, during their association with the author, they attempted to influence her and shape the course of her career to suit their requirements. Moreover, they were aware that often de la Roche did not favour their counsel – which called into question their respective claims that they always acted in her best interests. Today we understand from their correspondence that the two men aimed to retain as much control as possible over Jalna’s destiny by undermining de la Roche’s position as the creator of the series. If they treated the author as ‘a good girl’109 – Eayrs and Weeks’s term – in need of guidance, perhaps she would remain their subordinate. This would not prove to be the case, however.

The Triumphant Second Reign 1921–1940

93

The issue of whether or not the Jalna series ought to continue became a pressing one early in 1931 when Eayrs wrote a private letter to Weeks, dated 30 January: ‘I know that I can write confidentially to you, I am not sure that she [i.e., de la Roche] should go on with a fourth volume in the JALNA series, but if she does – and she seems to be bent on it – I think it really ought to be the last … You and I are both fond of her and are always anxious to see that she makes a precisely right move each time, and not a wrong one … If you would like me to write to her, and say so I will be glad to do so and send you a carboncopy of my letter.’110 Eayrs and Weeks regularly consolidated their efforts when communicating with de la Roche. She was as much a commodity as an individual to these men whose livelihood she partly ensured. As a result, they were uneasy lest she pursue her own desires – which she eventually did – and they used their professional skills to guide her toward the course of action they hoped she would adopt. Significantly, she was not party to their private discussions; rather they coaxed her along deftly, with their inimitable paternalistic flair, to convince her of their united position. More often than not, however, she maintained the upper hand either by remaining resolutely silent or by suggesting that they part company. Although Eayrs later complained to Weeks, ‘I always feel between the three-way publishing that if I make a suggestion it is likely to be misconstrued,’111 it was more usual for the two men to share similar views. In fact, as the previous letter indicated, they were allies in the publishing triad. Ironically, Daniel Macmillan played a relatively small part in this alliance. Macmillan published de la Roche’s work with little editorial intervention – characteristic of British publishing practice in general – to an enormous audience that anxiously awaited each Jalna volume and willingly ignored its flaws. As a result, his relations with the author were always cordial. Further, situated across the Atlantic and serving a separate market, Daniel Macmillan had a relatively minor connection with de la Roche’s North American publishers, who communicated regularly with one another and coordinated publication dates of the Jalna novels in the United States and Canada. One letter in particular showed the duplicity of Eayrs and Weeks in their treatment of de la Roche. The most striking features of the following letter were Eayrs’s tone of resentment and his hostility toward the author upon her return to Canada from an extended stay in England. On 5 September 1933 he wrote to Weeks: ‘I think they [i.e., de la Roche

94

The Macmillan Company of Canada

and Clement] expected a much warmer welcome and a great deal of shouting about their returning, and they have not improved the situation themselves by being rather high hat as Canadians see it since their stay in England … Relations are a little strained simply because of this extraordinary Queen Victoria attitude, and you know Ted, there is more than one novelist extant. I am fond of the girls as ever but I think it a great mistake for them, in their own interests, to high hat everybody in the immediate vicinity. I write very confidentially to you as an old friend, of course.’112 Ironically, in public both men pandered to what Eayrs termed de la Roche’s ‘Queen Victoria attitude.’ Unwilling, however, to provoke an author whose writing provided a large portion of his income, Eayrs felt obliged to conceal his resentment and expressed it instead in a confidential letter to Weeks. In this instance, Eayrs would not consider that de la Roche may have felt genuinely slighted by the Canadian media which, throughout her career, reviewed her books poorly, diminished her international success, and celebrated her as a native-born author only when she was lauded in the United States. The disingenuous treatment of de la Roche by her publishers, of which this is a lesser instance, became pronounced in 1934 during the writing of Young Renny (1935), a crucial period in the history of the author’s professional relationships. In the interim, de la Roche successfully maintained her authorial independence. A misunderstanding early in 1934, however, could not have failed to convince Weeks – if, in fact, he required further convincing – that de la Roche was a self-assured author who would not tolerate attempts to deny her autonomy. When she was asked by Queen Mary’s secretary to provide Her Majesty with a signed copy of The Master of Jalna (1933), the fourth novel in the series, the author was flattered and only too pleased to oblige. De la Roche was a great admirer of the royal family and she regarded it as a rare privilege to count its members among her fans. As a gift to Queen Mary, she commissioned a tooledleather binding for the novel. In a tribute to the novelist in the Atlantic Monthly,113 however, Weeks implied that the Macmillan Company of Canada was responsible for the presentation volume. In a rousing letter, dated 15 March 1934, de la Roche reprimanded her editor: ‘What the hell do you mean by giving the Macmillan Co. of Canada the credit for the book? I have been so furious about that that I have refrained from writing. The Macmillan Co. had absolutely nothing to do with it beyond suggesting the name of the man who did the work. I interviewed him, chose the design and paid forty dollars

The Triumphant Second Reign 1921–1940

95

for the book. What annoys me is that to the readers of The Atlantic the incident should be presented as a commercial one whereas it was a purely personal one between her Majesty and myself. If Hugh saw the proof of the page how could he let it pass? Only by design – I swear! Well – the more I think of it, the more I …’114 The veiled threat to sever ties with her North American publishers which concluded this letter brought home to Weeks the seriousness of his offence. Fortunately for Weeks, de la Roche’s anger was assuaged by his elegant apology which soon followed in the mail and which also blamed Eayrs for the entire misunderstanding. This apparent lack of loyalty to one’s friend and colleague should not come as a surprise: the two men regularly shifted the blame to one another in difficult situations, particularly when they were faced with de la Roche’s wrath. Their mutual desire to foster the author’s good will allowed for fleeting personal betrayals that pacified the novelist but had little lasting effect on their own relationship. Greater diplomatic efforts were required of Weeks, however, in the dispute which arose subsequently over Young Renny, initially titled ‘Cousin Malahide.’ In fact, this conflict proved to be the turning point in de la Roche’s relationship with her Boston publishers. At Weeks’s own earlier suggestion, ‘Cousin Malahide’ was set back in time in the Jalna saga and featured a distant relative from Ireland. On 9 April 1934, in a letter to Eayrs, Weeks nonetheless noted his concern over the novel’s time frame. Although Eayrs felt a similar apprehension, he cautioned his friend against provoking de la Roche’s ire. In late May 1934, the author sent several early chapters of ‘Cousin Malahide’ to Atlantic Monthly Press/Little, Brown and was obliged to wait three months for her editor’s response to the fifth novel in the Jalna series. When Weeks’s letter of 27 August 1934 finally arrived – having been delayed by much in-house discussion of the manuscript – it infuriated the author: ‘We all realized from the first, of course, that it was audacious, even risky to turn the clock back in Jalna … new danger has manifested itself in the first ninety pages of the new script. Renny, Maurice and Meg are in their immaturity somewhat more watered [sic] than we like to think, but what is worse, is to remark in the new characters which you have introduced a tendency to be quaint and bizarre beyond the reader’s credulity. Cousin Malahide with his simper and his highly artificial ejaculations, Philip with his annoying lisp, the wooden Mary and the almost absurd fainting fit of Maurice’s father.’115 De la Roche took some time to seriously consider this letter. She was not so much offended by its contents – by 1934 she was accustomed to receiv-

96

The Macmillan Company of Canada

ing Weeks’s criticism of her work – as by its blunt delivery and callous tone. Moreover, to have had to wait three months for such news was unacceptable to the novelist. She felt ill used by her American publishers, who treated her in this instance with apparent disregard. A writer of note and of great value to her publishers, de la Roche would not take such treatment lightly. In a feeble attempt to deflect the serious damage done by Weeks’s letter, Alfred McIntyre cabled the author at her home in Devon, England: ‘Do not offer Malahide to another publisher. We expect to carry out contract for its publication as it stands or as revised by you unless upon reading complete manuscript majority feeling here is against publication and we are able to convince you that our attitude is correct.’116 Notwithstanding McIntyre’s appeal, de la Roche’s considered response to his cable and Week’s earlier letter was unambiguous. On 18 September 1934 she wrote the following to McIntyre: ‘I am of a migratory nature. I left Knopf to go to Macmillans. I left Macmillans to go to you. I have changed publishers once or twice in England. I am capable of biting off not only my nose but my whole head, to spite my face. I confess that I have never felt more like a migration than when the combined criticism of MALAHIDE reached me. Not because it was adverse criticism but because of the manner in which it was dealt out to me.’117 De la Roche could not have been more honest or more forthright. Her intention to leave Atlantic Monthly Press/Little, Brown over their poor handling of ‘Cousin Malahide’ was genuine. She wrote calmly and clearly, as one professional to another. In fact, she conducted herself as the equal of Weeks and McIntyre, entitled to the kind of courtesy she regularly showed them. No longer would she be content to occupy the marginal position of a female writer among male publishers, nor would she tolerate being ignored by them. That was evident from the frank statements and measured tone of her letter, which convinced her Boston publishers that this time her threat to sever their ties was authentic indeed. As was generally the case, the conflict was eventually resolved, but not until de la Roche had successfully re-established new grounds for the relationship between herself and Atlantic Monthly Press/Little, Brown. Although McIntyre’s connection with de la Roche was always primarily professional – which differed from the more familiar association of de la Roche and Weeks – he paid the author a personal visit, especially important during this time of crisis. They discussed the revisions to ‘Cousin Malahide’ and reconfirmed their commitment

The Triumphant Second Reign 1921–1940

97

to one another and the Jalna series. Soon afterward Weeks wrote a heartfelt letter of apology, dated 3 October 1934, in which he assured the author that his ‘actions which may have proved to be ill-judged … were planned with the very opposite intention.’118 One month following, Atlantic Monthly Press/Little, Brown received the completed manuscript of the novel and Weeks cabled to de la Roche: ‘Humble pie consumed. Malahide Philip and family circle could not be better. Splendid work.’119 The author was mollified and cabled her response: ‘Your humble pie my tonic. Bless you.’120 In light of his extreme reaction to the earlier version, Weeks’s avowed satisfaction with the revised work may now appear overstated. There can be no doubt, however, that de la Roche had improved the novel’s coherence. Nor did Young Renny – the work’s title upon publication – disappoint her audience. As Weeks later informed the author, ‘You know, don’t you, what a remarkable send-off YOUNG RENNY had, for all the drear conditions this spring. An advance sale (with no copies on consignment!) of 22,000 is something to write home about. We have printed 30,000 copies altogether to make sure that we had a surplus for the reorders which are now coming in on the footsteps of the highly favorable reviews.’121 Despite the novel’s success and the restored good will between de la Roche and her Boston publishers, the dispute over Young Renny permanently affected their relationship. Weeks and McIntyre always remembered the devastating impact of this incident and, as a result, relinquished control of the Whiteoaks of Jalna to their creator. From this point forward, her publishers questioned neither de la Roche’s authorial autonomy nor her position of power among them. Although she welcomed minor editorial suggestions, she would not accept outright criticism of her work – and her publishers bore this in mind throughout their subsequent negotiations. Moreover, henceforth Daniel Macmillan rather than Edward Weeks received the first manuscript of her work. Although this decision may have been partly one of convenience – the author was living in England at the time – it nonetheless confirmed de la Roche’s authority. Since its editorial staff found little in her work to criticize and always treated her with admiration and respect, she felt more comfortable with the British firm. In fact, she was wise to place her trust in Macmillan, for Weeks and Eayrs remained duplicitous toward the author to the end. On 24 January 1935, for example, following this most difficult crisis of their relationship, Weeks informed de la Roche that he had not told Eayrs ‘what humble pie tastes like’122 – an

98

The Macmillan Company of Canada

apparent lie since the two men had exchanged letters throughout the Young Renny affair. Ironically, the tactless treatment of de la Roche by Atlantic Monthly Press/Little, Brown resulted in the author’s professional development and the firm’s loss of favour in her eyes – precisely those circumstances that Weeks had always hoped to forestall. Throughout the late 1930s, little conflict arose between the writer and her publishers. The difficulty over Young Renny had convinced Atlantic Monthly Press/Little, Brown that de la Roche controlled her destiny as well as her writing. As a result, when serious issues arose, discussion generally took place among the men themselves, in an exchange of confidential letters that would never reach the author. In 1937, for example, Weeks sought Eayrs’s advice: he hoped to convince de la Roche of the need to rearrange her publication schedule to accommodate a Jalna novel in 1938.123 Although he was unsuccessful in his attempt to have the publication dates altered, de la Roche did not learn of his extreme concern and Weeks simply acquiesced in this instance – as he did in later situations when the novelist’s will prevailed. In fact, from the mid-1930s onward the association between de la Roche, Eayrs, and Weeks was a friendly one, largely free of the difficulties they had previously experienced. Their earlier clashes of will were the result of all three parties striving to assert an individual hold on the Jalna series. As the years passed and conflicts were resolved, de la Roche matured as a writer who enjoyed international success and as a professional among her male colleagues. Gradually, she removed herself from the margins of the publishing world from which initially she had negotiated timidly with Eayrs and Weeks. Once she had persuaded both men of her serious commitment to her craft, her authorial autonomy, as well as her professional shrewdness, there could be no doubt as to the rightful possessor of the Jalna saga. In 1940, however, the bonds that united de la Roche and her three publishers were severed by the death of Hugh Eayrs. As Weeks himself admitted, ‘the news was stunning in its suddenness, and I am not yet ready to live with it.’124 While Daniel Macmillan and Edward Weeks felt the blow keenly, de la Roche was devastated by the loss of Eayrs as a friend, colleague, and former mentor who early on had been aware of her talents. She described his ‘mind of wit, a soul of generosity and a heart overflowing with sympathy to those who were his friends. In the lives of his immediate friends his going leaves a blank that can never be filled.’125 Eventually, Eayrs’s position with the Macmillan Company of Canada was filled by John Gray – Gray would also come to share a close

The Triumphant Second Reign 1921–1940

99

association with de la Roche – but he could never replace the friend she had lost in Eayrs whose camaraderie and spirit she had enjoyed. Further, Daniel Macmillan’s primary connection with the author shifted when Lovat Dickson became the editor of the Jalna books in England and a good friend of the novelist. Hence, Eayrs’s death marked a turning point in de la Roche’s career. From 1940 onward, with international success and her status as a professional firmly established, the author negotiated with her publishers from a well-earned and undisputed position of power after a trying apprenticeship. Hugh Eayrs and ‘Chief’ Grey Owl Hugh Eayrs’s relationship with writer and conservationist Grey Owl was both less fractious and as important as his long association with de la Roche. Free of complications arising from gender or professional inequality, Eayrs’s deep friendship with Grey Owl was founded on compatibility, mutual regard, and shared interests, among them writing and drinking. Eayrs’s esteem was reflected in his deferential use of ‘the Chief’ to address Grey Owl – a telling contrast to ‘the girls,’ his usual tag for Mazo de la Roche and Caroline Clement. He admired ‘the Chief’s’ prose for its simplicity and beauty, and admitted that he would publish a book by Grey Owl ‘much ahead of the contract and neither of us worry about it!’126 In addition to issuing his work in Canada, Eayrs acted as Grey Owl’s literary agent for the American market. Eayrs’s understanding of Grey Owl’s authorial needs earned him the writer’s complete trust. In 1934, for example, when Eayrs and British publisher Lovat Dickson were preparing to publish Grey Owl’s second book, Pilgrims of the Wild, Eayrs offered Dickson the following counsel: ‘Consult him on every possible point of every sort or kind up to getting his final O.K. ready for printing. This is imperative … Also consult him by letter or cable whichever you like about format, illustrations and everything else and make him feel that in no way whatever are you out to hurt him, but on the contrary your great desire is not merely to be a publisher to him, but also a friend.’127 Despite Eayrs’s endorsement of Dickson as a trustworthy colleague and ally, Grey Owl was suspicious. The thirty-two-year-old Dickson was an aspiring publisher whose sharp business sense and explicit concern with financial matters were contrary to Grey Owl’s casual approach to the business side of publishing. By heeding Eayrs’s sound advice, however, Dickson soon succeeded in securing Grey Owl’s confidence.

100

The Macmillan Company of Canada

Horatio (Rache) Henry Lovat Dickson was born in New South Wales, Australia, in 1902 and at the age of seven moved with his family to South Africa. He was educated in England before coming to Canada in 1917. Dickson travelled the country, worked at various jobs, and founded and edited a weekly newspaper at the Blue Diamond Mine in Alberta; he inherited an interest in mining from his mining engineer father. Dickson attended the University of Alberta and returned to England to edit the Fortnightly Review and other periodicals. In 1932, he established his own publishing company, Lovat Dickson Limited, and one of his earliest triumphs was the 1935 publication of Grey Owl’s Pilgrims of the Wild. In 1938 Dickson sold his company to the publisher Peter Llewelyn Davies and joined Macmillan and Company as an assistant editor. Dickson rose through the ranks of Macmillan – he became chief editor and then a director of the company – and retired in 1967. Between 1932 and 1938, while he was building his own trade list, Dickson worked as an agent for the Macmillan offices in New York and Toronto. Both Hugh Eayrs and Rache Lovat Dickson were determined publishers, eager to shape the literary culture of their day. Much more than colleagues, however, they also developed a close friendship based on shared ambition and mutual respect. As their frank, gossipy letters affirm, they enjoyed an intimate rapport – not unlike that of Hugh Eayrs and Ted Weeks – and took pleasure in one another’s company. Eayrs and Dickson also sustained separate friendships with Grey Owl, founded on admiration and trust. Each was seduced by Grey Owl’s charismatic, mysterious personality and championed the author. Although they stood to profit by publishing Pilgrims of the Wild – by 1935 Grey Owl was an international celebrity with a wide readership – neither Eayrs nor Dickson regarded the author as mere commodity. They were enthralled by Grey Owl’s pioneering conservationism, his reverence for wildlife and fish, and his celebration of Native custom. That Grey Owl appeared to embody the dominant cultural mode of rugged masculinity and lived according to strongly held spiritual beliefs also won the esteem of Eayrs and Dickson. Notwithstanding their urban lives, which differentiated them from Grey Owl, they recognized themselves in the author’s individualist sensibility. In his capacity as publisher and literary agent, Eayrs advocated on behalf of Grey Owl. He negotiated royalty payments, produced handsome volumes of Grey Owl’s work, advertised and disseminated his books as widely as possible, and with Lovat Dickson helped organize Grey Owl’s two hugely popular lecture tours of Britain (which con-

The Triumphant Second Reign 1921–1940

101

cluded with a lecture to the royal family at Buckingham Palace), the United States, and Canada in 1935–6 and 1937–8. As a result of Dickson’s efforts, Pilgrims of the Wild would eventually sell 50,000 copies in the United Kingdom.128 In Canada, however, weak sales of Grey Owl’s books were a source of constant disappointment to Eayrs who resented ‘the churlishness of the Canadian public to our own [writers].’129 His respect for ‘natural and sincere writing’ and genuine interest in Grey Owl’s ‘marvellous’130 subject matter sustained his commitment to the author and his extraordinary efforts to penetrate the Canadian market with Grey Owl’s books. Grey Owl and Hugh Eayrs were united by much more, however, than professional interests. Grey Owl valued Eayrs’s creativity, appreciated his intuitive understanding, and relied on his brotherly friendship. Eayrs took a similar pleasure in Grey Owl’s company: ‘I enjoyed our chin together so much the other day. I would like a dozen more of them.’131 Their families came together, and Eayrs’s sons especially were attracted to Grey Owl’s person and appealing presence. To Eayrs, who was often ill himself, Grey Owl’s health was a constant concern. In May 1936, when Grey Owl was planning to complete a manuscript, make a film, and undertake a lecture tour, Eayrs urged his friend not to ‘put to [sic] heavy a physical burden upon yourself when you are really not just now any too fit.’132 He hoped Grey Owl’s return to his secluded log cabin on Lake Ajawaan in Saskatchewan’s Prince Albert National Park would facilitate a full recovery from a recent ‘nervous breakdown’: ‘There you will find peace and content, and above all sincerity again: you can’t live without all three and particularly that last, as I long ago realized.’133 Finally, in the wake of Grey Owl’s death in April 1938, when his true identity as the Englishman Archibald Stansfeld Belaney was revealed to an unsuspecting public, Eayrs was deeply shocked at the news and sought to salvage the writer’s reputation.134 Alongside William Arthur Deacon, literary editor of the Globe and Mail, Eayrs commemorated Grey Owl’s compassion and generosity in a eulogy at his funeral. With Lovat Dickson – whose own friendship with Grey Owl inspired his books The Green Leaf: A Tribute to Grey Owl (1938) and Wilderness Man: The Strange Story of Grey Owl (1973) – Eayrs publicized Grey Owl’s achievement as a writer and conservationist. In 1938 he prepared and published the anthology, A Book of Grey Owl: Pages from the Writings of Wa-ShaQuon-Asin. Eayrs’s preface to the volume publicly dismissed ‘the filthy attacks on … [Grey Owl’s] reputation before he was cold in his grave’

102

The Macmillan Company of Canada

and celebrated the work and the man he ‘came to know and love.’135 His private confession to feeling utterly shattered by Grey Owl’s death is closer, however, to the profound sense of loss that lingered on until Eayrs’s own demise two years later. Hughie Eayrs, Neddie Pratt, and Others Like his connections to Mazo de la Roche and Grey Owl, Eayrs’s relationships with other authors were often personal as well as professional. Hugh Eayrs and Stephen Leacock, for example, shared a warm friendship. Eayrs admitted to ‘the very real affection’ he felt for the humorist: ‘We’re a bit different from the average publisher and author: we are that but we’re pals as well.’136 As Carl Spadoni describes in his study of Leacock and the Macmillan Company of Canada, Eayrs sometimes visited the writer at his winter home in Montreal, where Leacock was professor of economics at McGill University, and his summer home in Orillia, the basis for Leacock’s fictional Mariposa. There publisher and author would enjoy fishing on Lake Couchiching. Eayrs always hoped to become Leacock’s sole Canadian publisher, but Macmillan would issue only three of Leacock’s many books of humour, Winnowed Wisdom (1926), Short Circuits (1928), and The Iron Man and the Tin Woman (1929). In January 1931, when a dispute over an advance royalty payment led publisher and author to part ways, Eayrs did not hold a grudge. He admitted to working hard to promote Leacock’s work, but accepted the humorist’s decision to leave Macmillan: ‘There are two Stephen Leacock’s [sic] to me, one, the author and the other a man older than myself who is a very cherished friend. Both still remain.’137 Leacock was not a unique case. Ellen Elliott, former secretary to the president, recalled in 1970 that Frederick Philip Grove, whose work Eayrs championed, also came to feel part of the Macmillan ‘family.’138 Grove’s earlier books had been published by McClelland and Stewart, Ryerson Press, and Graphic Publishers. During the Depression years, however, when most publishers would not undertake the financial risk of issuing the work of a relatively unknown Canadian writer, Eayrs published Grove’s Our Daily Bread (1927), It Needs to Be Said (1929), and The Yoke of Life (1930). He admired the originality of Grove’s writing and sought to disseminate it as part of his larger project to foster a national literature. In a further effort to assist the writer, who struggled financially throughout his life, Eayrs regularly asked Grove to evaluate manuscripts submitted to Macmillan. To a large degree, Macmil-

The Triumphant Second Reign 1921–1940

103

lan’s later publication of The Master of the Mill (1944), In Search of Myself (1946), and Consider Her Ways (1947) was a reflection of Eayrs’s unwavering support of Grove. In the case of authors who lived in Toronto, Eayrs maintained close associations via the telephone and in person. Novelist Morley Callaghan, for example, published many works with Macmillan, including Such Is My Beloved (1934) and They Shall Inherit the Earth (1935), and was often a guest at Eayrs’s ‘magnificent champagne parties and dinners.’139 Poet E.J. Pratt met Eayrs in 1925, one year before Macmillan issued Pratt’s The Witches’ Brew, and although Eayrs was twelve years Pratt’s junior, they became devoted allies. Pratt’s biographer David G. Pitt describes the ‘intimate, brotherly friendship’ that developed between ‘Hughie’ Eayrs and ‘Neddie’ Pratt, convivial extroverts who were both sons of Yorkshire-born clergymen.140 For fifteen years, they moved in the same social circle, were golf and poker partners, and shared their love of good food and drink. Pratt was the closest of Eayrs’s countless acquaintances and many friends. Professionally, Pratt was indebted to Eayrs for faithfully publishing and promoting his poetry. The poet was known to ‘bless his [publisher’s] fat stomach’141 in recognition of Eayrs’s patronage. During Eayrs’s presidency, launches of Pratt’s books were always grand affairs, held in the library of St Martin’s House among ‘distinguished company’ that feasted on ‘elaborate’ dinners, commemorated by tributes to the poet and ‘souvenir’ programs.142 Pratt also trusted Eayrs’s judgment and willingly accepted his publisher’s editorial advice. Eayrs’s suggestions, for example, helped Pratt decide on the title Many Moods for his 1932 collection of poems. Like Grove, Pratt regularly assessed manuscripts for Macmillan, which supplemented his income from royalties and as professor of English at Victoria College. At times, he offered editorial assistance, as in the case of A Pedlar’s Pack: Narrative Poetry for Secondary Schools (1933), which remained in print for forty years, and A Book of Canadian Prose and Verse (1934). Even when they clashed over the production of New Provinces: Poems of Several Authors and Eayrs’s rejection of A.J.M. Smith’s original preface to the volume, Pratt appreciated the reasons for his publisher’s apprehension. Pratt admitted to having ‘a personal sense of loyalty to Eayrs who has done many kind things for me in the past years,’ and sought successfully to reconcile Macmillan’s economic interests, his own artistic concerns and those of Robert Finch, Leo Kennedy, F.R. Scott, and A.J.M. Smith, who together prepared the volume for publication.143 In

104

The Macmillan Company of Canada

1936, after extensive revision and prolonged negotiations, Macmillan finally published New Provinces under the editorship of F.R. Scott. That same year, despite the delay in publication and to signal their long and warm connection, Pratt admitted to being ‘a Macmillan man … and of course a Macmillan man means an Eayrs man.’144 In his final years, when his erratic behaviour alienated most of his close associates, Eayrs remained bound to Pratt as his most intimate friend. In addition to publishing major writers, some of whom like de la Roche and Grey Owl enjoyed international success, Eayrs issued the work of lesser known novelists, playwrights, and poets, as well as books of literary criticism, folklore, politics, and history. He published seminal works of fiction, including Raymond Knister’s first symbolic novel White Narcissus (1932), whose lyric passages resonate today as ‘prose-poetry’; Irene Baird’s political novel Waste Heritage (1939), which evokes the plight of the unemployed and has been hailed as ‘the best Depression novel written at the time, and a monument to the British Columbia working-class struggle on the Left’;145 and Ringuet’s Thirty Acres (1940), an influential French Canadian novel in English translation, which, like Maria Chapdelaine, renders a powerful portrait of rural, traditional Quebec. Under Eayrs, Macmillan published plays by award-winning dramatist John Coulter, who wrote about Canadian history, and several anthologies edited respectively by Vincent Massey and Herman Voaden. Books of poetry by Dorothy Livesay, Leo Kennedy, and Audrey Alexandra Brown carried the Macmillan imprint. Livesay’s first two imagist volumes, Green Pitcher (1928) and Signpost (1932), were issued by Macmillan. Since the market for serious Canadian poetry by emerging writers was so small, Livesay was obliged to cover the cost of producing the volumes herself, a common practice among publishers at the time. Such production costs were paid in three instalments: one third of the total manufacturing cost upon delivery of the final manuscript, one third upon return of the corrected page-proofs, and one third upon publication. E.J. Pratt encouraged publication of modernist Leo Kennedy’s only volume of poetry, The Shrouding (1933). In contrast to the modernist verse of Livesay and Kennedy, A Dryad in Nanaimo, the 1931 volume by romantic poet Audrey Alexandra Brown, was popular enough to warrant an enlarged reissue in 1934. Eayrs also had the foresight and commitment to publish W.E. Collin’s The White Savannahs (1936), a pioneering work of literary criticism regarded today as ‘the first work of genuine scholarship ever done on Canadian poetry,’146 which covered the verse of poets from Archibald

The Triumphant Second Reign 1921–1940

105

Lampman to E.J. Pratt, and foundational books of folklore by Marius Barbeau. Eayrs issued no less than six of Barbeau’s works. His association with Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King led to the publication of The Message of the Carillon (1927), a collection of addresses, and Industry and Humanity (1935), a study of industrial reconstruction. Eayrs continued Frank Wise’s practice of publishing works of history, most notably George M. Wrong’s The Rise and Fall of New France (in two volumes, 1928), Canada and the American Revolution: The Disruption of the First British Empire (1935), and The Canadians: The Story of a People (1938). Despite his unpredictable nature, Eayrs’s dynamic personality invariably won him the affection of writers. Friendship would not prevent him, however, from offering criticism when necessary. Prior to Jalna, for example, Eayrs rejected an inferior novel by de la Roche, entitled ‘The Thunder of New Wings.’ He also found two of ‘Neddie’ Pratt’s poems ‘trite [when] compared with the rest’147 and fought unsuccessfully to exclude them from Many Moods. Authors would appreciate the careful attention he gave their work, and his ‘determination to issue fine books by Canadian authors … [soon] became a point of pride.’148 Eayrs preferred Cambridge University Press, for example, because ‘there are no printers in the world like Cambridge … the whole feeling of their type, their type page, their paper and everything else is so much ahead of anything here that particularly for a book of poems I think they are the bet.’149 That six of Eayrs’s trade titles won Governor General’s Awards testifies to his prescient appreciation for groundbreaking literary works. Thomas B. Roberton’s T.B.R. Newspaper Pieces (1936) won in the category of non-fiction; E.J. Pratt’s The Fable of the Goats and Other Poems (1937), Arthur S. Bourinot’s Under the Sun (1939), and Pratt’s Brébeuf and His Brethren (1940) won in the category of poetry; and Franklin Davey McDowell’s The Champlain Road (1939) and Ringuet’s Thirty Acres (1940) won in the category of fiction. Equally striking is the fact that the six awards were garnered during the four-year period 1936 – the year the Governor General’s Literary Awards were established – to 1940 – the year Eayrs died. By the late 1930s, Macmillan had become a significant publisher of award-winning, internationally successful Canadian trade titles. Rather than inhibit its development, foreign ownership of the Toronto branch – under harness to Hugh Eayrs’s progressive vision – supported the Macmillan Company of Canada’s original domestic publishing program and endorsed its house identity as a Canadian company.

106

The Macmillan Company of Canada

The Treasury Readers Series In 1967, in a retrospective profile of the Macmillan Company of Canada, John Gray described Eayrs’s ventures – W.H. Blake’s translation of Maria Chapdelaine, fiction by Mazo de la Roche and Morley Callaghan, poetry by E.J. Pratt, folklore by Marius Barbeau, and history by George M. Wrong – ‘better as publishing than as business but it established an aspiration and a tone that the house has never lost sight of, and it was carried off in a style more appropriate to New York or London than to the Toronto of the day.’150 In fact, Eayrs attended to the business side of his operation by expanding Macmillan’s flourishing list of series, many of which originated with Frank Wise’s acquisition of the Morang Educational Company in 1912. Between 1921 and 1940, series remained at the heart of the Macmillan enterprise, the financial engine that drove the publication of Eayrs’s cherished trade list. Although he had been hired to promote educational books, Eayrs’s interest in the scholastic side of Macmillan’s publishing program waned. The adventurous Eayrs preferred the excitement of building a list of significant trade titles, but he did not discount the importance of textbooks to Macmillan’s economic success and cultural influence. Macmillan’s triumph can be traced directly to tactical series publication, both educational and trade series, undertaken by a sequence of enterprising presidents who understood the value of the series to the firm and its readership. Among the many series produced under Eayrs were the McGill University Economic Studies series, which addressed the national problems of Canada, and the idiosyncratic What You Should Know About series, which covered a curious range of subjects, including cancer, tuberculosis, the heart, and economical cooking. Of particular importance is the Treasury Readers, an educational series that was launched in the wake of the Great Depression and developed during the 1930s. During this period of economic turbulence and financial instability, Eayrs was buoyed by his success as publisher of the Treasury Readers, a joint venture of the Macmillan Company of Canada and Ryerson Press. The series represented a rare instance of competitors collaborating in an attempt ‘to cut competition’151 in order to secure the lucrative textbook market. On 27 September 1932, only after the first books in the series were nearing completion, the wily Hugh Eayrs admitted to London’s Daniel Macmillan: ‘In response to a straight tip from the Interprovincial [Schoolbook] Committee [of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba] that no one house would get the

The Triumphant Second Reign 1921–1940

107

[textbook] contract, we have associated with us the Ryerson Press … at once the most dangerous competitor and the best book manufacturer, a house like our own of substance and repute.’152 Books one to three of the Treasury Readers series were originally published in the Canada Books of Prose and Verse series under the editorship of Lorne Pierce of Ryerson Press, at the time one of English Canada’s oldest and most highly regarded publishing companies. Although Pierce had conceived of the series in 1929, he and Eayrs signed a formal agreement in April 1932 to jointly edit and publish the newly named Treasury Readers series, a continuation of the Canada Books of Prose and Verse series. The new series, which had been in preparation throughout 1931, would comprise a primer and readers for grades one through eleven, together with manuals, workbooks, and supplementary teaching materials; books one to three were to be revised as readers for grades seven, eight, and nine. Pierce was named editor in chief of the series, while Eayrs was associate editor. Their aim was ‘to make this a Canadian series and to introduce an intelligent national note. Of course we shall be reasonable about it. Not all our poets are classics! Yet we feel that we can arouse sympathetic understanding of the singers of our country, and our prose writers as well … each student shall gain a progressive appreciation of the finer spirit of the Dominion.’153 The Treasury Readers series also held great commercial promise for Macmillan and Ryerson. Eayrs anticipated ‘that these readers will be adopted as the authorized readers for the four Western Provinces. If we are right it will be much the biggest deal the House has ever had, and will involve an extra turnover of some $100,000. a year.’154 Eayrs was confident in his alliance with Pierce, who was highly respected both as a publisher and an intellectual. Biographer Sandra Campbell claims that Pierce ‘was arguably Canada’s most influential publisher and editor in the period from Canada’s coming-of-age after the First World War to the Quiet Revolution [in Quebec (1960–6)].’155 Eayrs correctly assumed that his editor in chief lent credibility to their joint series, which he regarded as ‘perfectly architected [sic] … This is solely due to the sound scholarship and the awareness of modern pedagogical thinking which are part and parcel of Lorne Pierce. As the editor-in-chief of the Series you have in him a man with an essentially fine mind, concerned first of all with the beautiful and the lasting, and secondly with the up to date. I am satisfied that so far as the text is concerned no Series can match ours.’156 The honeymoon period was short-lived, however. Although Pierce

108

The Macmillan Company of Canada

and Eayrs continued to work alongside one another for many years, their personalities often clashed. The serious Pierce and flamboyant Eayrs were opposite in temperament and work habits. Pierce was dedicated and meticulous, ‘an academically inclined editor,’157 while Eayrs worked in great spurts of frenetic energy. That their business practices differed considerably was also a recurring source of conflict. Conflict characterized the start of Ryerson and Macmillan’s partnership. In March 1932 Pierce claimed Eayrs was competing with their joint series when the latter submitted the St Martin’s Classics series to the Ontario board of education for its consideration. Eayrs countered that he had ‘no right to prescribe’ Pierce’s ‘general publishing policy, and you have no right to prescribe mine. Both of us intend to defend the one venture, a very large one, in which we are so very deeply interested.’158 Eayrs’s response served to allay Pierce’s concern, but only briefly. Their connection was punctuated by lapses in Pierce’s trust of Eayrs, whom he regularly suspected of disingenuous behaviour. In 1946, six years after Eayrs’s death, his former secretary confirmed that Pierce ‘was always unhappy about the collaboration’159 between the two publishing houses. In fact, Eayrs struggled to mask duplicitous behaviour with natural charm. First, he ruthlessly refused his competitors Gage-Nelson access to the work of authors whose copyright resided with Macmillan or its agencies. Hence, the work of Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, W.B. Yeats, and many other prominent writers appeared in Macmillan’s readers alone. Later, in July 1933, Eayrs chose to holiday in Lake Louise, forty miles from Banff, Alberta, where the interprovincial school book committee was meeting to assess textbook submissions. Surreptitiously, he arranged that Archibald Herriott, inspector of schools in Manitoba, ‘one of the committee people at Banff, which we can trust, should know that we are at [Lake] Louise, and therefore could get any word to us if it were necessary.’160 Eayrs’s plan worked to Macmillan and Ryerson’s advantage. When he learned from Herriott – who received five hundred dollars for being a staunch ally – that the committee found the Treasury Readers series too highly priced, Eayrs and Pierce immediately reduced the cost of the readers. In the end, despite Eayrs’s determination and political connections, the committee split the textbook contracts between Macmillan-Ryerson and their rivals Gage-Nelson, who had also joined forces in a highly competitive market. Eayrs and Pierce were pleased, nonetheless, by their qualified success and heartened by further interest in the readers shown by Nova Scotia boards of education.

The Triumphant Second Reign 1921–1940

109

A debacle ensued, however, when Gage-Nelson accused Macmillan of plagiarism. John Gray, employed at the time in Macmillan’s education department, was conscripted to manage the crisis. When Gray was presented with the claim that the grade seven reader included more than fifty teachers’ notes culled from American textbooks, he was filled with apprehension. Ten thousand copies of the reader had already been printed and distributed in Alberta. Gray understood the legal ramifications facing Macmillan and was catalyzed into action. In a diplomatic coup that won the approval of all parties involved, Gray proposed that the grade seven reader be used for the year, that Gage-Nelson’s grade eight reader be adopted the following year, and, finally, that Macmillan would grant Gage-Nelson access to copyrighted material and eliminate the plagiarized passages in subsequent printings of the grade seven reader. Eayrs, who was not directly responsible for the plagiarism, congratulated Gray on his careful handling of a potentially incendiary situation. Given the unorthodox tactics employed by Eayrs to secure the textbook contracts he coveted, however, it is not surprising that Macmillan’s editorial practices would be scrutinized by its competitors and eventually exposed. Until 1937, when the last title in the series appeared, Eayrs sought to advance the Treasury Readers series. Over the years he kept abreast of the competition, expanded the market for the series, ensured the timely production of each reader, and handled conciliatory and angry negotiations with Pierce whose regular complaint of feeling burdened by his editorial responsibility annoyed Eayrs. Eayrs’s promotional efforts were motivated by the likelihood of personal as well as professional gain, since his wife, Dora Whitefield, was co-editor alongside Pierce of two early books in the series. It was Eayrs himself who arranged for his wife to represent Macmillan’s editorial interests in these two books. As a result, the Macmillan Company of Canada prospered from the wide adoption of the readers, and Eayrs benefited personally from royalties that accrued to his wife. These details should not suggest, however, that Eayrs acted solely out of self-interest. In fact, his dynamic creativity brought exciting new series to Macmillan. He had, moreover, correctly judged the potential of educational series, and the Treasury Readers in particular, to generate substantive profits for Macmillan, broaden the company’s reach as an educational publisher, and influence generations of Canadian students. Over thirty-five years, notes Campbell, the ‘hugely successful [Treasury] readers, in a variety of titles and editions, became widely

110

The Macmillan Company of Canada

used texts in elementary schools and high schools in much of English Canada.’161 By 1961 the textbooks for grades seven to twelve sold 200,000 copies annually across Canada.162 The series was also instrumental in introducing students to many Canadian writers, including poets Oliver Goldsmith, William Henry Drummond, Charles G.D. Roberts, Bliss Carman, E. Pauline Johnson, Archibald Lampman, Duncan Campbell Scott, Wilson MacDonald, and Marjorie Pickthall, and prose writers Catharine Parr Traill, Ralph Connor, Ernest Thompson Seton, Stephen Leacock, and Frederick Philip Grove. As Campbell affirms, the series ‘were the first Canadian readers with systematic and extensive Canadian literary content, and they had an important role in fixing recognition of Canadian writing in the minds of elementary and high school students.’163 Through series publication, Eayrs’s bold project of ‘nationalizing’ Macmillan extended the company’s reach into the formative settings of Canada’s primary and secondary schools. Macmillan’s formidable classroom presence solidified the company’s reputation as one of Canada’s pre-eminent educational publishers, a reputation that would advance over the course of the twentieth century. Moreover, by securing a large share of the educational market, Eayrs ensured the company’s financial stability which underwrote other publishing ventures, in particular Macmillan’s trade list, where his true passion lay. The Turbulent Thirties As David Young articulates in his study of the Macmillan Company of Canada in the 1930s, worldwide economic uncertainty eroded the company’s fortunes. Young contends, however, that Eayrs’s enthusiasm for trade publishing temporarily blinded him to the looming economic crisis that followed the stock market crash of October 1929. As a result, his 1930 trade list of twenty-three titles was not affected by the economic downturn. By 1931, as the economic outlook worsened and many countries raised their tariffs, Eayrs was obliged to reduce his trade list to fourteen titles. His focus shifted to educational books, which offered greater stability and financial return. Soon afterward, despite ‘unceasing digging to get every pennysworth of business,’ Eayrs proclaimed 1933 the year in which Macmillan ‘touched bottom.’164 Regardless, his commitment to trade publishing did not wane and the following year, emboldened by the slow economic recovery of central Canada, Eayrs once again issued twenty-three trade titles.

The Triumphant Second Reign 1921–1940

111

The climate for Canadian publishing in the 1930s was negatively affected by a series of interrelated factors. Educational publishing, the former bulwark of the book trade, lost significant ground by the close of the decade. This new uncertainty presented a challenge for publishers who relied on wide and regular sales of educational titles to sustain their companies. Two key developments caused the declining demand for educational books. First, Canadian teachers were increasingly influenced by the progressive ideas of American educators, such as John Dewey, B.H. Bode, E.L. Thorndike, and A.I. Gates, and they showed a marked preference for American textbooks. As the progressive American educational movement took hold, the clamour for Canadian and British textbooks lessened considerably. Second, in 1936 the province of Ontario, ‘the single largest market for textbooks,’165 undertook curricular revision. For teachers, many of whom were educated in the United States, curricular reform presented a welcome opportunity to adopt American school books. That same year, in an attempt to mitigate the incremental loss of income, Eayrs established a college department for publications with a scholarly focus. Although Macmillan had long published books of a scholarly nature, the department was the first of its kind in Canada, outside of the University of Toronto Press. With this strategic move, Eayrs hoped to capture the post-secondary market. At the same time as American influence on Canada’s educational system weakened the demand for Canadian textbooks, ramped up marketing practices by American publishers heightened the appeal of foreign trade books in Canada. Soon, Canadian trade books were regarded as inferior to the many foreign titles in circulation, and the already small audience for indigenous titles was further diminished. Moreover, reading was but one form of leisure activity available to the Canadian public. In 1938 ‘movies, the theatre, music, bridge, golf, motoring, dancing, [and] gambling’166 offered alternatives to books, as did newspapers and magazines. Eayrs was unequivocal about the devastating effect of such a rich array of leisure pursuits: ‘The sale of the average good book is infinitely lower than ever before.’167 By the end of the decade, fewer profits from educational sales to cover production costs, along with the looming prospect of war, forced Eayrs to drastically cut his trade list, a prudent measure that pleased his principals in London. The tempestuous thirties also gave rise to conflict between George Platt Brett Jr and Hugh Eayrs. George Platt Brett Jr had joined Macmillan New York in 1913. He rose to the position of company president in 1931 and five years later, upon the death of his father, became chief

112

The Macmillan Company of Canada

executive officer. Under his father’s expert tutelage, the son acquired a deep understanding of the publishing industry and learned the value of an inherited forceful personality. Eayrs’s perception of the Macmillan Company of Canada as ‘a younger brother, very much smaller, very much poorer, but nevertheless a brother,’168 strengthened over the course of his presidency and inspired him to act with increasing autonomy. George Platt Brett Jr was irked when Eayrs chose not to consult him on policy matters. Moreover, when Eayrs’s financial restraint affected the Macmillan Company of New York, Brett felt provoked. Only when they were affordable, for instance, did Eayrs purchase limited numbers of Macmillan New York titles. Increasingly, in an effort to override his reliance on Brett’s editions, he sought to secure separate publishing contracts for the Canadian market. Eayrs resented Macmillan New York’s mass advertising of its titles, which often served to boost sales of competing British editions circulating widely in Canada. Despite economic vagaries and persistent irritations, however, a personal connection between Hugh Eayrs and George Brett Jr endured until the former’s death in 1940. The 1930s were undoubtedly stressful for Eayrs, but the decade was punctuated by a series of notable victories. The pleasure Eayrs derived from publishing award-winning Canadian trade books and important educational series was supplemented by the massive success of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind, issued simultaneously in New York and Toronto in June 1936, a triumph he shared with Brett. In July 1935, when Mitchell contracted with the Macmillan Company of New York to publish Gone with the Wind, she also sold world rights in the novel to Macmillan. Brett’s enthusiasm for Mitchell’s work soon spread to Eayrs, who was quick to recognize a potential best-seller. On 4 June 1936 he ordered from New York 1,050 flat sheets with the imprint of the Macmillan Company of Canada and had them folded, collated, sewn, and bound by Ryerson Press of Toronto. The Canadian issue of Mitchell’s novel was published in Toronto on 30 June 1936. In his study of the Dutch publication of Margaret Mitchell’s landmark fiction, Spadoni describes the publicity campaign – ‘quite unlike any other in the company’s history’169 – undertaken by Eayrs to market Gone with the Wind. By December 1936, in the immediate wake of publication, Eayrs had spent over three hundred dollars on promotion, which included advertisements in major Canadian newspapers and magazines, radio broadcasts, window displays in bookstores, and the wide distribution of review copies. Eayrs’s instinct had proven correct,

The Triumphant Second Reign 1921–1940

113

so much so that he was obliged to import additional sheets of the American edition to keep up with demand for Mitchell’s novel. Between June and December 1936, Eayrs had 16,375 American sheets bound by Ryerson Press and the T.H. Best Printing Company. He also purchased bound copies of the American edition for circulation in Canada. By 31 March 1937, 10,800 copies of the American edition of Mitchell’s novel had sold in Canada. More significant for the same period was the sale of 17,425 copies of Macmillan’s Canadian issue. To Eayrs’s great delight, Gone with the Wind had broken ‘a sales record for the first nine months of any book’s publication in Canada.’170 Despite a lawsuit that arose over a Dutch piracy of the novel and involved the Macmillan Company of Canada, Eayrs was unabashedly proud of his role in bringing Gone to the Wind to Canadian readers. As he announced in a public address to the Quebec Libraries Association on 25 April 1940, just four days before his death, Gone with the Wind ‘was such a good seller it became an extravaganza.’171 That its success also ‘killed the sale of a lot of good books’172 was an irony not lost on the Canadian publisher for whom financial uncertainty in the face of grand triumph remained a frustrating reality. Eayrs remained optimistic, for sales of Canadian books in 1936 were up nearly 50 per cent from the previous year.173 Although he would admit later that issuing Canadian books had hurt his ‘own pocket and those of my shareholders,’174 throughout his career Eayrs was steadfast in his desire to promote Canadian works. Late in his presidency, when financial considerations had become altogether pressing, he was ‘in favour of fewer Canadian books: fewer, but, I hope, better than ever.’175 The folly of such commitment resonates, however, in his frank retrospective statement of 1938: ‘If my Company had been dependent only on its fiction and general literature lists … it could not exist today.’176 As titular ‘dean of Canadian publishing,’ Eayrs transformed the Toronto branch of Macmillan into ‘Canada’s most dynamic publishing house.’177 He did much more, however, than build a company rooted in this country; he helped create a flowering of Canadian literary culture. John Gray recognized his colleague as ‘the most nationalistic of our publishers,’ and the Globe and Mail’s William Arthur Deacon confirmed Eayrs’s achievement: ‘Building up a big business somehow seemed secondary to the raising of publishing in Canada from a mere business to the dignity of a profession, with responsibilities beyond profits … In every way he sought to give Canada literary personality.’178 The historical record affirms that ‘it was largely through Eayrs’s efforts that

114

The Macmillan Company of Canada

Macmillan played so significant a role in the coming of age of Canadian literature which took place in the 1920s and after.’179 As so many of his contemporaries avowed, and more recent critics corroborate, the development of Canadian letters was assisted immeasurably by the personality and efforts of Hugh Eayrs. With daring foresight, he reshaped the Macmillan Company of Canada, published a rich legacy of twentiethcentury literary works, and facilitated the growth of a mature literary culture for Canada. Hugh Eayrs’s Decline The strain of trying to sustain a Canadian publishing company during the 1930s, a decade of worldwide political unrest and exacerbated economic instability, took a toll on Eayrs’s health. By 1936, for example, he was suffering from extreme fatigue. He underwent an eight-day clinical examination and was relieved to be ‘declared organically as sound as a bell.’180 Nonetheless, he continued to feel unwell and sleep poorly. In the spring of 1937, during a business trip to New York, Eayrs finally collapsed. He returned to Toronto, where he was treated for a stomach ulcer and recuperated at home. On the advice of his doctors, he determined to give fewer public speeches and curtail his deep involvement with the Association of Canadian Bookmen and the national drama competition. To refrain from ‘racing hard as usual’181 was difficult for Eayrs. Despite his best intentions, his psychological and physical health worsened considerably as his marriage to Dora Whitefield crumbled and his drinking intensified. During this time, Eayrs left his home on Heath Street West and moved to a house on St Andrews Gardens in Rosedale. At the close of 1938, concern over Eayrs’s well-being gave rise to a crisis. On 13 December 1938, in a private letter to Brett, Eayrs revealed that he suffered from alkalosis and narcolepsy and would enter Toronto’s Wellesley Hospital for treatment. He was also significantly overweight and was required by his doctor to follow a weight loss regimen. Eayrs, who ‘love[d] this business more than a man loves a child, for it has been meat and drink to me since 1921,’182 was feeling drained after a demanding fall season. The challenge of ‘swimming upstream’183 in unfavourable economic conditions was proving increasingly difficult. In closing, a fragile Eayrs thanked Brett for his ‘deep friendship and kindliness and concern’ and assured him ‘that I shall get well and … take the time necessary to do it.’184

The Triumphant Second Reign 1921–1940

115

Brett’s response was swift and supportive, both emotionally and practically. He wrote as a stern friend who counselled ‘three to six months of complete change, without any business worries or financial worries.’185 He also noted that he had taken it upon himself to write directly to Daniel Macmillan about Eayrs’s situation. The circumstances surrounding Brett’s letter and its contents proved climactic. Brett’s letter was written on his own behalf and that of Pelham Edgar, a long-time friend and golf partner of Eayrs, who had recently retired from his position as professor of English at the University of Toronto. Edgar, Pratt, and other friends and colleagues had resolved that Eayrs’s health was so precarious that he was in need of help. To that end, they had written to Brett suggesting that Eayrs should be urged to take a leave of absence from Macmillan for health reasons and offering Edgar’s services as temporary overseer of the company. Moved by their concern, an anxious Brett proposed the following to Daniel Macmillan: Eayrs should be treated in hospital, followed by a period of recuperation, and he should be given a paid leave of absence from Macmillan for a period of three to six months. In Brett’s inimitable manner, he did not mince words: if he knew ‘anything about human nature and the anatomy of man,’186 only a complete divorce from business responsibilities could return Eayrs to good health. While Eayrs’s response of 20 December 1938 expressed appreciation for Brett’s intervention – ‘Your letter of the 15th touched me more than I can say, for nothing but kindness and concern for me would make you write it, or, indeed, write to London’187 – his true wrath was reserved for his associates in Toronto. In his memoir, John Gray recalls the fallingout that took place one evening at Eayrs’s home where the concerned friends and colleagues were gathered by invitation. Eayrs then ‘confronted them with their well-intentioned plot which he believed had endangered his position as president. He insisted on going round the group asking each in turn whether he had signed the letter and still subscribed to the views expressed there as to his health. Some backed away a little in the face of his cold anger, but all stood convicted. The final and devastating invective was saved for Pelham Edgar, whose affectionate but patronizing attitude of many years toward Hugh Eayrs was paid in full that night. And then he ordered his oldest friends out of his house.’188 Eayrs’s performance was clear evidence of his deteriorating health, an irony not lost on those in attendance that decisive evening. In fact, so severe was Eayrs’s invective that most of his friendships were irrep-

116

The Macmillan Company of Canada

arable. Only Pratt regained his status as loyal ally to Eayrs. As Pitt explains, Eayrs recognized that Pratt had gone along with the plan, but was not central to its execution. By forgiving Pratt, his longest and deepest friendship was sustained. In spite of Eayrs’s protestations, Brett’s letter to Daniel Macmillan achieved its desired effect. On 20 December 1938 a perturbed Macmillan wrote to inform Eayrs that he ‘should knock off all work for at least six months and get yourself thoroughly well again. I need hardly say that during that time we should expect you to draw your full salary and full bonus.’189 Macmillan commended Eayrs for his conscientious handling of the company and looked forward to his full recovery. He urged him to undergo medical treatment in hospital and recuperate in Florida, affirmed that Eayrs’s health was of paramount importance and that business would not be adversely affected by his absence. Macmillan rejected the proposal that Pelham Edgar, ‘a very nice, but essentially academic kind of person,’190 serve as temporary overseer of the company. Instead, he suggested the appointment of Robert Huckvale, a longtime Macmillan employee who was head of the accounting department and understood company protocol. Daniel Macmillan also wrote to Brett, acknowledging that Eayrs was ‘on the verge of a serious collapse.’191 To Brett, he outlined a course of action for the Toronto branch during Eayrs’s leave: the assessment of manuscripts should be undertaken by someone in-house; the number of trade publications should be reduced; and few Canadian titles should be published. By instituting these short-term measures, Macmillan hoped to minimize financial outlay and protect company profits. In January 1939, following a brief stay in hospital, Eayrs travelled with his wife to Jacksonville Beach, Florida, where he spent several weeks resting, swimming, and playing golf. During his stay in Florida, Eayrs was relaxed; he attended to his diet and had minimal contact with the Toronto office. In a handwritten letter to Daniel Macmillan, dated 8 February 1939, Eayrs praised the slow horse he rode – the animal refused to canter – and the ‘steady pounding of the surf’192 that lulled him to sleep. He admitted to feeling ‘really well’193 and announced his intention to return to work on the first of March, if his doctor agreed. The benefit of rest is felt most potently, however, in the contemplative tone of Eayrs’s letter. In Florida, he had ‘lots of time to think and the main thing that comes into my mind is the decency and essential kindness of so many many people – and the other sort don’t matter. It’s good to be alive and going to be better than ever.’194

The Triumphant Second Reign 1921–1940

117

True to his word, Eayrs returned to work in March 1939. Neither his best personal efforts – careful attention to his health – nor his professional commitment – his renewed focus on business matters – could forestall the dire economic conditions that accompanied the exigencies of the Second World War, however. Eayrs was ‘braced by the crisis to his best form’ and he ‘tried to create a mood of calm good sense,’195 but his return to 70 Bond Street following a serious breakdown in his health was inevitably affected by the worldwide debacle of war. Eayrs resumed the helm of Macmillan at an inauspicious time. Although he quipped that Hitler ought to blow ‘his brain out (if any),’196 he fully grasped the magnitude of the events unfolding in Europe. In truth, the gargantuan effort required to sustain a publishing company during prolonged economic constraint sapped his energy and the onset of war dampened his spirit. Still in his forties, he was a man in decline, ‘no longer his former bright-eyed, energetic, ebullient self,’197 the charismatic bookman who had charmed business associates and friends for almost twenty years. Notwithstanding Eayrs’s predilection for hard living and excessive drinking, John Gray believed that ‘the root cause of [Eayrs’s deterioration] was heart-breaking frustration; pulling at a dead weight in trying to publish imaginatively in the Canada of that day.’198 This rings true in light of the ominous historical events of the 1930s, the final decade of Eayrs’s life. Nonetheless, when he returned to the office after a twomonth hiatus, Eayrs was eager for work. He could not have anticipated that his tenure as president of the Macmillan Company of Canada would close in one year’s time. Although he struggled with ill health for several years, Hugh Eayrs’s death at the age of forty-six on 29 April 1940 was felt as a sudden blow by Macmillan staff members, publishing colleagues, and friends. The news that Eayrs had died of a heart attack at his home travelled swiftly through telegrams, letters, and the press, and the loss of Canada’s premier bookman was lamented by his countless associates. Ellen Elliott, his secretary and confidante of fifteen years, visited Eayrs on the day he died. On 6 May 1940, in a letter to Daniel and Harold Macmillan, she outlined the events leading up to his death. The week before, Eayrs was in Montreal where he addressed the Canadian Library Association. While driving home, he suffered a severe heart attack. On Sunday, 28 April 1940, he had a second heart attack while driving to the country with a friend. The following morning, Elliott was invited ‘to his house to clear up some outstanding work with him, but he was much too ill

118

The Macmillan Company of Canada

to attend to it. His doctor called, impressed him with the seriousness of the heart condition, and tried to persuade him to go into hospital. He was adamant and the doctor could do nothing but promise to call again in a few hours. I stayed with him, hoping that in a little while when he was rested we should be able to work. Late in the afternoon, however, I left him to return to the office, but I had only been [t]here a few minutes when his housekeeper telephoned me to say that he had passed away … His passing was quiet and peaceful, as his day had been, with long periods of sleep and then short intervals of consciousness when he spoke to me.’199 Elliott joined Macmillan in 1919 and shared a close professional relationship with Eayrs. She was devastated by his passing – in her letter to the Macmillans she wrote ‘of my own loss I can only say I have lost my best friend’200 – and remained loyal to his memory throughout her publishing career. Her colleague Robert Huckvale was also upset by the death of his ‘true friend’ Hugh Eayrs.201 John Gray, protégé, ally, and close friend, learned of Eayrs’s death while in Calgary on Macmillan business. At the Palliser Hotel, he received a telegram with shocking news he ‘couldn’t accept; news that had seemed inevitable but with frequent reprieves and wishful thinking had been pushed away to some unimaginable future. But the future had just gone by; Hugh Eayrs had died that morning.’202 To no one more than Gray – to whom Eayrs ‘had been father, brother, playmate, and [mentoring] boss by turns, and keeper of the key to a world I found endlessly fascinating’ – Eayrs’s death signalled the passing of an era ‘at Macmillans, in Canadian publishing, and certainly in my own life.’203 Eayrs’s funeral was held on May Day 1940, a cold and rainy Wednesday. The darkened sky cast shadows over the service, which gathered together Macmillan staff members, publishers and book trade colleagues, university professors, authors, friends, and representatives from clubs and organizations who remembered Eayrs in ‘heavy silence’ and ‘desolating sadness.’204 As Gray recalled in his memoir, the notion ‘of Hugh Eayrs being dead was a contradiction in terms. With all his impatience and arrogance he had for his friends personified vitality and the joy of living.’205 Foremost among those friends was E.J. Pratt, a pallbearer at Eayrs’s funeral, who, as Pitt notes, was regarded as almost next of kin.206 Even during the darkest days of Eayrs’s decline, Pratt remained devoted to his cherished publisher. Deeply disturbed by the death of his close ally, Pratt’s work on Brébeuf and His Brethren – ‘the poem that was to have been “poor Hughie’s crowing production of a

The Triumphant Second Reign 1921–1940

119

decade”’207 – ground to a halt. Pratt’s loyalty is best summed up, however, in his final assessment of Eayrs: ‘Hughie was one of the closest friends I ever had and one of the truest.’208 Other writers shared Pratt’s sentiments. Charles G.D. Roberts also lost ‘a tried and trusted friend … an ardent and discriminating promoter of Canadian Literature.’209 Leslie Gordon Barnard called Eayrs’s death ‘a calamity … It is impossible to believe that Hugh is gone; that I shall not, on some of his frequent trips to Montreal, have a lunch or tea with him and good conversation which he could always provide … there are so many gracious little details that belonged to the man.’210 For Mazo de la Roche, Eayrs’s death was a deep blow: ‘He gave himself and his fine gifts wholeheartedly to Canada … the cause of Canadian letters was his cause. From coast to coast and back and forth across the ocean he spent his energy without stint, to his last days.’211 Never again would she enjoy such a close relationship with a publisher. Eayrs, whose personal estate was valued at approximately $30,000, was lauded in the press as ‘the first Canadian publisher to accept Canadian material’; for fostering a ‘literary self-consciousness and self-confidence in Canada’; for his ‘uncanny judgement’ – his decision to publish the English translation of Maria Chapdelaine and his early encouragement of Mazo de la Roche, E.J. Pratt, and Morley Callaghan; and his ‘energy and confidence’212 in local writers – the work of Winnipeg authors appeared under the Macmillan imprint. D.J. McLeod, chair of the publishers’ section of the Toronto Board of Trade, remarked that Eayrs promoted publishing as ‘a life’s work not only of individual satisfaction and profit, but of value to the bookselling and general interests’ of Canada.213 Toronto bookseller William Tyrrell described Eayrs as a ‘diplomat’ who ‘looked upon publishers and booksellers as natural allies in a common cause.’214 For Tyrrell, ‘many tangles became easier to unravel because of his urbanity and good sense.’215 Obituary notices were similar in spirit and tone. Eayrs’s nationalism and inspiring vision gave rise to moving memorials. Quill and Quire, for example, noted his ‘intense interest’ in Canada and pursuit of ‘a progressive literary culture.’216 The Globe and Mail observed that ‘Eayrs early gave his faith to Canada and never wavered … He brought into publishing in Canada amenities that had not formerly existed. He made friends of his authors and … travelled unstintingly in quest of new material for his publishing house.’217 On 4 May 1940, the Globe and Mail’s William Arthur Deacon devoted a lengthy column to his friend, ‘with whom I was so closely associated and of whom I became

120

The Macmillan Company of Canada

so fond.’218 Deacon remembered Eayrs as ‘a fervent Canadian … [who] was anxious at all times to advance the cause of books in Canada.’219 He also appreciated Eayrs as ‘an alert and constant reader’220 of the Globe’s book page, always gauging the reviews of Macmillan titles. Overseas in London and across the border in New York, Daniel Macmillan and George Brett were shocked and dismayed at the news of Eayrs’s death. In separate letters of condolence, Daniel Macmillan thanked Ellen Elliott and Robert Huckvale for their able work and expressions of loyalty to Macmillan. He also took the time to write to Mazo de la Roche who was mourning the loss of ‘a most loyal and devoted fellow and a great friend.’221 In their private correspondence, however, Macmillan and Brett attended to practical matters. They worried about the immediate impact of Eayrs’s death on the Toronto branch, and sought to install an interim leader who could oversee the company during a difficult transition period. The day after Eayrs’s death, Brett explained in a letter to Macmillan that he was loath to assume responsibility for the Toronto branch, for a number of reasons. First, following his resignation from the board of directors of the Macmillan Company of Canada in the mid-1930s, Brett’s contact with the Canadian office had decreased significantly and he was no longer privy to internal business matters. Second, although Eayrs had thanked Brett for intervening on his behalf during his physical collapse of late 1938, Eayrs subsequently revised his view of the situation and had ‘vigorously invited [Brett] to mind my own business.’222 As a result, Brett’s connection with the Canadian branch was further diminished. Brett’s letter went on to offer incisive analysis. To acquire sufficient working knowledge of the Canadian branch would claim time and energy that he ought to devote to his own company. Moreover, the Canadian staff would likely resent the interference of an American who could be perceived to represent competing interests. In order to minimize financial loss, Brett recommended cutting back on trade publications and Canadian titles for the duration of the war. In his closing postscript, the cunning Brett could not resist the chance to present a final offer: ‘If you want to the get the Canadian show off your mind, why don’t you let The Macmillan Company of New York make you an offer for your interest[?]’223 A desire for control of the Canadian market motivated Brett, as did his wish to further expand his business. Never one to forego a business opportunity, even in the wake of a colleague’s death, Brett knowingly presented the offer at a time when anxiety might have led Daniel Macmillan to divest himself of the Canadian

The Triumphant Second Reign 1921–1940

121

business. Instead, Macmillan, a seasoned bookman with prior experience of Brett’s shrewd business tactics, declined his colleague’s ‘offer to relieve us of responsibility by selling our shares.’224 In the midst of a crisis at the Canadian firm, which he was trying to manage from afar, Macmillan was obliged to guard against Brett’s potential perfidy. In the end, Macmillan and Brett agreed that Robert Huckvale should assume the helm of the Macmillan Company of Canada, as he had done previously during Eayrs’s leave of absence in early 1939. Since overseas travel was extremely difficult during the war, Daniel Macmillan graciously accepted Brett’s proposal to visit the Toronto company in the near future. Brett hoped to provide his London colleagues with observations and recommendations that would inform their assessment of the Canadian branch. Brett’s trip to Toronto was delayed until 11 July 1940. His day-long visit included a tour of the Macmillan premises, a lunch meeting with company lawyer William W. McLaughlin, and an extended meeting with Robert Huckvale. Brett was impressed with the professional atmosphere of the Canadian office and found ‘nothing fundamentally wrong,’ although he believed the company needed ‘a chance to build up its cash reserves.’225 He was less enthusiastic about Macmillan’s film department, which he recommended closing. A self-congratulatory apology for his ‘overlong letter’ – ‘I suppose you know me well enough by now to know that when I make a report it is generally pretty full’226 – conveyed Brett’s unmistakable confidence, as well as his disinterested perspective on the Macmillan Company of Canada. Unlike the impartial Brett, Daniel Macmillan took a more personal interest in the ongoing difficulties of the Canadian branch. Fortunately for Robert Huckvale, he was assisted by Ellen Elliott, Hugh Eayrs’s secretary and ‘alter ego for fifteen years,’ whom Brett regarded as ‘useful, productive, and progressive.’227 During his decline, Eayrs’s reliance on his ‘good friend’ Ellen Elliott228 increased considerably. Elliott brought ability, energy, and intelligence to her work; she was loyal to Eayrs and supportive of his publishing program. If not for Elliott’s intervention, in fact, the responsibilities of both company presidents – first Eayrs and later Huckvale – would have been onerous. Eayrs was impressed with Elliott and recognized her as a fellow ‘bookman.’ In 1924 he publicly acknowledged ‘the cheerful manner in which she has given me of her sound judgement, [and] her highly detailed knowledge of our books.’229 Elliott’s analytical abilities and commitment – she often worked at home on evenings and weekends,

122

The Macmillan Company of Canada

and deferred vacations if work was pressing – led to her promotion in 1925 to Eayrs’s private secretary, a relatively senior position in the company. She nonetheless remained behind the scenes, working on behalf of Macmillan, its authors, and her superior in a multitude of ways, both professional and personal. Elliott provided Eayrs invaluable professional assistance with key tasks. She frequently wrote letters on behalf of the president, and suggested potential assessors of manuscripts and reviewers of published books. More significantly, Eayrs habitually assigned Elliott the important job of reading manuscripts – hundreds per year, in fact – that were submitted to Macmillan. Her discerning mind easily distinguished between publishable and non-publishable works. She understood that a number of factors, not least economic viability, influenced an evaluation of a manuscript. Her 1938 assessment of Paul Hiebert’s renowned work, Sarah Binks, for instance, reflected her readiness to balance literary merit with commercial marketability: ‘The author may not regard his book as a satire or a take-off on any Canadian poet or poetry, but I most certainly do. It is a very clever thing, and follows the plan of most stodgy autobiographies on the market a few years ago. There are numerous examples from the poetess’s own work which are brilliant. This is a genuine book of humour, but whether it would go in Canada or not, I don’t know. I should imagine, however, that Canadian poets would find it hard to laugh at themselves as they would undoubtedly see themselves if they read this book.’230 Elliott’s pragmatism outweighed her personal taste and, on the basis of her judgment, Hugh Eayrs rejected Sarah Binks. In fact, Macmillan was the first of several publishers to whom Hiebert submitted his work of comic genius. By 1947, the year Sarah Binks finally was published by Oxford University Press Canada, Eayrs had been dead for seven years and Elliott had recently resigned from Macmillan. No doubt, in the privacy of her Palmerston Avenue apartment in Toronto’s Annex neighbourhood she would have taken more than a passing notice of the book’s instant success and notoriety. Whether Elliott ever regretted her earlier appraisal of Hiebert’s work and its loss to Macmillan will remain unknown, however. Elliott regularly offered Eayrs personal assistance. She ran his errands, whether he was in the office, out of town on business, or on vacation. In an extraordinary display of loyalty, while Eayrs was on an extended holiday at the Hôtel Tadoussac in Tadoussac, Quebec, she had his fishing gear sent to him and tried unsuccessfully in several Toronto shops

The Triumphant Second Reign 1921–1940

123

to purchase a canoe for his son. While Eayrs was away, she managed his office efficiently, consulted him only when necessary, and offered timely reminders of such commitments as his offer to write a profile of Mazo de la Roche for Canadian Bookman: ‘Perhaps when you are not fly fishing you would like to do a little Mazo-ing.’231 She was troubled by Eayrs’s health problems – ‘I am concerned to hear you are not feeling so well. The sea air will probably buck you up and in a few days you will be as right as rain’232 – and sought to shield him from stress. When appropriate, she also ‘handle[d] the cranky old authors, like [conservationist] Grey Owl … [and poet] Wilson MacDonald.’233 ‘Don’t worry about anything in the office,’234 Elliott wrote on 19 July 1938, assuming a characteristic pose as Eayrs’s protector. Although privately she once admitted to doing his work ‘for years because the man was so sick,’ she remained Eayrs’s defender and, after his death, reprimanded author Frederick Philip Grove for calling him a scoundrel in her presence: ‘I was furious; here I was struggling with the man’s job, and after working for a man for twenty years, you sort of miss him around the place.’235 That Eayrs was personally indebted to Ellen Elliott — his ‘trusted Secretary, solid-drop when necessary’236 – is evident in his satirical poem, ‘Lines – With Profound Apologies to Edgar Allan Poe,’ most likely recited at a company social event. In the poem, when an author appears at Eayrs’s door hoping for an audience, the publisher recoils: And I yelled for Mistress Elliott in a gusty guttural roar. ‘Listen, Ellen, what the hell-an’, it’s to you that I am tellin’ If your friend, Professor Pel-an’ – ’ but she let me say no more. ‘No, it’s not the Jacobean who bombards the outer door. Calm your nerves, I’ll tell you more.’237

In this pithy portrayal of Elliott’s competence, Eayrs’s familiar tone suggests the strong connection between publisher and secretary. To Eayrs, Elliott was ‘the most knowledgeable copyright clerk in the publishing business in Canada,’ and her ‘dry pungent humour and zest for living’238 leavened the demanding job of running a publishing company. She once quipped on a particularly trying workday, ‘In certain moods I could not only write a very good murder story, but commit a juicy murder itself.’239 Publicly, Eayrs and Elliott were known as ‘a splendid working team’240 who sought jointly to foster Macmillan’s growing reputation

124

The Macmillan Company of Canada

as a publisher of important books by and for Canadians. Privately, their mutual regard was evident in a relationship founded on respect and trust. In a letter to Lovat Dickson in 1943, Elliott expressed enduring admiration for Eayrs: despite his faults ‘— and we both know he had plenty – he still remains the most vivid personality in Canadian publishing, and it is astonishing to find wherever I go how affectionately he is remembered.’241 Ellen Elliott was also ‘a great aid’242 to Robert Huckvale in his role as interim head of Macmillan. They ‘work[ed] together in the closest cooperation’243 and successfully managed the company during the precarious years of the Second World War. Elliott handled the publishing and editorial sides of the business, while Huckvale attended to financial matters. As John Gray recognized immediately, the passing of Hugh Eayrs marked the end of an era, on several fronts. In the spring of 1940, when the former Soviet Union was expelled from the League of Nations, the war in Europe intensified. Increasing numbers of Canadians enlisted and Canada’s automotive industry was engaged in building trucks and other vehicles for combat use. At Macmillan, educational and trade publishing was severely curtailed, the result of significant curricular changes, prolonged economic constraints, and wartime uncertainty. Eayrs’s death also signalled a cultural shift, both within the company he had led so forcefully for almost twenty years and across the country he had travelled so boldly. Macmillan had grown and matured since 1921, the year Eayrs rose to the position of president. In 1940 it was no longer a fledgling branch-plant operation wholly accountable to its principals in London and New York and serving as agent to publishers in Britain and the United States. Macmillan had become one of Canada’s major publishing companies, with a recognizable house identity founded on a nationalist agenda and a record of having issued award-winning, landmark Canadian books. Its agency agreements, still necessary to its financial well-being, supplemented its own publishing programs and enhanced its profile as purveyor of culturally significant books that resonated with readers across Canada. In 1938 Hugh Eayrs claimed that a ‘history of The Macmillan Company of Canada Limited (it is not too much to say) is pretty largely the history of the growth and development of Canadian letters.’244 Eayrs’s prescient view is supported by the foregoing analysis of Macmillan under his guidance. Eayrs succeeded in fostering a modern literary cul-

The Triumphant Second Reign 1921–1940

125

ture for Canada. He sought out books by and for Canadians, serious works that met the high artistic and moral standards associated with the Macmillan imprint. Across a vast country, he disseminated educational texts and trade titles to readers who were eager for books that reflected their own experience of Canada. He encouraged countless writers and supported them through publication. Hugh Eayrs not only was the most nationalistic of Macmillan’s presidents, he was a publisher of great vision. He saw the books that were needed and, despite the obvious financial risks, set about supplying them to his constituency of readers. Since Ellen Elliott learned the publisher’s credo under Eayrs’s skilled tutelage, it was only fitting that she would carry on her mentor’s visionary work for Macmillan. Eayrs’s deeply felt nationalism inspired Elliott’s approach to publishing, and she, too, would leave her own enterprising mark on the company she valiantly served.

3 Interregnum 1940–1946: Ellen Elliott

Interim Leadership In the wake of Hugh Eayrs’s death, Robert Huckvale rallied the ‘capable and well organized staff of Macmillan’1 and, together with Ellen Elliott, succeeded in staving off a potential crisis. Soon after Eayrs’s funeral, Huckvale wrote to reassure Daniel Macmillan in London ‘that we can carry on here satisfactorily.’2 Although he did ‘not pretend to have the many qualifications of Mr Eayrs,’ Huckvale claimed to have a ‘thorough knowledge of the business’ and numerous connections ‘in Canadian publishing circles.’3 He felt prepared to fill the void left by Eayrs. Robert Huckvale was born in England and educated at Maidenhead College. In 1909, as a teenager, he immigrated to Canada where he worked for ten years at the Gutta Percha and Rubber Company. In 1919 he joined Macmillan as head of the accounting department. He was appointed secretary of the company in 1921 and was made a director in 1937. Huckvale served as chairman of the publishers’ section of the Toronto Board of Trade in 1938 and 1939. During his brief visit to Toronto in July 1940, George Brett had the opportunity to formulate an opinion of Robert Huckvale. His five-page report to Daniel Macmillan, dated 14 August 1940, included a detailed, tepid assessment of Huckvale, whom he judged as merely satisfactory in his role as overseer of the firm. Like Brett, Huckvale was ‘no editor.’4 Unlike Brett, however, Huckvale knew ‘nothing whatever about the publishing end [of Macmillan]. He has been a sort of glorified office manager, dealing with the routine of the business end but knowing nothing of editors, authors, or outside contacts.’5 Although Brett was

Interregnum 1940–1946

127

inclined to accept Huckvale as temporary overseer of the company – ‘he is what you have and as the saying goes, “the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know”’6 – he was apprehensive about Huckvale’s ability to lead the company. In his report to Daniel Macmillan, he offered a full description of Huckvale’s character: ‘thoroughly in earnest, but he is just too darn timid, and I am afraid wholly lacking in imagination. I expect that he is entirely honest, the plodding type, but afraid of his own shadow. I should say definitely he was a home body, and not a very good mixer.’7 Brett was troubled by Huckvale’s lack of publishing knowledge and, in a short-term effort to mitigate potential damage to the Canadian company’s finances, he advocated careful regulation of trade publishing and a focus on educational books. Brett conceded that he would not appoint Huckvale as interim head of the Toronto branch if a more qualified individual were available to fill the position. He admitted, however, to having some confidence in the man, whose woodenness stood in stark contrast to the magnetic personality of Eayrs that had so attracted Brett. In a subsequent visit to Toronto in September 1940, Brett confirmed that Huckvale had heeded his previous advice and Canadian sales had increased by approximately $18,000 for the period to date. Further evidence of Huckvale’s timidity, however, showed the unlikelihood of his making ‘the grade as head of the enterprise.’8 Nonetheless, since Huckvale remained ‘our best bet,’ Brett gave him several ‘pep talks’9 intended to inspire confidence and boost his initiative. In 1940 Robert Huckvale was appointed general manager; two years later, at Huckvale’s request, and in light of his responsible management of the company, Brett and Macmillan put aside their concerns and appointed him president of the Canadian branch. Brett’s assessment of Eayrs’s successor was corroborated by John Gray, a colleague with close connections to Huckvale. Gray’s memoir describes Huckvale, thinly disguised as Mr Harvey, as someone who ‘knew nothing about books and little about publishing, or Canada.’10 In support of his uncharitable view, Gray offered the observation of a female colleague: ‘Mr Harvey would have been all right if only he had read the books.’11 Gray’s disdainful tone conveyed his obvious dislike for Huckvale, a person he ‘couldn’t warm to or respect, from whom I could draw none of the stimulus, and the fun, I had known with Hugh Eayrs.’12 More revealing perhaps of Gray’s need for fellowship than a reliable assessment of his associate was his assertion that Huckvale

128

The Macmillan Company of Canada

‘wouldn’t understand me if he lived to be a hundred.’13 Huckvale’s firm grip on Macmillan’s finances may have been at the root of Gray’s contempt. Gray had once been denied an advance on his salary and had had to entreat Huckvale to supplement his army pay. Moreover, Gray’s antipathy was fuelled by a certainty that during the war Huckvale had tried unsuccessfully to fill his vacant position with a competitor. In truth, without the aid of Ellen Elliott, whose publishing expertise was fundamental to the company’s survival, Huckvale could not have managed Macmillan during the war years. While Huckvale oversaw the company’s finances, he relied on Elliott’s knowledge of publishing and experience as an editor to sustain Macmillan’s publishing programs. As Daniel Macmillan acknowledged, Eayrs often lauded ‘the loyal and devoted help’14 he received from Elliott. When she vowed to continue Eayrs’s ‘and my work as ably as I can’15 and to remain loyal to Daniel Macmillan and Robert Huckvale, Elliott was being forthright and truthful, the very traits that had won her the respect of Eayrs and would mark her leading work in publishing. Ellen Elliott Between 1937 and 1947 Ellen Elliott was secretary and director of the Macmillan Company of Canada and she helped manage the firm during the difficult years of the Second World War. Throughout the war, Elliott functioned as ‘head of the publishing side of the business.’16 At a time when local publishers struggled with inadequate resources, economic instability, and national unrest, she laboured tirelessly to sustain the company and build its roster of writers. Among the first executive women in Canadian publishing, she helped consolidate the growth of Macmillan from a branch-plant operation to a mature publishing house and worked closely with writers Frederick Philip Grove, Grey Owl, E.J. Pratt, Irene Baird, Audrey Alexandra Brown, W.O. Mitchell, Mona Gould, and P.K. Page, for example. A dedicated editor, Elliott saw ‘the potentialities within Canada to build a literature’17 that would reflect the nation’s geographical and cultural diversity. Ellen Elliott was born in England in 1901 and educated at Hampshire’s Barton Peveril College, where she graduated with distinction in English. For a brief period following graduation, she taught in Hampshire and Portsmouth. In 1920 she and her forty-seven-year-old mother immigrated to Canada where they reunited with her sister, Mrs H.E. Stoddart, who lived in Midland, Ontario. In March 1920 Elliott joined

Interregnum 1940–1946

129

the Macmillan Company of Canada; as she once explained, ‘It was the only job the employment agency had to offer.’18 For five years, Elliott held ‘a junior position’19 in Macmillan’s education department. In 1925 she was appointed private secretary to president Hugh Eayrs, and in 1937 was promoted to secretary of the company. In 1940, when Eayrs died suddenly, Elliott assumed responsibility for publishing. Two years later she was elected to the board of directors, with one share in the company. With over twenty years of service, the directors of the parent company in London – Daniel Macmillan and Rache Lovat Dickson, in particular – recognized Elliott for her dedication to Macmillan and deep knowledge of the publishing industry in Canada. Ellen Elliott was a dilettante poet and an individualist; she once quipped, ‘Although I look a very guileless person, I am a wily one.’20 As a young married woman, Elliott did not relinquish her own surname; rather, she preferred the hyphenated form of Elliott-Booth. When her first marriage failed, Elliott sought a divorce from her husband – at a time when divorce was socially unacceptable – and lived for a period with her mother, whom she supported. She viewed divorce as freeing and once wrote reassuringly to a fellow divorcee that ‘the success you will find in that freedom will surprise you.’21 Later, she cohabited with former colleague and veteran George Milton McKanday (who had worked at Macmillan from 1929 to 1931) until his estranged first wife, Doris, died in January 1955 and they were free to marry (on 1 October 1960). McKanday, a third or fourth generation Canadian, had two daughters, Catherine and Amy, from his first marriage. Privately, Elliott’s interest in spiritualism, which she admitted was ‘very deep,’22 was an enduring source of personal satisfaction during her years at Macmillan. A firm ‘belief in the survival of the dead as spirits capable of communication with the living, usually through a medium,’23 brought her into regular contact with other practising spiritualists. Spiritualism had increased in popularity since the First World War, largely in response to the desperate need of bereaved families who sought solace in the possibility of survival after death, and was endorsed by luminaries such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle whose books The New Revelation (1918) and The Vital Message (1919) lauded the movement. In Canada, spiritualism attracted a number of prominent practitioners, including literary journalist William Arthur Deacon and his partner in life Sally, poet E.J. Pratt and his wife Viola, and Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King. Mackenzie King became a friend and confidant of Elliott; he believed there was ‘no humbug or fraud

130

The Macmillan Company of Canada

about Miss Elliott … a woman of wide business experience, very alert and active.’24 Elliott regularly attended séances and held sittings at her home. She claimed to have been visited a number of times by the spirit of Hugh Eayrs, for example, and on one memorable occasion, with Mackenzie King in attendance – in whose view ‘nothing in the world … [was] truer than the survival of human personality’ – she was visited by the spirits of Queen Victoria, Florence Nightingale, Anne Boleyn, and Sir Frederick Banting!25 In August 1939, at a seance held at Margaret Hamilton Bach’s home, daughter of Thomas Glendenning Hamilton, Elliott was visited by the spirits of Grey Owl and Robert Louis Stevenson. If today spiritualism invokes cynicism, it is useful to recall its former popularity and to understand that Elliott was no amateur. In fact, she was a devout practitioner whose beliefs were endorsed by physicians, including Thomas Glendenning Hamilton, whose book on psychic phenomena, Intention and Survival, was issued by Macmillan in 1942. Archival evidence confirms, however, that Elliott’s private belief in spiritualism had little influence on her work as a publisher – except to encourage Macmillan’s posthumous publication of Hamilton’s book, the cost of which was covered entirely by benefactor Julian Gifford Cross. In The Perilous Trade, his survey of English-language publishing houses of the twentieth century, Roy MacSkimming describes Ellen Elliott as ‘the first woman … to hold such a senior position in Canadian publishing without owing it to a husband’s influence.’26 Until the 1950s, in fact, most women in publishing occupied junior positions. There were rare exceptions, however. Between 1932 and 1945 Alison Ewart was general editor of the University of Toronto Press’s publishing program. During the war years, Gladys Neale, who worked alongside Elliott at Macmillan, was acting manager of the education department, and by 1950 she had been appointed manager of the department. Neither Ewart nor Neale, however, ever advanced to the senior position eventually held by Elliott at Macmillan. Ewart resigned for family reasons and Neale remained head of the education department in a much-expanded company. In fact, as MacSkimming suggests, Irene Clarke, wife of William Henry (Bill) Clarke and sister of John Coverdale Watson Irwin, who together in 1930 established the publishing firm of Clarke, Irwin and Company, may well have been the only woman before Elliott to occupy a managerial position in Canadian publishing. In addition, in English Canada the professionalization of editing – work generally undertaken by women – did not begin in earnest until the 1950s and accounted, in

Interregnum 1940–1946

131

part, for the rarity of women in senior publishing positions during the first half of the twentieth century. Elliott entered the world of publishing with a confidence borne of natural intelligence, academic training, and practical experience. As a keen student of English and one-time teacher of literature, she was eminently suited to the challenges and exhilarations offered by book publishing. In her first year at Macmillan, where she worked under first president Frank Wise, her self-assurance soon became apparent. In response, for example, to Wise’s exceeding rudeness, ‘when he got into a towering rage and used bad language,’ the ‘green nineteen-year-old girl … told him in precisely the same language he used exactly what she thought of him.’27 Elliott’s straightforward manner and critical intelligence secured her a place in the education department, where she spent her first five years at Macmillan, participating in its day-to-day operations and learning the business side of publishing. An aunt to Jack Stoddart Sr, who years later would purchase and develop General Publishing, Nell Elliott was an accomplished woman, professionally and personally. Characterized by observant ‘gray-blue eyes,’28 fair hair, and a self-proclaimed cheekiness, she was confident and collegial. She was known as a ‘practical visionary’ and ‘true editor’ who understood ‘what constitutes a good book … what books ought to be written … what patience and coaxing and revision and constructive criticism go into the bringing of a saleable manuscript to birth.’29 Head of the Publishing Side of the Business After Hugh Eayrs’s death in 1940, when she assumed control of publishing at Daniel Macmillan’s behest, Ellen Elliott rose to the demands of her position ‘to do good work for the House’30 and made her most significant contribution to Macmillan. Like Eayrs, Elliott held the calling of publisher in high regard. She believed deeply in the cultural work performed by publishers and understood the economic asset represented by publishing companies. Elliott argued candidly that publishing ‘is not the racket a lot of folk imagine it to be. It is an industry which provides a reasonable livelihood for various kinds of craftsmen – authors, readers, editors, printers, proofreaders, binders, and booksellers … an economic enterprise which provides the means of presentday education and entertainment, and preserves a nation’s culture for the generations of the future.’31 This view of publishing, at once idealistic in its nationalism and

132

The Macmillan Company of Canada

practical in its commercialism, guided Elliott throughout her years at the helm of Macmillan. She perceived authorship and publishing as ‘appalling gambles,’32 but was undaunted by the responsibility of the publisher as cultural gatekeeper. Uncharacteristically for most publishers of her day, Elliott was open to the cultural diversity of Canada that she recognized in her frequent business travels across the country – arduous trips that required ‘working at night and Saturdays and Sundays too’33 – and hoped to publish the work of English, French, and immigrant writers. Her travels also took her to New York, where she consulted George Brett on foreign copyright and other Macmillan matters. In 1944 Elliott’s salary was raised to $5,000, half that of president Robert Huckvale, in recognition of her valuable service to the company. Elliott’s intimate understanding of Canadian publishing practice – the industry’s reliance on educational publishing and the agency system for sustenance, for example, and the intricate links among Canadian, British, and American publishers – was evident in her astute handling of daily business matters. She also appreciated the close and enduring connections between the Macmillan Company of Canada, its parent company in London, and its affiliate house in New York. Between 1940 and 1946 she was in regular communication with Rache Lovat Dickson, the London director who was responsible for overseeing Macmillan’s Canadian company. Dickson’s Canadian ancestry, his education at the University of Alberta under professor of literature E.K. Broadus, and his marriage to Canadian Marguerite Brodie gave him a particular interest in Macmillan’s Canadian operation. He had had a close working relationship with Hugh Eayrs and knew John Gray, who, prior to leaving Canada for war service, had worked for ten years in Macmillan’s education department. Dickson was kindly disposed toward Ellen Elliott, whose detailed and timely responses to his letters showed a mastery of the publishing field and dedication to her work. That Elliott felt she could reject Dickson’s novel, Out of the West Land, reveals the degree of professional confidence she had acquired by the 1940s. Moreover, that Dickson accepted her criticism of his early work – ‘it is much too long, particularly the earlier chapters … [and] I noticed inaccuracies which could easily be remedied’34 – showed his regard for her editorial judgment. Dickson also valued Elliott’s knowledge of Canadian publishers. In 1944, when he asked her to describe colleagues who were to visit England as members of the Canada Committee of the Publishers Association, Elliott was more than obliging. The portraits she provided of Bill Clarke (of Clarke, Irwin) and John McClelland (of

Interregnum 1940–1946

133

McClelland and Stewart) are so vivid they are worth quoting at length. They also showcase Elliott’s administrative acumen and penetrating understanding of Toronto’s book culture. If these men visit London, Elliott warned Dickson, I don’t think you will find them particularly easy to entertain. Bill Clarke is a shrewd and capable young man, and a very pompous and serious one. He went all Oxford Group a few years ago and is still a straight-laced member of the United Church of Canada. He neither smokes nor drinks. Nobody holds this against him, but he is stuffy. As quite a young man he was with us for a little while, but like many another young man before him, got rather too big for his shoes. Then he and his brother-in-law (who is even stuffier) went into business for themselves as Clarke Irwin. They started very modestly, but have published some very good books, and for the last six or seven years at least they have been the Canadian agents for the Oxford University Press … John McClelland is a good publisher, and although quite a lot of the publishing folk here don’t like him, and find him hard to get along with, I personally have never found him difficult. I understand meetings of the Publishers’ Section of the Board of Trade are always exciting when he is present because he is very frank and outspoken in expressing his views. He neither drinks nor smokes.35

Anticipating the need to entertain ‘these visiting Canadian publishers, particularly having them down to the country for the weekend,’ Dickson wanted to know whose company he ‘should most enjoy.’36 Thus, he was adequately primed to meet Bill Clarke and John McClelland, his teetotal colleagues. In the end, John McClelland did not join the delegation to Britain. In September 1945 Bill Clarke, along with Clarence H. Dickinson and Ernest W. Walker of Ryerson Press, Charles R. Sanderson, chief librarian of the Toronto Public Library, and F. Douglas Tolchard, secretary and general manager of the Toronto Board of Trade, visited London to discuss Canada’s diminished interest in British books, the possibility of manufacturing British books in Canada, and the prospect of distributing British books in North America through a Canadian wholesale depot. As George Parker discloses, however, in consultations with their British colleagues, the Canadian delegates omitted a key point that was central to their concerns: the protectionism of American copyright law prohibited importation of books not manufactured in the United

134

The Macmillan Company of Canada

States.37 Four years later, British Book Service (Canada), a cooperative to supply books to Canadian retailers, was established by fourteen British publishers. As head of publishing at Macmillan, Elliott felt the privations of the war years – when book production became ‘a terrific pain in the neck’38 – and she struggled to minimize their impact on her publishing program. In 1942 a federal administrator of printing, publishing, and allied industries was appointed to oversee and regulate all activities related to publishing. Local publishers laboured under tremendous constraints: fewer submissions from writers; shortages of paper and binding materials and their increased cost; inferior binding cloth; delays in production; indifferent printers; reduced staff; and the freezing of school curricula and wages. Printers, for example, were obliged to honour huge government contracts before filling orders from publishers. To conserve gasoline, book deliveries to Toronto were reduced from eleven to five per week.39 Fettered as she was, Elliott’s marshaling of Macmillan books through the 1940s, although a reduced list, must be regarded as a success. In light of the protracted difficulties they faced, Elliott and her fellow publishers were buoyed by ‘the unprecedented sales and critical reception of Canadian writers’ launched during the Second World War, and were pleased that the United States was ‘waking up to the fact that books are written in Canada and that they are good books.’40 Canadian publishing was given a definite boost when the war effort prevented Britain from exporting many books. As Elliott announced in May 1943, more Canadian books were ‘read in the last 18 months than in … [my] 23 years’ experience in the book business.’41 Nonetheless, as the war continued and she took on the jobs of ‘at least three people’42 in addition to her own, Elliott felt the strain of overwork. Experience had taught Elliott that success was more often accidental than planned. Hence, she strategically promoted Macmillan’s publications. She discussed recently published books, for example, in the many talks she gave to organizations such as the Women’s Art Association, the Lyceum Club, the Canadian Women’s Press Club, and the Canadian Authors Association, whose national secretary placed ‘unlimited faith’43 in her judgment. The ‘impression of rattling off at a great rate’44 belied the hours of preparation that informed Elliott’s public presentations. When she felt that the Globe and Mail’s literary editor William Arthur Deacon gave insufficient coverage to Macmillan titles, Elliott took him to task and did not renew an advertising contract for

Interregnum 1940–1946

135

1944. The following year, when deputy minister W.P. Percival, director of Protestant education in Quebec, addressed the Montreal chapter of the Canadian Authors Association on the character of Canadian poetry and omitted the work of Frederick B. Watt, whose Who Dare to Live was issued by Macmillan in 1943, Elliott drew attention to the oversight in a courteous but corrective letter. Like Eayrs, Elliott was an ardent nationalist who upheld the role of publisher as arbiter of cultural taste and education. As she announced in her 1941 address to the Canadian Authors Association on the occasion of its twentieth anniversary: ‘Publishing is making known in a permanent form a nation’s mind and intellect, heart and soul.’45 Elliott soon recognized an opportunity to publish topical works of interest to a growing readership that valued Macmillan’s culturally relevant books. One of Elliott’s earliest projects was the Macmillan War Pamphlets (Canadian series), an offshoot of the Macmillan War Pamphlets series published in London; both series were prompt responses ‘to the reading wants of wartime constituencies.’46 Elliott intended to publish a number of ‘pamphlets which will express the opinion of outstanding Canadians who are doing important work for Canada as she is to-day and for the great power she will be among nations after the war is over.’47 She modelled her Canadian pamphlets after the war pamphlets issued by the parent company: each was no more than thirty-two pages or approximately 8,000 words in length, affordably priced at ten cents, and covered a separate topic pertaining to Canada’s role in the Second World War. Although she had envisaged a series of eleven pamphlets, Elliott succeeded in publishing a total of eight titles: Irene Baird’s The North American Tradition; Maurice N. Eisendrath’s Reading in War-Time; John Murray Gibbon’s The New Canadian Loyalists; Lou L.L. Golden’s Conscription; John Douglas Macbeth’s Somewhere in England: War Letters of a Canadian Officer on Overseas Service; Claris Edwin Silcox’s The War and Religion, all published in 1941; E.H. Bartlett’s The Royal Canadian Navy and Charlotte Whitton’s Canadian Women in the War Effort, which appeared in 1942. That the pamphlets received ‘excellent press in Canada’48 pleased Elliott and confirmed for her the value of timely, inexpensive series publication that addressed pressing national concerns. Although Elliott minded the economic viability of Macmillan’s publishing program, the financial health of the company was tended by Robert Huckvale, less publisher than an accountant. In 1937 Hugh Eayrs described Huckvale as Macmillan’s ‘staunch and devoted “Chancellor of the Exchequer”’; five years later, Elliott used the metaphor of a

136

The Macmillan Company of Canada

skipper and his first mate to evoke the connection between herself and Huckvale.49 In fact, Elliott’s deepest concern lay with authors and their books, and she especially appreciated serious writers. Publishers and authors, in Elliott’s view, were ‘co-partners in a business undertaking’ and success depended on their joint ability ‘to gauge what the public wants.’50 Like Eayrs, although less zealous and assertive, she sought to discover and encourage dedicated writers who would contribute to Canada’s literary heritage and enhance national identity, which had been strengthened by Canadian participation in the war. Elliott’s approach to editing was fair and reasonable. Her own practice was first ‘to read a manuscript from beginning to end without making any notes so as to get the feeling of the work as a whole.’51 Generally, manuscripts were evaluated in the order in which they were received, by at least three, often by as many as six, readers. Elliott also had considerable ability as a ‘talent scout’52 and, when appropriate, she solicited manuscripts from writers. Authors received responses to their submissions as expeditiously as possible, and if the editorial board decided a work was publishable, a manuscript report was prepared outlining corrections, revisions, or adaptations. Elliott sought to help writers achieve authority and style. The job of an editor, she observed, was to free writers from ‘restraint, get them to write easily and flowingly, to dig the real, dramatic story out from behind the wall of inhibition … to see things in perspective – to single out the incidents and characters that are likely to be of most interest and importance to the readers, and to play down those incidents and characters that are simply of local or passing significance.’53 Supportive of all authors, Elliott was especially interested in women writers who were poised to make significant contributions in several fields. Among those she encouraged were author Jessie Georgina Sime, children’s writer Olive Knox, and novelist Irene Baird. In several instances, Elliott sustained relationships with authors who had been close to Eayrs. Throughout the 1940s, for example, she championed the work of Frederick Philip Grove. Although she found Grove demanding and arrogant, she respected his ‘indomitable spirit’ and ‘solid background of scholarship … [which] came out in everything he did.’54 Elliott assisted the struggling author in ways both practical and intellectual. A reliable reader of manuscripts, Grove provided regular reports for Macmillan that were incisive critiques, which in turn provided Grove with extra income for his family. More importantly, Elliott’s unstinting admiration buoyed his flagging spirit and gave the

Interregnum 1940–1946

137

author much needed encouragement to continue writing. Her view of The Master of the Mill, published by Macmillan in 1944, showed a balanced understanding of Grove’s realism: ‘He can’t depict women, there’s no doubt about that. His women are awful. But … his dealing with social questions – unemployment, unions, strikes, industry … that man was years ahead of his time.’55 Elliott was more than a ‘devoted publisher,’56 however; she was also a friend. In the final years of his life, when ill health prevented Grove from travelling, Elliott visited the author and his wife Catherine at their home in Simcoe, Ontario. Despite the parent company’s harsh dismissal of Grove, Elliott held a steadfast appreciation for his work. London offered scathing assessments of Grove’s fictionalized autobiography, In Search of Myself – ‘“In Search of a Publisher,” brutally, should be this book’s subtitle in England. It is utterly dim. Reject’ – and his satire, Consider Her Ways – ‘so silly and pointless’ a work that Daniel Macmillan urged the Canadian branch not to ‘publish any more books by this gentleman.’57 Elliott was not dissuaded from issuing both works in 1946 and 1947, respectively. In fact, one of her ‘dearest hopes’ was to publish ‘a uniform edition of the books of Frederick Philip Grove.’58 The uniform edition never was published, but three years before her death, in 1970, Elliott reaffirmed her enthusiasm for the author’s work in a personal interview with Grove biographer Margaret Stobie. Elliott also admired the ‘poignantly beautiful’59 prose of Grey Owl. In a reader’s report, dated 31 July 1931, she praised Grey Owl’s stories for their educational value and emphasis on conservation, and urged Eayrs to publish his work. That same year, with the appearance of The Men of the Lost Frontier, Macmillan became Grey Owl’s Canadian publisher. Throughout their long association, according to Eayrs, Elliott had ‘more authority’ over Grey Owl ‘than anyone else … She seems to be able to whip him into shape more than any of us, not only on her own account but also by the threat that I will be absolutely through with him, and chuck him out … She [recently] managed to get him sobered up.’60 Moreover, Elliott sought to protect Grey Owl from public scorn. To avoid possible censure from teetotal critics, she urged him to avoid drinking on his visits to Toronto: if it ‘ever got around to the public … that Grey Owl was slightly the worse for wear, so to speak, it would do you incalculable damage.’61 Elliott’s keen grasp of the literary milieu of Canada is reflected in her cautionary description of Toronto as ‘the biggest little village on the North American Continent … the people of this fair city are the most narrow-minded devils

138

The Macmillan Company of Canada

anywhere. But it is a fact that what goes with bookish Toronto goes for most of the country.’62 Following the death of Hugh Eayrs, his devoted publisher and closest ally, E.J. Pratt turned to Elliott whom he had known ‘favourably for many years.’63 Pratt came to count on Elliott ‘for understanding and support.’64 In 1945, for instance, when she read a flattering review of Pratt’s work in the New England Quarterly, Elliott forwarded it to the poet and appended a lively note: the reviewer ‘certainly goes to town on Ned Pratt – which is very nice indeed … Top of the morning to you.’65 Pratt also shared Elliott’s interest in spiritualism, and he and his wife Viola attended occasional seances at her home. Unlike her regard for Frederick Philip Grove, Elliott’s discovery of author W.O. Mitchell won her the esteem of London colleagues. When she learned from Maclean’s editor Harry Clarke that Mitchell was working on a novel, Elliott, who had read several of Mitchell’s short stories in Maclean’s, lost no time in contacting the author. On 28 March 1944 she wrote to Mitchell in Alberta asking to read his completed manuscript. On the basis of Elliott’s interest and the offer of a $1,500 advance on royalty, Mitchell rejected competing offers from McClelland and Stewart and Oxford University Press Canada and granted Macmillan the Canadian rights to his novel, published three years later as Who Has Seen the Wind. Thus began an alliance between publisher and author that would endure throughout much of Mitchell’s literary career. Elliott was recognized throughout the literary and publishing communities for her discovery of Mitchell. Grove himself was engaged as reader and gave Mitchell’s novel high praise: ‘One does not often meet with a book which combines power and beauty. Here it is … It has the whole atmosphere of Saskatchewan which … has never been done. Here is a talent that must be helped and fostered. It is to Miss Elliott’s very great credit to have discovered this man.’66 After reading the manuscript, Lovat Dickson wrote similarly from London to congratulate Elliott on discovering Mitchell. When Who Has Seen the Wind was published to wide acclaim, its success was due in part, as William Arthur Deacon acknowledged, to Elliott’s championing of Mitchell’s ‘grand novel … that so completely portrayed a child … [and] successfully captured the atmosphere of a small town on the Prairies.’67 Elliott’s success did not prevent John Gray, however, from supplanting her as Mitchell’s editor when, in January 1946, Gray returned to publishing after serving overseas during the war. Elliott had a warm regard for Mitchell and hoped he would ‘become famous.’68 They

Interregnum 1940–1946

139

enjoyed a lively correspondence and had met as well, but the author responded more sympathetically to Gray who shared several of his interests, such as fishing. Gray corresponded with Mitchell and quickly became the writer’s primary contact at Macmillan. He visited Mitchell on western business trips and developed a personal and enduring connection with ‘my dear Bill.’ Moreover, when Elliott wrote to Daniel Macmillan in London regarding Who Has Seen the Wind, Lovat Dickson intervened and responded directly to Gray, thereby preventing Elliott’s further involvement with Mitchell and his novel. Elliott, who had been looking forward to seeing Gray ‘back at his desk,’69 was soon displaced. As a woman, no matter how senior her position at Macmillan and despite her discovery of Mitchell, Elliott was expected to defer to Gray as the returned veteran. To do otherwise would have been out of character, both for Elliott and for the era. By the time Mitchell’s novel was published on 28 February 1947, Elliott was occupied primarily with administrative matters, such as distributing advance copies to bookstores, contacting magazine and newspaper editors, and arranging reviews. While she continued to read manuscripts, she no doubt grasped the irony of her reduced position. With poet Mona Gould, unlike Grove or Mitchell, Elliott could indulge her taste for poetry and for gossip. Gould was a frank woman who appreciated Elliott’s openness; she regarded her as ‘a most satisfactory person’70 who offered excellent editorial advice. In 1943, during production of her first book Tasting the Earth, Gould ‘trotted back and forth between my office and MacMillan’s [sic] like an obedient poodle … Getting to know Ellen Elliott better all the time and liking her so much. Finding wit and humour and a salty sort of knowledge under her terrifically businesslike exterior.’71 Since she had moved to Owen Sound and was unable to meet her editor in Toronto, Gould’s second and final volume was edited entirely by Elliott. Elliott selected and arranged the poems included in I Run with the Fox (1946) and oversaw production of the book to Gould’s satisfaction. Moreover, as a working journalist, Gould encountered people in the book trade and, privately, she and Elliott became friends who exchanged gossip. A strong advocate of verse, Elliott regretted the prohibitive cost of producing ‘beautiful books of poetry’72 that rarely sold well. When Macmillan could not commit to publication, Gould, like most published poets of her day – Dorothy Livesay’s first volumes, Green Pitcher (1928) and Signpost (1932), were published by Macmillan at her own expense – agreed to cover the cost of producing her first book. All

140

The Macmillan Company of Canada

authors, particularly those who subsidized the design and production of their own titles, appreciated the meticulous care Macmillan gave its books. As Gould proclaimed when she received her copies of Tasting the Earth, ‘I’m quite sure that it will be no fault of my publishers, if the [beautiful] book doesn’t sell!’73 Elliott was willing to take a risk on P.K. Page, however, a writer she regarded as a ‘find.’ Following a first rejection by Alfred Knopf, Page submitted The Sun and the Moon to Macmillan. Elliott assessed the manuscript as a serious, aesthetic work, ‘much too good to be true,’74 and determined to publish Page’s novel. Since she knew, however, that Macmillan would need to share the cost of producing so unusual a novel by a first-time author, Elliott sent Page’s manuscript to the Macmillan Company in New York for its consideration. Although New York did not accept the work – war constraints influenced the negative decision – the rejection letter corroborated Elliott’s enthusiasm for the novel and her estimation of Page as a ‘promising author.’75 Undaunted, Elliott offered Page’s manuscript to New York’s Creative Age Press, established by renowned medium Eileen J. Garrett – Garrett also founded the Parapsychology Foundation – which agreed, after some deliberation, to offset the cost of producing The Sun and the Moon by purchasing 1,000 copies from the Macmillan Company of Canada. Elliott’s efforts and belief in the young writer’s work paid off. She successfully launched Page’s career in 1944 with a ‘thoughtful intuitive’76 novel that might otherwise have gone unpublished. Although Page received a royalty payment of just three cents per copy on American sales of her book, she accepted Elliott’s advice that ‘the most important thing for you is to secure publication in the United States, and if it means accepting a reduced royalty you would be well advised to do so.’77 A young, inexperienced author, Page had ‘no one to consult about this who knows any more about it than I do’ and appreciated her editor’s sincere counsel; as Page recalled in a 2006 interview, Elliott was ‘sure of herself.’78 Moreover, when she learned that she would receive a royalty payment of 10 per cent of the Canadian list price of $2.25, Page trusted that Elliott was working on her behalf. In fact, Elliott was a dedicated editor who eased Page’s transition from the private realm of writing to publication. First, although she heralded The Sun and the Moon as a success, Elliott accepted Page’s decision to publish her first book under the pseudonym Judith Cape, a device that distanced the author from potential censure. Second, by co-publishing the novel with Creative Age Press, Elliott ensured Page a

Interregnum 1940–1946

141

presence in the United States, invaluable publicity for a first-time Canadian writer. Finally, when five film companies requested copies of The Sun and the Moon, Elliott tried unsuccessfully to negotiate film rights to the novel in several attempts to bolster Page’s ‘teetering bank account’ that had been reduced to a ‘cipher.’79 Elliott’s efforts on behalf of Page were characteristic of her treatment of authors in general. Under her care, four Macmillan authors won Governor General’s Literary Awards: E.J. Pratt for Brébeuf and His Brethren (1940); Ringuet for Thirty Acres (1940); Ross Munro for Gauntlet to Overlord (1945); and Frederick Philip Grove for In Search of Myself (1946). A consummate publisher, she guided writers through the publication process. Her dynamic personality was ever on view, and she was as enthusiastic and generous as she was attentive. Ellen Elliott’s Departure from Macmillan In 1944 Daniel Macmillan expressed appreciation for the work undertaken by Elliott and ‘the rest of the staff … in what must be difficult conditions.’80 By April 1946, however, Elliott’s commitment and enthusiasm had become a liability. That month, Lovat Dickson paid a muchpublicized visit to Toronto. Dickson’s visit was hailed by the press as evidence that British publishers were ‘interested in this country and the future of British book sales here … [They] recognize the great potentialities of the Canadian market … [and] the British public is interested in Canadian books.’81 The reasons for Dickson’s trip were likely to have been much less benign. Under the guise of a friendly visit from a director of the parent company in London, Dickson undertook an evaluation of the Macmillan Company of Canada. He spoke to Macmillan employees, including Huckvale and Elliott, and met members of the book trade, such as publishers Frank Appleton and Lorne Pierce, and Globe and Mail literary editor William Arthur Deacon. It was, however, Dickson’s private dinner at the King Edward Hotel with John Gray and his colleague Frank Upjohn that determined the future of the Canadian branch. In his memoir Fun Tomorrow, John Gray describes that dinner as momentous. He and Upjohn expressed dissatisfaction with potentially ‘stormy’ working conditions at Macmillan under Huckvale – an ineffective ‘captain’ – and Elliott – ‘a first mate who didn’t know anything, or care much, about navigation.’82 Dickson’s unequivocal reply, ‘This is exactly the kind of thing I came to find out,’83 shows the degree of trust

142

The Macmillan Company of Canada

he placed in Gray and Upjohn and a willingness to dismiss Huckvale and Elliott’s successful management of Macmillan over the course of six years. The ease with which Dickson accepted the account of two colleagues recently returned to publishing after an extended absence overseas during the war indicated a desire to replace the current directors. Dickson’s long-standing affinity with Gray – their connection dated from Gray’s years in Macmillan’s education department – and the fact that as early as January 1946 Dickson wrote not to Elliott but directly to Gray, prior to his actual return to Bond Street, suggest that the parent company in London envisaged Gray as Elliott’s superior. The replacement of Huckvale by Gray soon after Dickson’s Toronto visit and the subsequent departure of Elliott from Macmillan confirm London’s aspirations for Gray. Elliott may not have suspected her position as director of Macmillan was tenuous. She carried out her duties with aplomb and efficiency. Her regular communications with the parent company reflected her commitment to Macmillan and her dedicated work as publisher. Throughout the war, Elliott’s detailed and friendly letters to her colleague ‘Jack’ Gray in Europe had kept him abreast of developments at the office while she awaited his return and the chance to ‘breathe a big, fat sigh of relief and go out and get tight.’84 She regularly sent him parcels of books, and Gray’s appreciative letters were addressed to ‘my dear Ellen.’ Moreover, Elliott was led to believe that London valued her contribution to Macmillan. As she wrote to Dickson, ‘Your visit to Toronto has meant a great deal to all of us here, and I hope when the plane rose this morning with you and all your excess baggage that you felt happy and satisfied about your Toronto visit.’85 If Elliott anticipated the changes soon to take place at Macmillan, she would not have written so gracious a note. Elliott’s departure from Macmillan on 1 July 1947, less immediate than Huckvale’s in June 1946, was precipitated by a series of circumstances. First, in April 1946, at the age of forty-five, she underwent an emergency operation for the removal of ‘a 6 lb. fibroid & a cyst the size of a baseball,’ when her mother suspected she ‘was carrying the Elephant’s child.’86 The surgery, Elliott admitted, ‘took far more out of me than the mere weight removed’ and left her ‘quite exhausted.’87 She recuperated over the summer at a relative’s home in Shelburne, Ontario, and returned to the office gradually. By October 1946 she had resumed full-time work, but stress from overwork may have spurred Elliott to leave Macmillan. In December, for example, ‘after an active

Interregnum 1940–1946

143

day at the office,’ she admitted feeling her ‘age’; four months later, she required ‘nembutol capsules’88 to fall asleep. Second, although Daniel Macmillan and Lovat Dickson recognized Elliott as an excellent editor and publisher, the culture of publishing in Canada – even during the war years when fewer men were available to occupy positions of authority – favoured men over women. John Gray, who worked closely under second president Hugh Eayrs, the astute and energetic publisher admired by the London directors, may have been groomed for the position of general manager. In 1936, for example, Eayrs couched his aspirations for Gray in a telling admission: ‘My satisfaction in any business I’ve ever got for the house is as much satisfaction in putting something over for you as for myself.’89 At the end of the war, en route from Europe to Toronto, Gray visited Macmillan and Company in London to reestablish ties with the parent company. Finally, Elliott’s championing of esoteric writers, in particular Frederick Philip Grove, confirmed Macmillan and Dickson’s suspicion that during the years 1940 to 1946, when the company’s finances were compromised as a result of war conditions, she paid inadequate attention to the marketability of Macmillan authors. To exacerbate its financial difficulties and delay its economic recovery, soon after the war ended, the Bank of England asked the Canadian branch to transfer $20,000 to a sterling account and declare a dividend of 100 per cent, based on its capital profit of $30,458.28 for the fiscal year ending 31 March 1946. This request escalated into a demand, as the Bank of England announced its immediate need for Canadian currency and sought to collect remittances from all British-owned Canadian companies. Between 1945 and 1948, in correspondence with the Bank of England, Harold Macmillan, on behalf of Macmillan and Company, explained that the profits of the Toronto branch were actually underwritten by the parent and affiliate houses in London and New York, that the branch did not have ready access to cash and would be forced to borrow funds from a Canadian bank to pay the dividend. Macmillan and Company further argued that such debt would impede the future growth of the Canadian branch. When numerous attempts to sway the Bank of England proved unsuccessful, the resourceful George Brett pressed his London colleagues to contact ‘some friend at the Treasury who could give you a useful tip in connection with the whole matter.’90 Brett’s prescient counsel had an effect. On 6 February 1948 Harold Macmillan wrote to Sir Wilfrid Eady, an official at the Treasury Board, and asked for a brief meeting to discuss the matter. As a result of their ‘friend[ly]’ exchange, the Macmillan

144

The Macmillan Company of Canada

Company of Canada was spared and a looming financial crisis for the Macmillan constituencies in London, New York, and Toronto averted. Through the influence of Eady, the Treasury Board was appeased and withdrew its request for remittance. Not surprisingly, the collective relief of Daniel and Harold Macmillan, George Brett, and John Gray was profound. Thereafter, however, the Macmillan Company of Canada was careful to remit appropriate dividend payments to London. Daniel Macmillan’s 1940 decision to place Ellen Elliott in charge of publishing had been largely pragmatic, driven by Hugh Eayrs’s untimely death and the lack of trained male personnel due to the war. Elliott had already proven herself a dedicated employee and a capable editor, eminently suited to continue Eayrs’s work as publisher. When the ambitious John Gray returned to Macmillan from overseas service, however, he no doubt felt cramped by Elliott’s senior position. In June 1946, when Elliott resumed work following her convalescence from surgery, she was surprised to learn that, during her absence, Gray had been placed in charge of publishing, with Frank Upjohn as secondary manager. Confused by the ‘change in management,’91 Elliott cabled Daniel Macmillan. She agreed to ‘cooperate’ but sought ‘clarification [of] my position as director and [an] expression [of] your confidence.’92 In fact, Elliott’s departure from Macmillan was orchestrated by the parent company in London and justified by the desire to place Gray at the helm of the company. First, on 7 May 1946, in a telegram to George Brett concerning the pressing need to appoint a new president of the Canadian branch, Daniel and Harold Macmillan asserted that ‘it will be easier to find [a] young Englishman to assist on [the] editorial side in place of Miss Elliott.’93 Second, Daniel Macmillan was spurred to immediate action by Elliott’s telegram of June 1946, which asked for clarification of her position. On 13 June 1946 he wrote a brief but sharp note to Gray: ‘The more I think of it the more I am convinced that we had better get rid of Miss Elliott, but it must be done tactfully.’94 Despite her years of dedicated service and superior editorial and publishing skills, Macmillan was prepared to dismiss Elliott soon after Gray’s return to the office. His scheme to undermine Elliott – executed without compunction – unfolded over the course of one difficult year but finally achieved the desired result of forcing her resignation from Macmillan. Not surprisingly, John Gray was Macmillan’s accomplice in ousting Elliott. Gray thought himself superior to his colleague – he believed she had ‘certain limitations as an editor’95 – and felt entitled to Elliott’s position, which likely would have been his had it not been for the

Interregnum 1940–1946

145

intervening war. Gray’s urbane demeanour belied his driving ambition and desire for control of Macmillan. While he did not relish the task of expediting Elliott’s departure from the company, he was not loath to take the necessary steps to usurp her role and thereby facilitate his own rise. As he cautioned Macmillan, ‘We should make good the loss of her going’; all Gray needed was ‘the time necessary to work this problem out.’96 Like Gray, whose behaviour masked his duplicity, Elliott’s conduct veiled true feelings of anxiety. While she appeared to have accepted her demotion, in reality she was deeply disturbed by the shifting climate and changing face of Macmillan. She had cause for worry. Her position at Macmillan was greatly reduced, as were the requirements of her new administrative role. Ministerial and office tasks replaced the editorial and publishing work she had undertaken during the war. She no longer solicited manuscripts and had minimal contact with authors. Although she was a senior member of staff, she no longer occupied a senior position at the helm of the company. When she was asked, however, to tender her resignation from the company she had served faithfully for twenty-seven years, Elliott responded with shock and dismay, feelings that were true to her honest and forthright character. True to his word, one year after his return to Macmillan, Gray dismissed Elliott. On 19 May 1947 he appeared at her home to deliver the directors’ edict that Elliott’s position had become redundant. Since they did not feel it was appropriate to ask Elliott to accept a less responsible position in the firm – in reality, she had occupied a subordinate post for one year – the directors requested her resignation and offered her one year’s salary, without a pension. It took several days, but once she absorbed the news, Elliott responded directly to Daniel Macmillan. Her letter, dated 28 May 1947, should have convinced Macmillan that he was forfeiting a devoted professional with an incisive mind and energetic spirit. Elliott understood that her dismissal had little to do with the quality of her work and more to do with the favour accorded John Gray. As she stated, ‘There is no question of my efficiency. Our Canadian publishing showed a loss in 1940. It showed a considerable profit in 1946. I have been responsible for acquiring … worthwhile new authors.’97 Since she required the severance offer of one year’s salary to support herself and her mother while she investigated other employment opportunities, Elliott could not afford to provoke Macmillan. Hence, she did not write to question his decision, ‘which of necessity is agreeable to me’; instead,

146

The Macmillan Company of Canada

she carefully explained her need for a pension as follows: (i) she was forty-seven years old, having joined Macmillan at the age of nineteen; (ii) her experience in publishing was highly specialized and did not prepare her for any other type of employment; (iii) she had financial obligations; (iv) she would be competing for jobs with large numbers of ex-servicemen and younger women who were similarly displaced from their war-time positions; (v) she would be embarrassed to apply for junior positions in a field where she was well known; (vi) she had refused several offers of jobs in 1940, 1941, and 1942, but those positions were no longer available in post-war Canada; and (vii) the cost of her serious operation, as well as the ill health of her elderly mother, had depleted her financial resources.98 She asked only for the same consideration – the security of a pension – that was given to Huckvale upon his resignation from the company in 1946. The following week she wrote again, a brief note asking for a reply to her letter and confirming that she would comply with Macmillan’s request to resign as director of the company.99 Elliott was obliged to wait a full month for Macmillan’s reply. On 4 July 1947, after he returned from a holiday, he wrote to reiterate that Macmillan could not offer her a pension since she was not of pensionable age, and he expected to hear before a year had ‘elapsed that you have been able to find a suitable post.’100 The same day, however, in a private letter to John Gray, Macmillan wrote more frankly. He judged Elliott to be ‘a good deal upset, and [she] seems to have a very high opinion of her own qualifications and importance. Somewhat inconsistently, however, she does not think that she can get a post anywhere else.’101 Macmillan’s callous disregard for Elliott’s feelings stood in stark contrast to the generosity he had shown her in the past. Evidently, he had appreciated her work, but not her person. Moreover, his refusal to grant her a pension when he had willingly done so for Huckvale, who had shown less initiative as president than Elliott had shown as head of publishing, is evidence of the preferential treatment of men within the publishing industry of the day. That Ellen Elliott held a central place in Canadian publishing was confirmed in the press at the time of her resignation. William Arthur Deacon noted sadly on 28 June 1947: ‘The book publishing business in Canada forms a relatively small and exceptionally compact community within Toronto. No outstanding figure can leave it without being acutely missed … Miss Elliott’s many friends throughout Canada will be sorry to see the breaking of an old connection. Her departure also

Interregnum 1940–1946

147

removes from publishing one of the very few persons who have been intimately associated with the development of Canadian literature during the past quarter century.’102 Macmillan personnel expressed similar regret. At an in-house dinner on 27 June 1947, staff members ‘showered Elliott with gifts’103 of appreciation, including the desk, chair, and lamp she had used in her office. Two pieces of telling evidence confirm that Elliott’s departure from Macmillan was less than voluntary. First, Deacon’s farewell notice in the Globe and Mail announced that she had ‘no immediate plans’104 for the future. More significant, however, in a letter to John Gray thanking him for the ‘grand party’ given in her honour, Elliott wrote cryptically: ‘I hope what I said to the boys and girls has made them feel better about everything. That is what it was calculated to do. They are my friends, and no matter what I think about the manner of my going, I have no wish to unsettle them. I wish you the best of luck, and good health. Thank you for the more than lovely send-off you gave me. It was not easy for you.’105 At the moment of departing Macmillan, after nearly three decades, Elliott’s diplomacy was obvious. Unlike Huckvale (he, too, served Macmillan for twenty-seven years), who received an annual pension of $3,000, plus $10,000 compensation (equivalent to one year’s salary), Elliott had to be satisfied with compensation alone ($5,000, the equivalent of one year’s salary). Independent and highly intelligent, she had successfully managed Macmillan during especially difficult years, providing strong leadership in the face of diminished resources, economic volatility, and shifting national consciousness. Two years after resigning from Macmillan, Ellen Elliott began a triumphant second career as entrepreneur. Together with George McKanday, she established Mailit, an advertising, printing, and mailing company, located at 54 Wellington Street West in Toronto. Elliott brought the same enthusiasm and wide-ranging abilities to business that were in evidence while she was ‘the very capable Skipper’ of ‘the good ship Macmillans.’106 Ellen Elliott and George McKanday sold their company in October 1972. In retirement, Elliott looked forward to pursuing her twin hobbies of gardening and bird-watching. In late February 1973, Elliott and McKanday enjoyed a Caribbean cruise aboard the Queen Elizabeth II. On 22 March 1973, soon after their return to 68 Glencairn Avenue, the couple’s home in mid-town Toronto, Elliott died of a heart attack; she was seventy-two. That her obituary in the Toronto Star lauded her

148

The Macmillan Company of Canada

as a publishing executive and one-time director of Macmillan107 – it had been nearly thirty years since Elliott had left publishing – attests to the value she placed on her formative work as an editor and publisher, and the deep and abiding satisfaction she derived from her experience at the Macmillan Company of Canada. Ellen Elliott was an accomplished woman, not solely for her achievements as secretary and director of the Macmillan Company of Canada during the 1940s, but also for her resilience, both professional and personal. In 1947 the depth of Elliott’s contribution to Canadian letters was best articulated by William Arthur Deacon. Deacon, who had long been associated with both Hugh Eayrs and Ellen Elliott, noted that the core of Eayrs’s publishing policy had been ‘the building of his firm’s Canadian list that distinguished Macmillan’s operations. He died … before the wisdom of his policy had been proved commercially. Miss Elliott … has seen the returns of their joint labours.’108 Elliott laboured earnestly on behalf of Macmillan, free of guile or self-interest. Throughout her career she was invigorated by the challenge of building a trade list of Canadian books that upheld the ideals of artistic excellence and cultural nationalism she shared with her mentor, Hugh Eayrs. Despite many years of preparatory work, however, Elliott was denied a part in Macmillan’s post-war development. Instead, in an ironic reversal that would not have been lost on a woman of Ellen Elliott’s intelligence, the opportunity to lead Macmillan during a time of increased prosperity and cultural renewal was given to her long-time associate John Gray.

4 The Resplendent Reign 1946–1969: John Morgan Gray

John Morgan Gray: Premier Publisher Under John Gray’s long and careful stewardship – notwithstanding his less than honourable treatment of Ellen Elliott – the Macmillan Company of Canada flourished and became one of the foremost Canadian publishing companies of the twentieth century. Between 1946 and 1969 – in June 1946 Gray was appointed general manager and director of Macmillan and in 1955 he was made president – Gray ‘was willing to support … both morally and financially, authors who were eventually to play key roles in modern Canadian literature,’1 among them prominent novelists Ethel Wilson, Hugh MacLennan, Robertson Davies, W.O. Mitchell, Robert Kroetsch, and Adele Wiseman. Like Hugh Eayrs, Gray was a visionary who was deeply committed to fostering the literature of Canada. Temperamentally suited to the task of leader, he was, until his death in August 1978, one of Canada’s most revered publishers. John Morgan Gray was born on 12 June 1907 in Cornwall, Ontario, the second of three children – two sons and an adopted daughter, Joan – of Samuel Morgan Gray, a manufacturer of beds, and Helen Harris Putnam, daughter of a Baptist minister. A third son, Alan, born in 1911, died at the age of one. John Gray and his brother Bob were educated in England where their father served in the Canadian army during the First World War. In Canada, Gray attended Lakefield Preparatory School (known then as the Grove School, now as Lakefield College School), Upper Canada College, and the University of Toronto (where he did not complete his degree). Home life was ‘gay … but not especially intellectual.’2 As a youth, Gray was an avid reader of boys’ adventure stories. For one year, when he was twenty-two, Gray was junior schoolmas-

150

The Macmillan Company of Canada

ter at the Grove School. On 18 August 1930 he joined Macmillan as educational representative at a weekly salary of $35.00. In 1932 he was appointed manager of Macmillan’s education department. That same year, at Toronto’s Holy Trinity Church, Gray married Frances Antoinette Lalonde, a graduate in household science from the University of Toronto, described as a ‘gay, comely brunette who looks like Claudette Colbert’;3 the couple had one son, John Anthony Morgan (born 1937), who went on to become an award-winning journalist. In 2010, John Anthony Morgan Gray recalled his happy home life: ‘There was a parallel march of sensibilities among the three of us.’4 The family home at 60 Woodlawn Avenue West was located in mid-town Toronto; there Gray hosted annual Christmas parties for Macmillan authors. A cottage on Clear Lake in Ontario’s Kawartha Lakes district offered respite from the demands of Macmillan and city life. From 1941 to 1946 Gray served overseas in the Intelligence Corps of the First Canadian Army. He was a council member of the Canadian Historical Association and presided as president of the Canadian Club of Toronto, the Canadian Forces Intelligence Corps Association, the Champlain Society, and the Ontario Historical Society. In addition, he was a member of the board of governors of the Grove School and, from 1961 to 1970, a founding member of the board of governors of York University. The recipient of honorary degrees from Dalhousie University, Mount Allison University, Trent University, the University of Waterloo, and York University, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1975. In appearance and character, John Gray was the opposite of Hugh Eayrs. At the time of his appointment as general manager of Macmillan, Gray, at thirty-nine, was a ‘wide-mouthed … man with brown hair and a tanned skin that turns ruddy across his forehead in summer … [with] a poise and urbanity that bespeaks a successful blending of business executive and man of letters.’5 A 1947 profile of Gray favourably compared him to Humphrey Bogart in looks and speech: ‘The 175-pound, five-foot-eleven-inch publisher is handsome in a rugged sort of way. He has square-set shoulders, a square-shaped head … and eyes that have a perpetual boyish look about them. He has receding brown hair with a generous tuft curled at the front. His voice is deep, rasping and pleasant. He walks with the energetic lope of a rugby player. A handkerchief carefully pointed in his breast pocket, he favors crisp grey and brown serge suits.’6 The writer added that Gray’s ‘suave tact’ was akin to that of ‘a diplomat. Ordinarily bluff

The Resplendent Reign 1946–1969

151

and hearty, he must assume this pose to unruffle enraged readers and writers.’7 In several respects, however, Gray and Eayrs were similar. Both were bookmen and ‘natural publisher[s]’8 who took a nationalistic pride in Canada. They also shared an adventurous spirit and ‘boisterous sense of fun.’9 Gray’s ‘gift for caricature and for puncturing pomposity’ was balanced by his ‘executive abilities’ and a willingness to subordinate ‘his own ambition to the concerns of his writers.’10 A rare combination of intelligence, perspicacity, and humanity put him ‘among the leaders of postwar Canadian publishing.’11 Gray’s personal desire to be a writer – and his first-hand knowledge of the arduous work that is writing – may have resulted in the generous humility that characterized his relationships with authors. Gray always aspired to be a writer. During the summer of 1929, at the age of twentytwo, he was a junior reporter for the Toronto Telegram. With his colleague Frank A. Upjohn, he was co-editor of Prose of Our Day (Toronto: Macmillan, 1940); and author of A.W. Mackenzie, The Grove, Lakefield: A Memoir (Toronto: Grove Old Boys’ Association, 1938); The One-Eyed Trapper (Toronto: Macmillan, 1942), a book for children; Lord Selkirk of Red River (Toronto: Macmillan, 1963), awarded the Canadian Historical Association’s local history award and the University of British Columbia medal for popular biography; Fun Tomorrow: Learning to Be a Publisher and Much Else (Toronto: Macmillan, 1978), a memoir; and numerous articles on publishing. After the Second World War, Gray returned to publishing and the chance to head Macmillan at a time of new growth. Following a monthlong rest as a returned veteran, Gray was eager to get back to work. At Macmillan, he recalled ‘a welcome that was guarded from some, kindly from others.’12 President Robert Huckvale, for example, was ‘stiffly cordial.’13 Gladys Neale, who during the war had served as acting manager of the education department, was displaced by Gray but did not challenge his right to her position. Gray resumed his travels on behalf of Macmillan’s educational program and re-established former professional connections. Heartened by ‘the realization that I hadn’t forgotten all I knew, or been forgotten,’14 Gray discovered a new enthusiasm for his work. That he was ‘treated like a senior [bookman], almost like a man of some consequence,’15 reinforced his renewed sense of vocation. In June 1946 the news that Gray had been appointed general manager of Macmillan was hailed as a triumph by colleagues and celebrated in the press. Marsh Jeanneret of Copp Clark – Jeanneret himself was

152

The Macmillan Company of Canada

appointed director of the University of Toronto Press in 1953 – wrote to congratulate the first native-born Canadian to head the Toronto branch: ‘Frankly, John, this is the best thing that ever happened to the MacMillan’s [sic].’16 In Fun Tomorrow, Gray recalls Jeanneret’s pre-war confidence that his father F.C.A. Jeanneret, the eminent University of Toronto French professor and author, might be prepared to offer them financial backing to start their own publishing house. Although Gray and Jeanneret went on to become distinguished publishers, they succeeded in separate spheres. Macmillan colleague B.K. Sandwell believed ‘that before long the Macmillan Company of Canada will stand alone in prestige and power throughout the Dominion’ and expressed ‘fierce pride’ in being ‘a Macmillan man.’17 William Arthur Deacon, writing in the Globe and Mail, confirmed that Gray’s ‘immediate associates [are] pleased with his promotion’ and ‘the book world generally has been impressed both by his popularity and by his abilities.’18 At the time of his appointment, recalling his mentor Hugh Eayrs, Gray ‘aspire[d] to speak with the kind of authority that belonged to Mr Eayrs in discussing publishing matters and Canadian letters.’19 The Macmillan Triumvirate: London – Toronto – New York From his principals in London, John Gray inherited a view of ‘the publishing house as a literary gathering place.’20 His well-appointed office at 70 Bond Street was a ‘red-panelled, thick-carpeted room.’21 At a ‘glasstopped oaken desk,’22 with pipe or cigarette in hand and surrounded by photographs of well-known authors, Gray handled correspondence, studied manuscripts, and interviewed writers. His full day began soon after 8:00 am, following a cold shower, time spent reading twenty-five pages of a book, and a breakfast of orange juice, porridge, and coffee. Each evening, when he left the office at 6:30 pm in his grey 1940 Chevrolet, he invariably took home several manuscripts and often read until midnight.23 In announcing Gray’s appointment, William Arthur Deacon took the opportunity to wish his new colleague well ‘at an auspicious period, when demand for books exceeds the quantities that can be produced.’24 As Lovat Dickson explained in a profile of John Gray, ‘This was a propitious time to take charge of a Canadian publishing company. The long servitude of the industry to its British and American overlords, which had made many publishers no more than importing agencies, was about to be transformed. Given full power and resources, limited only by Brit-

The Resplendent Reign 1946–1969

153

ish Exchange Control restrictions, Gray was provided with an opportunity to become not only a leader but … a spokesman for the trade.’25 In spite of Dickson’s large claim, resources remained limited – out of financial necessity, publishers continued as agents for British and American houses. In a 1947 Maclean’s article, Gray lamented that so much of Canadian publishing still involved the ‘selling or jobbing of British or American books instead of helping a little to create our own.’26 But Canadian publishers did prosper in the immediate post-war years, as they had earlier in the century. The years 1945 and 1946 saw an impressive rise in production of indigenous titles,27 and a maturing nationalism fed a growing awareness of and desire for Canadian art and culture. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Radio-Canada, which developed during the 1940s and 1950s, for example, featured writing by Canadians. Program organizer Robert Weaver joined the CBC in 1948 and began immediately to solicit work by Canadians, which aired regularly on programs such as Canadian Short Stories (1946–54), CBC Wednesday Night (1947–63), Critically Speaking (1948–67), Anthology (1954–85), and Stories with John Drainie (1959–65).28 As a result of Lovat Dickson’s successful visit to Toronto in April 1946 and his positive assessment of the Canadian branch, Gray enjoyed the support of his principals in London. On 6 June 1946, the new general manager of the Canadian branch, whose annual salary was $6,000, wrote appreciatively to Daniel Macmillan: ‘I should like to say how grateful I am for the confidence which this appointment implies, and you may be sure that I shall do everything in my power to be worthy of it.’29 Later, as we have seen, Gray helped orchestrate Ellen Elliott’s departure from Macmillan in a scheme that was sanctioned by Daniel Macmillan and further cleared the way for his own rise in the company. From the start, Gray was monitored carefully by his colleagues in London who ‘intend[ed] to keep in much closer touch than heretofore with the day-to-day management of the [Canadian] Company’ and made him ‘directly responsible’30 to the British directors. Troubled by the weak financial profile of the Macmillan Company of Canada – in September 1947 Gray conceded that the company’s ‘cash position has been difficult for several months past,’ and much later admitted that the Toronto branch had been on ‘the brink of bankruptcy’31 – Macmillan and Company reacted by calling for regular reports on the Toronto branch, periodically reviewing its accounting statements, and tightening the reins on all publishing activities, particularly trade publishing and book commissioning.

154

The Macmillan Company of Canada

During the late 1940s, local publishers faced a significant increase in the cost of materials, production, and labour and many issued fewer Canadian books as one means of minimizing fiscal loss. This was not surprising, since publishers often had lost money on the weak sales of Canadian titles. Moreover, Canadian books could not compete with popular, inexpensive paperbacks or the luxury items that had become available to consumers after the war.32 Nonetheless, Gray was committed to Canadian publishing, even in the straitened economy of 1947, and he regarded his ‘shortened list’ as temporary: ‘We must publish such work when offered to us. Our present reputation among Canadian writers is an asset which we have bought, and paid highly for, in the past ten years, and one which will repay that expenditure handsomely.’33 Gray’s ability to foresee the potential for Macmillan’s further development as a significant Canadian publisher reflected his executive skill and publishing acuity, especially evident in challenging circumstances. Within three years of his appointment, having overcome ‘growing pains that were nearly mortal,’34 Gray had shown himself eminently suited to the position of general manager. He had earned the respect of his staff, had renewed a number of educational texts that had been outdated, and had drastically reduced trade publishing. Responsible and resourceful, he also succeeded in assuaging London’s concerns. As Daniel Macmillan affirmed in a letter of 3 June 1949, ‘A definite turning-point has now arrived in the fortunes of the Canadian Company … you have done splendid work in pulling it together … Most of the dead wood has been cut out, and … you are carrying on on exactly the right lines.’35 A diplomatic and skilled administrator, Gray understood the importance of earning the confidence of his superiors. In the post-war years, he mustered his drive and intellect to stabilize and reinvigorate the Toronto branch. He also heeded the counsel of experienced bookmen, and throughout his career was guided by the sage ‘maxim’ of George Brett Sr, often cited by Daniel Macmillan, ‘that no book is ever perfectly published, that one or other of the elements required for good publication was missing: the right timing, the appropriate production, the right price and the right promotion.’36 Gray never lost sight of the value of maintaining the trust of his principals in London. He felt indebted to the Macmillans for his stimulating and rewarding career in publishing and was often deferential in his gratitude. It was his ‘good fortune,’ Gray believed, ‘to be in a very fascinating business, working for people I can like as much as I respect them.’37 Late in his career, for instance, when he was called upon to entertain

Fig. 1 Frank Wise

Fig. 2 Macmillan’s premises at 70 Bond Street, Toronto

Fig. 3 Hugh Smithurst Eayrs

Fig. 4 A Book of Grey Owl, front cover

Fig. 5 1929 Catalogue, front cover

Fig. 6 Robert Huckvale

Fig. 7 Ellen Elliott

Fig. 8 John Morgan Gray

Fig. 9 Kildare Dobbs

Fig. 10 Gladys Neale

Fig. 11 Great Stories of Canada series, a display mounted by Macmillan during Young Canada’s Book Week, November 1960

Fig. 12 Advertisement for Governor General’s Literary Award winners, Robert Kroetsch and Gwendolyn MacEwen, April 1970

Fig. 13 Invitation to launch of Robertson Davies’s novel, Fifth Business, 29 October 1970

Fig. 14 Hugh Pyper Kane

Fig. 15 Alligator Pie, front cover

Fig. 16 Douglas Maitland Gibson

The Resplendent Reign 1946–1969

155

Harold Macmillan in Toronto, Gray hosted a dinner at the King Edward Hotel. He presided over the elaborate affair, and introduced his principal with effusiveness and at such length that one of the guests, a frustrated newspaper reporter, finally burst out, ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, man, get on with it!’38 At the time he felt the sting of public humiliation, but Gray was not deterred from conveying his appreciation to members of Macmillan and Company for their continual support. By 1950 Gray’s confidence as head of Macmillan had increased considerably. Through strategic educational and trade publishing, which included select fiction by Mazo de la Roche, Ethel Wilson, Morley Callaghan, Hugh MacLennan, and W.O. Mitchell, he had managed to return Macmillan to financial health and had won a respected place among Canadian bookmen. In November 1950 the Macmillan Company of Canada bought the land adjacent to 70 Bond Street, the $50,000 purchase price signifying the firm’s commitment to future growth. The following year saw the introduction of a company-sponsored pension plan for employees. Emboldened by success, Gray felt the time had come to raise a key matter with Daniel Macmillan: the possibility of renewed commitment to Canadian trade publishing. In correspondence with Macmillan, Gray offered two reasons for the need to rebuild his Canadian trade list. First, Canadian publishing engendered ‘prestige … which serves all sides of the business’; and second, sales of Canadian books made a ‘disproportionately large contribution to volume.’39 Gray’s belief that Macmillan accrued ‘prestige’ through its publication of Canadian trade titles is in keeping with Pierre Bourdieu’s positioning of the publisher as cultural consecrator of literary works. In the cultural milieu of post-war Canada, an extension of the lean years, ‘economically and creatively, that had begun with the Depression and continued throughout the Second World War,’40 and a time of relative quiet and retrenchment for book publishers, Gray apprehended the symbiotic relationship between publishing and cultural development. Without his intervention as publisher, Gray understood that Canadian literary culture would lie fallow. Through a program of original trade publishing, echoing Hugh Eayrs’s publishing initiative of the 1920s, he envisaged an opportunity to revitalize Canadian literary production and foster a literary aesthetic for the nation. In return, a commitment to national culture would serve to enhance Macmillan’s status as a Canadian enterprise – despite foreign ownership – and extend its reputation as a publisher of seminal Canadian works. In his letter to Macmillan, Gray argued the case for Canadian pub-

156

The Macmillan Company of Canada

lishing. A diminished Canadian trade list in 1949, for example, generated $40,000 less in sales than the previous year. Booksellers and readers were clamouring for quality Canadian books, which did not require much advertising. Gray was careful to add that sales of Canadian titles enlarged Macmillan’s total market for its books. While he proposed to proceed with caution – Gray recognized the need to attract strong Canadian authors and avoid publication of unprofitable titles – he closed by asking for ‘control of our Canadian publishing.’41 Gray’s timing was impeccable. Macmillan conceded by giving Gray permission to resume trade publishing. Although he would proceed ‘more liberally than before,’42 Macmillan asked that most manuscripts continue to be forwarded to London for evaluation. Always cognizant of the need to tread carefully when it came to Canadian publishing, Gray countered with his usual foresight and diplomacy. He hoped for latitude when it came to assessing a work ‘of only second-rate literary merit, but perhaps of first-rate Canadian importance … I think it is easier for us – and proper for us – to make allowance for a certain lag in literary development which is still the condition here.’43 In spite of Macmillan’s hesitancy, Gray felt it ‘proper’ to press his nationalist agenda, signalling the strength of his commitment to the cultural development of Canada and a desire to use his position to advance indigenous literature. Two years later, when conditions had improved to make it easier ‘to publish sound Canadian books … than any time in the 1930s and perhaps even than the 1920s,’ Daniel Macmillan took note of Gray’s achievement: ‘I have not said before, how delighted I am that the business side of the Canadian Company is becoming more and more a Canadian business and not merely an agency for the sale of imported books. I am sure … there will be more and more scope for purely Canadian publishing, and we want to do everything possible to promote this object.’44 A combination of past compliance, deft reasoning, and finesse on Gray’s part, in tandem with fortuitous advances in the national climate for publishing, had worked to convince Macmillan and Company to loosen its grip on its Canadian offspring. Gray’s campaign on behalf of Canadian literature was given a boost by the 1949 Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences, known at the time as the Massey Commission. Commissioned by Prime Minister Louis St Laurent and co-chaired by Vincent Massey and Henri Lévesque, the Royal Commission held hearings in sixteen cities, heard presentations from approximately 450 individuals, and received approximately 400 briefs. Its mandate to

The Resplendent Reign 1946–1969

157

investigate the creative and intellectual health of the nation uncovered many ills. The Commission’s Report, issued on 1 June 1951, lamented the lack of a vital and authentic national culture, including a body of Canadian literature, and made several recommendations meant to foster cultural expression. In addition to the formation of a federal arts council to provide funding for the arts in Canada, the Commission recommended strengthening the National Archives and the National Film Board, the construction of a new National Gallery, and the immediate establishment of a national library. In addition, it proposed new federal legislation to oversee radio and television, in particular the relationship between the CBC and private broadcasters, and federal funding for humanities and social science research in universities.45 In his own presentation to the Massey Commission, Gray offered several informed suggestions, which stressed the importance of books to the educational and cultural lives of Canadians and the need for government assistance to improve the state of book publishing in Canada. He called for the removal of a sales tax on books; a reduction in the shipping rate for bound books; the addition of monetary values to national literary awards; the restricted importation of foreign Book Club titles; the establishment of a national library; the regular publication of bibliographical notices and their dissemination to Canadian and American libraries; and the promotion of Canadian books by the country’s ambassadors and trade commissioners. Gray’s efforts to advance Canadian writing were buoyed by the growing institutional and government support for the arts which resulted from the Massey Commission and which he witnessed from his vantage point as publisher during the 1950s. Following the establishment of the Canada Council for the Arts in 1957, for example, Gray would urge Macmillan authors to apply for funding in support of their work. He respected the mandate of the Canada Council and was gratified by the burgeoning federal endorsement of Canadian art and artists, which echoed his personal view of the professional writer deserving of societal support. In ways both innovative and traditional, Gray sought to promote the Macmillan Company of Canada. In 1954 he became inaugural president of the Co-Operative Book Centre of Canada, a publisher-owned library wholesaler designed to consolidate accounts and expedite delivery of Canadian books to libraries. Libraries, book retailers, and department stores often were frustrated with the slow service of Canadian agents and the price of imported books. Gray hoped to discourage libraries

158

The Macmillan Company of Canada

from ‘buying around,’ the long-standing practice of purchasing books from American and British wholesalers instead of Canadian agents. In a heated letter to Francis Hardy of the Library of Parliament, for instance, Gray condemned the government’s complicity in ‘buying around’: ‘Foolishly I had taken it for granted that you would be the last people not to give a substantial measure of support to Canadian publishers.’46 When Hardy agreed to order books from the Co-Operative Book Centre, Gray answered by affirming the value of agency representation to Canadian publishers: if ‘support were withdrawn, by all libraries buying their books from abroad, Canadian publishing would practically come to a stop.’47 Further, when he was dissatisfied with the coverage given Macmillan books in the Globe and Mail, Gray did not hesitate to raise his concerns with William Arthur Deacon. When Deacon explained that he was pressed for space and always did his ‘damnedest to be fair, impartial and intelligent in my treatment’ of Macmillan titles, Gray conceded that the literary editor had ‘a very tough job’ indeed and to satisfy all publishers would mean ‘the end of the world is close.’48 Nonetheless, he continued to monitor the press for articles on Macmillan and reviews of its books, and over the years never lost an opportunity to boost the company and its publications. The personal rapport between Daniel Macmillan and John Gray deepened over time, and Macmillan’s generosity was often extended in appreciation of Gray’s efforts on behalf of the Canadian company. In 1950 Gray was permitted to buy a company car and the Macmillan Company of Canada covered half the purchase price of the vehicle. Two years later, in recognition of his achievement as publisher, Gray’s salary was raised to $15,000. He continued to receive regular increases in salary, along with bonuses for excellent work. When Gray and his wife were invited to London in 1953 for Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, they enjoyed the view from 90 Piccadilly Circus in a Macmillan flat that overlooked the route of the coronation procession. By the early 1960s, Gray was a veteran publisher of fifteen years and he and his London colleagues shared a fast mutual bond. In 1960 a twostorey warehouse of 32,000 square feet, designed by the Toronto architectural firm of Agnew and Ludlow, was built to adjoin 70 Bond Street. The new warehouse was officially opened in the spring by Maurice Macmillan, whose parent company lent the Canadian branch $300,000 to finance the addition. Over the next two years Macmillan purchased 8,000 square feet of property on nearby Victoria Street, which included

The Resplendent Reign 1946–1969

159

a small building and a parking lot, for $185,000. In the summer of 1961 Gray was granted an extended ten-week leave to work on his awardwinning biography of Lord Selkirk, a project endorsed by Daniel Macmillan. London director Lovat Dickson, whose admiration for Gray was an extension of his friendship with Hugh Eayrs, counted the Macmillan Company of Canada ‘a paragon amongst our Associate Companies, and full weight is indeed given and even more to the success resulting from your operations!’49 Dickson’s encomium was corroborated by several rival publishers recently returned to London from a trip to Canada, each of whom ‘gratuitously’ went ‘out of his way to comment on the excellence of your company.’50 A similar understanding was lacking, however, between John Gray and George Brett Jr, his principal in New York. Gray admired Brett for his publishing expertise, but the two men differed temperamentally. George Jr was his father’s son: an aggressive publisher with a sharp mind who attended to all aspects of the business. He had joined the company in 1913 and learned the publisher’s trade from the ground up, serving successively as salesman, sales manager, treasurer, and general manager. As John Tebbel comments, ‘The Bretts tended to be cut more or less from the same cloth. George Edward and his son George Platt were strong men, opinionated, more than a little tyrannical, and they dominated the house [of Macmillan]. The familiar Brett portrait had softened around the edges by the time George Brett, Jr, came to power. He was firm and decisive, like the others, but not so convinced that no other opinions were worth considering, as his iron-willed father had been. The father had run a one-man show; George, Jr, knew better how to spread responsibility and to work with the able department heads he employed.’51 George Jr became president of the New York company in 1931. His association with Hugh Eayrs was more amicable than his relationship with John Gray, due to latterly shifting alliances among the triad of Macmillan companies. By 1946, after many years of having supported the Canadian branch – administratively, financially, and materially through the provision of books – the Macmillan Company of New York was disappointed in the weak return on its sustained investment in the Macmillan Company of Canada. Early in Gray’s tenure as general manager, Brett sought to clarify the terms of the publishing arrangement between New York and Toronto. On 29 January 1947 he asserted ‘that we offer you all of our books first and you offer us all of your books first … If we tell you that we don’t want one of your books, it will only be because of the market, and …

160

The Macmillan Company of Canada

you will have to be satisfied not to have the book exploited here by any publisher.’52 Unperturbed by Brett’s magisterial tone, Gray’s response was at once frank and tactful. He could not agree to Brett’s terms – ‘that would be a grave mistake’53 – since he felt an obligation to place his authors’ books, whenever possible, with an American publisher. Gray’s firm stand, which showed confidence and reason, stood him in good stead throughout subsequent negotiations with Brett, who responded favourably to direct ‘attack’ over a ‘circuitous approach.’54 When he backed down on this initial attempt to limit Gray’s autonomy, for example, Brett admitted that he would likely ‘be placing orders with you for virtually everything, so that it will be possible to say that … each of the [Macmillan] affiliated companies distributes the books of the other affiliated companies.’55 In 1948 Brett visited Toronto to meet with Gray and his staff and to review the progress of the Canadian branch. In fact, Brett thought well of Gray – he ‘is a little young, a little impressionable, but he doesn’t go off the deep end often’56 – admired his professional demeanour and business acumen, and sought to maintain their congenial alliance. Soon, however, the splintering relationship between Macmillan and Company in London and the Macmillan Company of New York would have a profound impact on the Macmillan Company of Canada. By 1950, ‘with sales of $13.2 million,’ the Macmillan Company of New York had grown in size and strength to surpass the parent company in London, ‘whose turnover for the same period was £1.89 million.’57 Anxious to strike out as a fully autonomous publishing house, New York sought a legal separation from London. In January 1951, after protracted discussion, their long association ceased when Macmillan and Company, ‘spurred on by the threat of changes in UK law relating to capital gains tax,’ reluctantly ‘surrender[ed] its majority shareholding’ in the Macmillan Company of New York and the following year established St Martin’s Press in New York, with Gray serving as conduit between London and the newly formed company.58 To further complicate matters, the newly independent Macmillan Company of New York retained a 25 per cent shareholding in the Macmillan Company of Canada, and Brett remained a director of the Toronto branch. For a time relations between New York and Toronto were calm. Brett was preoccupied with the demands of his vast company and Gray was immersed in the invigorating work of strengthening the Canadian operation. Their correspondence was regular and cordial, and Brett was pleased with the ongoing efforts of Gray and his associates to consoli-

The Resplendent Reign 1946–1969

161

date the Canadian business. In 1954, however, when Brett took stock of his connection with Toronto, he was ‘appalled’59 at what he perceived as disadvantages on two key fronts. First, he was supplying the Canadian branch with advertising material ‘far below cost.’60 Second, he was selling books to the branch at too great a discount. A visit to Toronto in the summer of 1954 by Bruce Y. Brett, the son of George Brett Jr who had joined his father’s company in 1949, clarified several matters, in particular the procedures for ordering presentation copies and returning books to New York. The more fundamental issue of agency representation, however, remained unresolved and Brett used the power of indecision as leverage in extended negotiations with London and Toronto. George Brett understood the value his agency held for Daniel Macmillan and John Gray, both of whom profited by Canadian representation of Macmillan New York titles. Neither London nor Toronto relished the idea of losing one of their more lucrative agency agreements, especially that of Macmillan New York, a company that shared both their name and their history. As Gray candidly admitted, ‘We should greatly regret the loss of the line and the separation of the houses. We would get other good lines … But I think both of us stand to lose more than we gain.’61 Brett’s final proposal of 1955 – ownership and control of the Macmillan Company of Canada to be shared equally by New York and London – infuriated Daniel Macmillan. After prolonged overseas negotiations and a visit by Harold Macmillan to New York, the two parties had arrived at an impasse. Macmillan and Company could see no other solution than Toronto’s relinquishing of the New York agency, precisely the result Brett had been seeking. Hence, on 31 March 1956, the agency agreement between the Macmillan Company of Canada and the Macmillan Company of New York came to an end, a severing akin to ‘the loss of a parent.’62 Several months later, on 15 November 1956, Macmillan and Company of London purchased New York’s remaining fifty shares in the Canadian branch, bringing to a close an historic, fifty-year alliance between the three houses of Macmillan. Quill and Quire reported Bruce Brett’s position that ‘no unhappiness on our part’ was the cause of the separation. ‘We have always been extremely pleased with the way they [i.e., the Macmillan Company of Canada] represented us, and with the results they achieved.’63 Gray knew, however, that New York was not satisfied with Toronto’s representation of its educational books, which had been losing ground in Canada. He expressed open regret that the ‘interests of the American

162

The Macmillan Company of Canada

and the English companies have diverged over a period of years, but we had hoped that they would be able to live together here. It hasn’t worked out, and perhaps it was too much to hope that it would.’64 When Brett delivered a final blow by assigning the agency for the Macmillan Company of New York to the rival Toronto firm of McClelland and Stewart, both Daniel Macmillan and John Gray were peeved. Privately, however, Gray grieved ‘the break-up of a fine world-wide publishing effort that had become a kind of legend, even I think a kind of hall-mark,’65 and his former connection with George Brett Jr endured in his mind. In early 1959, when he learned that Brett had stepped down as president of Macmillan New York, he wrote a personal note to say ‘I cannot imagine that … you are really going to go slowly or take much time off, but I hope you thoroughly enjoy whatever measure of retirement you allow yourself … Although difficulties developed in our personal relationship, I have not forgotten that I learned a great deal from you and had much to thank you for.’66 Ever gracious, Gray could put aside all enmity and recall the lasting pleasures of his professional relationship with Brett. Behind the Publisher’s Arras: Editor and Reader Like his predecessors Frank Wise and Hugh Eayrs, whose successes were tied closely to the editorial proficiency of John Cameron Saul and Ellen Elliott respectively, John Gray’s work as publisher was supported by a strong cadre of editors and readers. A grasp of the Macmillan Company of Canada’s editorial practices is central to a study of this kind, which seeks to unveil the cultural influence wielded by the firm under its successive presidents. Regrettably, relatively few readers’ reports and even fewer manuscripts, primary sources for the scholarly investigation of editorial work, remain in the vast Macmillan archive held at McMaster University. It is possible, however, to extrapolate from an extant cache of reports an understanding of the groundwork of one male editor and two female readers undertaken under the watchful eye of John Gray. In 1930 publishing historian Frank Mumby claimed that publishers’ readers had ‘no power and no responsibility, in law. Yet their moral force can be great, and their responsibility can extend beyond the confines of the House they advise to the career of some famous author which they helped to mould.’67 Over the course of the twentieth century little changed. Publishers’ readers were elusive, anonymous figures and scant information was available about their editorial practices. More-

The Resplendent Reign 1946–1969

163

over, details secreted in publishers’ archives pertaining to their professional or personal lives are ‘dispersed and fascinatingly sketchy.’68 As Linda Marie Fritschner attests in her trenchant article of 1980 – it remains a seminal and penetrating analysis of a complex, culturally significant role – publishers’ readers lack a definite profile for two key reasons: first, the majority have laboured alone and ‘invisibly behind … [an] employer’s arras as the author’s unknown, unsuspected enemy,’ and second, the criteria of manuscript assessment, by which publishers’ readers indirectly characterize themselves and the companies they serve, have been nothing short of ‘nebulous.’69 Nonetheless, because they advise ‘on the acceptance, rejection, and revision of manuscripts,’ publishers’ readers have had ‘substantial power in shaping [editorial] policy within a publishing firm.’70 Further, by implicitly and explicitly endorsing specific aesthetic values and literary genres, they also have assisted in consolidating a firm’s house identity. Fritschner identifies the primary functions of all publishers’ readers: to ‘evaluate solicited and unsolicited manuscripts,’ to advise an ‘employer on the acceptance and rejection of manuscripts,’ and ‘to procure manuscripts and authors for the company.’71 Freelance readers, whose work often fluctuated according to the need or whim of publishers, received less pay than their in-house counterparts who earned annual salaries. Regardless of compensation, the responsibilities of all readers remained consistent. There was, however, a hierarchy linked insidiously to an individual’s gender and cultural and class position rather than remuneration that served to differentiate among publishers’ readers. Fritschner makes the categorical distinction between ‘hack’ readers and ‘influential’ readers. Historically, the hack reader was generally female. She was mindful of a work’s potential audience, probable profit, and rarely met the authors whose manuscripts she evaluated. Since the publisher was the intermediary between author and reader, the hack reader was ‘the publisher’s advocate not the author’s sponsor.’72 In stark contrast, the influential reader was male. He regarded literature as art rather than commerce, enjoyed ‘direct contact’73 with authors, and served as conduit between the author and publisher. In fact, Fritschner identifies the ‘prestigeful’ reader as ‘more an “author’s reader” than a publisher’s reader.’74 Kildare Dobbs, who joined Macmillan in the spring of 1953 as an ‘influential’ and ‘prestigeful’ reader, was among Canada’s first professional editors. In the view of Robert L. Patten and David Finkelstein, mid-twentieth-century editors were responsible for linking ‘the aes-

164

The Macmillan Company of Canada

thetics, commercial transactions, and contents’ of publications ‘to their conceptualization of their readers.’75 Roland Mansbridge of Cambridge University Press corroborates this view of the editor’s importance: ‘If the director is the head, the heart of the business is made up of its editors; and I am thinking of the heart here not as the symbol of sentiment and emotion (though these have their place in the scheme of things) but as the organ that keeps the life-blood flowing, that is the very engine of publishing … good publishing demands good editors.’76 In English Canada, the professionalization of editing – work previously undervalued since it was largely the purview of women – began in earnest in the 1950s. The hiring of Dobbs, whose upbringing was Indo-British and whose educational background included a master’s degree in English from Cambridge University, reflected John Gray’s perception that the editor would enhance and broaden Macmillan’s cultural reach while expanding its list of literary titles. Encouraged to develop his ‘own interests and abilities,’77 Dobbs’s editorial agency grew in equal measure to his contribution – through successful acquisitions – to Macmillan’s house identity as a publisher of consequence. By mid-century, when Dobbs left teaching to join Macmillan, house identity had stabilized considerably. Macmillan had ceased to function as a fledgling offshoot of its British parent; rather, the firm was recognized as a distinguished Canadian publisher whose imprint conferred status and authority on an author and his or her work. Between 1921 and 1953, with the exception of the war years when all publishing activity was severely curtailed, Macmillan had helped establish a literary culture for Canada through a vigorously diverse publishing program that included works of fiction, poetry, and drama, folklore, history, and literary criticism that was supported, in large part, by profits from the sale of educational texts. By the 1950s the Macmillan imprint in Canada – as it had been for years in Britain and the United States – was associated with handsome, serious books of lasting cultural value. Dobbs’s experience of Macmillan under the mindful management of John Gray – he soon came to appreciate Gray’s easy manner, ‘wicked sense of humour,’78 and nationalistic support of Canada’s literature – would prove to be rewarding, although more circumscribed than John Cameron Saul’s freedom under the shrewd Wise. Dobbs was editor from 1953 to 1962, a period of significant growth and heightened professionalism for Macmillan. As senior acquisitions editor, Dobbs was instrumental in securing important literary titles for the company. He discovered Adele Wiseman, for example, whose award-winning first

The Resplendent Reign 1946–1969

165

novel, The Sacrifice, was published by Macmillan in 1956. A sophisticated and knowledgeable bookman, Dobbs helped strengthen Macmillan’s reputation as a publisher of modern Canadian literature. Gray relied on his editorial judgment and when Dobbs left publishing for a career in journalism, Gray regretted the loss of an accomplished editor who attended to the financial viability of his trade list as much as Macmillan’s commitment to producing works of cultural significance. Like Saul, his colourful predecessor whose early editorial influence bore profoundly on Macmillan’s emerging house identity, Dobbs was instrumental in reinforcing Macmillan’s standing as one of the most important Canadian publishing companies of the twentieth century. The urbane, cosmopolitan, and well travelled Kildare Robert Eric Dobbs was born in Merrut, India, in 1923, and educated at Baymount Preparatory School and St Columba’s College, Dublin, Ireland, and Jesus College, Cambridge University. He served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War. After the war, Dobbs took a teaching diploma at the University of London; in 1948 he travelled to Tanganyika where he worked as an education officer and magistrate. He immigrated to Canada in 1952 and taught high school for one year in Florence, Ontario. Dobbs was more interested in publishing, however, and submitted applications to several publishing houses based in Toronto. His application to the Macmillan Company of Canada was noticed by John Gray, who asked Dobbs to conduct some research on Lord Selkirk, the subject of Gray’s 1963 biography. Dobbs made such a strong impression that Gray offered him a position with Macmillan at a starting salary of $2,500, a little more than he had been earning as a teacher. At the outset Dobbs assisted with book production and trade department matters. When western representative W.J. (Bill) Duthie left Macmillan to establish a bookstore on Vancouver’s Robson Street, he took over as salesman.79 Dobbs followed Saul and Elliott by twice travelling west, in 1957 and 1959, to promote Macmillan’s books. In his memoir, Running the Rapids: A Writer’s Life, Dobbs recalls visiting Fort William, Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Medicine Hat, High River, Lethbridge, Calgary, Edmonton, and Vancouver in an effort to sell Macmillan books. Despite his frustration with local booksellers, particularly those who ‘neither know nor love’80 books, he happily traversed Canada by train and enjoyed the singular pleasures available to the travelling bookman: I loved the trains, the private roomette, the dining-car with dazzling white linen and gleaming silverware and glass, the observation-car from

166

The Macmillan Company of Canada

which you could view the majestic country as it wheeled by, the drawingroom car where you sat in an easy chair that swivelled to face anyone you wanted to face as you sipped your whiskey … I liked the railway hotels, the great commercial castles that arose in the wilderness before other public buildings in their cities and towns. The age of steam was romantic, and the great chateaux of the CPR and CNR sprouted towers, gables and spires. Oh the joys of room service! The table rolled into the room laden with dishes under covers – the only snag being the business with [book] buyers that came with it. My [sales] reports were mostly complaints about these social ordeals, which scandalized the salespeople at Macmillan.81

Dobbs’s ironic reference to his reports belies his success as a sales representative for Macmillan; it also conveys a preference for editorial work, to which he was eminently suited. Dobbs became ‘senior editor with a voice in acquisitions,’82 but he was not hired into that position. In fact, when he first arrived at Macmillan, Dobbs laboured under John Gray’s ‘suspicion that an editor was an unjustified luxury in a business focussed on marketing and sales.’83 Dobbs was placed in charge of several trade accounts and was required to deliver orders to local bookstores, such as Britnell’s and Tyrrell’s located on Yonge Street, a short distance from Macmillan’s Bond Street offices. Eventually, he could devote his professional energies to evaluating manuscripts and editing literary works, his areas of primary interest and expertise. As senior acquisitions editor, Dobbs read and assessed countless manuscripts. Taken together, his reader’s reports affirm his status at Macmillan as an ‘influential’ reader, to use Fritschner’s term, show his appreciation for poetry and fiction, and convey the literary standards that informed his appraisal of manuscripts. Dobbs’s editorial judgments regularly superceded the views of other assessors. Moreover, John Gray’s overriding trust in Dobbs’s analytical intelligence reflected a general cultural valuing of Dobbs’s privileged education and derived in large part from a shared set of literary assumptions. Those assumptions shaped Dobbs’s deep interest in poetry and fiction. It was his editorial responsibility to identify influential writing – works of cultural relevance that probed universal and timeless themes, whose characters were psychologically believable and engaged in profound moral struggles, and whose style was elegant and refined. His piquant vibrancy was most evident in extreme cases – when he either

The Resplendent Reign 1946–1969

167

relished or abhorred a work under consideration. In the former instance, a writer could bask in Dobbs’s unstinting admiration and support. In the latter case, however, an aspiring author would be spared Dobbs’s caustic reader’s report – his reports remained confidential – and would receive Macmillan’s customary rejection letter. Dobbs’s reports showed his own mastery of style, revealed a spirited intelligence and an incisive irony. He dismissed poetry that sounded, for example, ‘more like what [George Bernard] Shaw derided as the modest cough of the minor poet than it does like the genuine humility of genius.’84 The verse of Al Purdy was ‘a queer amalgam of surrealism and nineteen-thirtyish Audenesque “social” rhetoric,’ and Irving Layton – ‘more remarkable for energy than intelligence’– would be ‘exhausting’85 to have on Macmillan’s list. For Dobbs, the publishable poet understood ‘that poetry isn’t all lullaby … that in fact good poetry keeps one awake’ and attends to both sound and meaning to achieve a ‘total effect’86 founded on stylistic grace and emotional resonance. The fiction writer must have ‘intuition and moral taste,’ avoid cliché, melodrama, and especially ‘the curliness of a Victorian bandstand.’87 A strong novel was carefully structured, appropriately paced, and ‘told with skill and perception’ if not ‘flourish or wit.’88 When these qualities were lacking in fiction, Dobbs asserted he ‘would rather embalm a corpse’89 than undertake revision. Dobbs admitted that he was contented at Macmillan, ‘happy doing work I enjoyed, with people I respected.’90 It was at Macmillan that he developed a philosophy of editing that informed his work with authors and their manuscripts. Dobbs ‘disliked the idea of the Great Editor, the hotshot who schools writers in their craft. Worse is the one who tries to make an author write exactly the book the editor envisions, or to obtrude an ideology. Which is not to say that writers should not be challenged to defend their vision or expression. The editor’s function is to help the author deliver the author’s book – the way he/she imagines it. The function is obstetrical. The editor is a judicious friend, who offers support, encouragement, and advice. He represents the author to the publisher and the publisher to the author, knows what is valuable in his author, and is able to sell his book to the sales force.’91 Archival evidence corroborates Dobbs’s view of himself as an ‘obstetrical’ influence, a counsel and guide to writers whose work he helped usher into print. Dobbs’s own desire to be a writer – he later devoted himself to writing full-time – likely shaped his view of the editor as responsible primarily for eliciting an author’s best work.

168

The Macmillan Company of Canada

During his years at Macmillan, Dobbs worked closely with a number of writers whose work benefited from his editorial expertise: poets James Reaney (A Suit of Nettles, 1958) and Robert Finch (Dover Beach Revisited and Other Poems, 1961), and fiction writers Charles Israel (How Many Angels, 1956; The Mark, 1958; and Rizpah, 1961), Sinclair Ross (The Well, 1958), and Morley Callaghan (Morley Callaghan’s Stories, 1959; The Many Coloured Coat, 1960; and A Passion in Rome, 1961). His extant correspondence with these and other authors published by Macmillan conveys a profound appreciation for the serious writer who was committed to his or her unique vision. One writer Dobbs discovered was Adele Wiseman. Dobbs met Wiseman in July 1955 at a landmark conference, ‘The Writer, His Media, and the Public,’ held at Queen’s University in Kingston. At the conference, after skimming the typescript of Wiseman’s first novel, Dobbs immediately offered to publish her fiction. The next year, Macmillan issued Wiseman’s The Sacrifice, which received international praise and garnered several awards, including the Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction. Another prescient move of 1956 was Macmillan’s decision to issue the proceedings of the conference where Dobbs first encountered Wiseman. Under the editorship of George Whalley, it appeared as Writing in Canada: Proceedings of the Canadian Writers’ Conference, Queen’s University, 28–31 July, 1955. Dobbs was among Wiseman’s finest readers. His powerful assessment of The Sacrifice was written in characteristic style: Here is a big, solid, serious novel which seems to me superbly done and profoundly moving. … Its richness and complexity defy reduction to a mere summary of outstanding events. If it is slow in starting it is all firmly realised and the characterization is flawless. Nothing is contrived, nothing evaded, but its seriousness doesn’t at all preclude humour and (in a good deal of it) there is a masterly restrained irony … I believe that in Miss Wiseman, who is 27, we have a novelist of unusual power. I don’t say she is promising, because I believe this novel represents something better than that – an achieved success. To make it a commercial success is another question. I cannot believe that a U.S. publisher will not be found for the book, but in any case we owe it to ourselves and to Canadian literature to publish it.92

Dobb’s response to Wiseman’s novel articulated several key aesthetic

The Resplendent Reign 1946–1969

169

values that by mid-century had penetrated the ideology and culture of Macmillan’s publishing program – an appreciation for creative artistry, a championing of serious literature, a commitment to publishing the work of unknown writers, and a nationalist purpose – values which consistently informed Dobbs’s editorial practice. As a Canadian firm with a limited market, Macmillan regularly sought an American co-publisher for its books. American publication, with its large market potential, lessened the financial risk associated with Canadian publication. Gray described the practice of sending a ‘manuscript to a publisher in the [United] States or Britain, or … the book to a literary agent who will act for the author. This kind of helpful activity has often been … interpreted as meaning that the Canadian publisher “won’t take a chance” unless somebody makes up his mind for him; but with many books it is the way he can serve the author best.’93 The simultaneous publication of American and Canadian editions of the same work was general practice at mid-century. Viking Press prepared the Canadian edition of The Sacrifice for Macmillan. Throughout negotiations with Viking, Dobbs’s regular telegrams kept Wiseman abreast of developments and his letters were reassuring: ‘Above all, don’t worry. Good novels like yours just don’t go unpublished.’94 After some delay on Viking’s part, which frustrated Dobbs who believed firmly in the quality of Wiseman’s fiction, he could take pleasure in delivering good news. On 20 October 1955 he wrote: ‘My own spirits had been rather damped by the delay in hearing from Viking. I had expected they would break all precedent and call us long distance to ask “Who is this girl? Why haven’t we heard of her before?” As a matter of fact, that is precisely what they did yesterday.’95 This early exchange consolidated the connection between author and editor and convinced Wiseman that Dobbs would act with integrity to protect their mutual interests. Dobbs’s commitment to Wiseman, both professional and personal, shaped the author’s lasting relationship with Macmillan. Dobbs’s dynamic personality – fired, no doubt, by the apparent success of The Sacrifice – imbued his correspondence with Wiseman. When he learned that The Sacrifice had won the Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction in 1956, Dobbs sent Wiseman a gracious ‘note to say that I think the judges who chose your novel … do not so much honour you as themselves and all of us.’96 When her book received the Beta Sigma Phi Award, Dobbs paid Wiseman his deepest compliment: ‘I am, personally, very pleased at all this public accolade for you. But my own greatest pleasure came long ago, when I first read that beauti-

170

The Macmillan Company of Canada

ful, momentous book; and left it and, like Moses, looked about me at my fellow men. I bless you for it. How should I congratulate you?’97 Wiseman’s good fortune was to have an editor early in her career who embraced her vision, admired her talent, and sought to make her work available to a wide readership. During his tenure at Macmillan, Dobbs was the most attentive of editors. In October 1961, however, after an eight-year apprenticeship, Dobbs was approached by Saturday Night magazine and offered the position of associate editor in charge of books and the arts. He hoped a career in journalism, unlike publishing, would leave more time for his own writing. When he left Macmillan in 1962 to pursue a literary career as a journalist and author – he went on to publish travel writing, memoirs, and poetry – Dobbs held himself to the high editorial standards he once vigorously applied to the work of others. Kildare Dobbs was one of the more renowned editors to serve Macmillan throughout its history. In 1953 the company that welcomed the new editor and aspiring writer was established as a cultural arbiter of literary taste. The literary works discovered and advanced by Dobbs became inextricably linked with Macmillan’s house identity, and his regard for excellence reinforced, in no small measure, Macmillan’s profile as one of Canada’s premier literary publishers. For his part, Dobbs always took pride in his apprentice years at Macmillan, ‘the best publisher in the country,’ and was grateful to John Gray for his generous assistance ‘in so many ways.’98 Dobbs’s example of professionalism set the standard for other trade editors who joined the Macmillan Company of Canada in the 1960s to be mentored by John Gray, among them novelist James Bacque, who went on to co-found New Press; Richard B. Wright, whose 2001 novel Clara Callan won the Giller Prize, the Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction, and the Trillium Book Award; Ramsay Derry, who worked closely with Robertson Davies on Fifth Business; and Jane (later Saeko) Usukawa, who went on to become editorial director at Douglas and McIntyre. Kildare Dobbs’s literary acumen was more highly prized than the editorial expertise of women who served Macmillan largely as ‘hack’ readers. Women such as Vivian Holland and Elizabeth Sturges assessed manuscripts, but they regularly read writing by women and writing for children – judged to be less significant than serious poetry and fiction – and they were neither recognized nor remunerated as editors. Although much is known about Dobbs, little is known about his female

The Resplendent Reign 1946–1969

171

colleagues whose editorial labour, less influential but no less important to Macmillan’s reputation and financial stability, was undertaken in the shadow of Dobbs. This contrast offers a telling illustration of Patten and Finkelstein’s finding that ‘there is a great deal of data for some editors, though little or nothing for others.’99 In practice, the editorial work undertaken for Macmillan by women was ‘more implicated in their domestic circumstances: home interests, family, charitable and political work,’ and ‘no matter how intelligent, [they sometimes] had to overcome the handicaps of self-education, lack of school and university ties … and the diminished, often oppressively squashed, expectations they were thought fit to fulfil.’100 To recover the voices of women readers, we must turn to their readers’ reports where, despite their obscurity and in the process of discussing an author’s work, they reveal aspects of themselves – rare details of their personal and professional lives and their own ideological convictions – and the aesthetic and cultural values endorsed by Macmillan. Vivian Holland assessed manuscripts for Macmillan, first as an employee and later on a freelance basis. Holland was an intelligent, incisive reader whose reports invariably found favour with John Gray. Impressed by her confident and concise reports, Gray usually accepted her evaluation of a manuscript and did not seek the opinion of a second reader. By 1950 Macmillan was building its list of serious trade titles. Hence, Holland championed novels and historical works that were well written and ‘distinctively Canadian.’101 Her interest in novels with believable plots and authentic characters signalled the contemporary preference for realism over other literary modes. In 1948, after completing a bachelor’s degree at Victoria University, Holland joined Macmillan’s education department as a secretary. She learned of the position through John Gray who had befriended her family while he was a schoolmaster in Holland’s hometown of Lakefield, Ontario. In 1950 Holland became a reader of trade manuscripts and assessed approximately twenty submissions per week. In 1955 she moved with her husband, Donald Holland, to Evanston, Illinois, but the family returned to Toronto one year later. For the next nine years, Holland continued reading manuscripts on a freelance basis while she raised four children. In 1964 she returned to publishing and spent two years in the education department of McClelland and Stewart before rejoining Macmillan as a production editor under Gladys Neale. Even as a young woman, Holland was a confident reader whose reports showed that she recognized the qualities of a superior manu-

172

The Macmillan Company of Canada

script. She understood the workings of the book trade – ‘that publishing is half the patronage of an art and half business’102 – and the need, for example, to offset the cost of producing expensive juvenile titles through co-publication with the Macmillan Company of New York. Unfortunately, the New York office was often ‘hard-hearted’103 in its rejection of Canadian titles. She also grasped the importance of upholding the firm’s literary reputation and acknowledged its role as an arbiter of cultural taste: a submission must ‘justify encouragement toward publication by Macmillan.’104 Holland eschewed ‘light fiction’105 in favour of realistic literature. Superior fiction, she believed, comprised a convincing, dramatic plot driven by interesting incident, fully developed characters, and a vibrant style. She condemned writing that showed ‘the worst possible taste,’106 abhorred the hackneyed plot, work that was shallow, gratuitously vulgar or obscene, or lacked authenticity, and a writing style that was ‘flippant,’ ‘facetious,’107 or illiterate. In fiction, Holland paid particular attention to the presentation of female characters and appreciated a writer’s attempt to draw believable women over stock figures. And at a time when readers and booksellers were asserting a taste for indigenous stories that evoked a sense of their place in the world, she particularly valued work that was identifiably Canadian in theme. Unlike those of Dobbs or her successor Elizabeth Sturges, Holland’s assessments were concise and revealed little of her own personality, aside from a natural impatience with writerly vanity. Precise and clear, they reflected the qualities she admired in graceful prose. Like Dobbs, Holland lauded ‘polished’ writing that ‘sparkle[d].’108 She liked colourful characters, such as Kenneth Orvis’s excellent portrayal of the villain in The Bite of the Silver Bee – ‘a thoroughly nasty character who comes to the stickiest end I’ve read in a long time … this book has all the elements of an exciting and satisfying mystery’ – and absorbing adventure tales, such as Farley Mowat’s Phantom in the Wilderness – ‘an interesting, wholesome outdoors story which promises to make an extremely good boys’ adventure book, and which might well appeal as much to American and English children as to Canadians.’109 Rarely did she descend to the depths of denunciation as she did in the case of a farming account by a Welsh immigrant to Canada – ‘Slangy, vulgar, illiterate. A genial moron. No’ – or when she questioned a writer’s ideas – ‘The author asserts that she has been pronounced sane, but one wonders … [She] has some extremely novel ideas which are too ridiculous to quote. I’m afraid she’s right off the rails.’110 Her disdain for unseemly manuscripts,

The Resplendent Reign 1946–1969

173

especially where obscenity was ‘carried to … [ridiculous] length,’111 was more often presented with tact. As a publisher’s reader, Vivian Holland wielded less influence than her colleague Kildare Dobbs, who rose to the position of acquisitions editor. Regardless, their assessments reveal a mutual appreciation for Macmillan’s aesthetic values and an understanding of the character of the firm. It could be argued, in fact, that the ‘common herd of readers,’112 those women whose task it was to assess the bulk of trade manuscripts received by Macmillan, had the potential to influence a wide readership less interested in poetry and serious fiction than adventure, popular history, and juvenile literature. Moreover, by endorsing publication of popular titles that conformed to the company’s notions of propriety and taste, they helped build a financial base that supported publication of Macmillan’s trade list of important cultural texts. Following an extended hiatus, Vivian Holland returned to Macmillan in 1966 to work in the education department under Gladys Neale and executive editor Carl Heimrich. Her earlier experience at Macmillan and in freelance editing served her well in her new editorial role, and she brought to her work the professional commitment and exacting standards evident in her reader’s reports. As a production editor, however, her responsibilities at Macmillan increased considerably. She corresponded directly with authors, cleared permissions, obtained illustrations, and oversaw the preparation of manuscripts for the printer. She also became an author. Time Trip, an adventure story for children accompanied by study questions and activities, was issued by Macmillan in 1973. Her expertise in educational publishing was later recognized by Nelson Canada, where she was employed as a senior editor through the 1980s. Holland’s career, which spanned more than four decades of the twentieth century, charts the changing professional opportunities for women in publishing. As a reader of trade titles and later as a children’s author and a production editor – the late designation of editor brought her satisfaction – Holland occupied an unacknowledged position of influence at Macmillan. When Holland left Macmillan in 1955, Elizabeth Sturges was appointed her successor. Sturges’s reports were more elaborate than Holland’s, showed a depth of literary knowledge, and revealed more of her character. Born in Korea and raised in the United Church, Elizabeth Sturges married into an old Newfoundland family. Her reader’s reports convey a dynamic personality, vibrant sense of humour, and acerbic wit. Sturges appears to have been a cosmopolitan woman of wide-ranging inter-

174

The Macmillan Company of Canada

ests. In addition to her keen literary sensibility, she knew the geography of England, may have had a fondness for cats, and certainly knew ‘how to curry shrimp.’113 Like Holland, she relished her work as a reader for Macmillan and was a confident assessor of manuscripts. She, too, had little patience for ‘lead[en]’114 writing and, in keeping with Macmillan’s trade profile, endorsed serious over ephemeral literature. Less concise than Holland, Sturges also brought Macmillan’s high standards to her reading of various manuscripts and eschewed mediocrity in content or style. Her disdain for ‘undistinguished light fiction’ that conveyed naive ideas was exceeded only by her dismissal of work written in a ‘banal’115 or tedious style. Her pique was raised by ‘meaningless phrases’ such as ‘unwashed aroma,’ ‘lacy curtains,’ and ‘overflowing with animal vigour and maleness,’ and her exasperation with a ‘dreary novel’ elicited a succinct response: ‘This MS is a lead coin, gilded, and drops with a very dull thud.’116 Sturges scorned the use of vulgarity for its own sake, and often read a manuscript through a moral lens. She regarded one writer’s treatment of petty thievery, for example, as ‘downright immoral’ and rejected another manuscript that indulged in ‘sentimental idealism’: ‘My own personal feeling is that students should not be encouraged in this art of facile over-simplification, at any age. They would gain more from a struggle with more subtle and complicated essays on human achievement. Too little is said of the acute discomforts of genius, quite aside from the practical difficulties which are overcome.’117 Sturges’s attention to a work’s Canadian content and suitability as a Macmillan book surpassed that of Holland. She especially disliked books with a European or British focus. In her view, P. von Weymarn’s In Search of Highways employed a disagreeable European syntax and his ‘approach to the question of sons finding their life work and their women is also European.’118 She preferred books written for the Canadian market and, therefore, declined Elizabeth Sargent’s All Together with Annabelle on the basis of its false depiction of Ontario’s Muskoka region: ‘Muskoka is not seen through Canadian eyes and only English people would imagine that a house and cabin not built on a lake and a long walk from a … pond … would attract tourists.’119 Her reports also reflected a high-minded concern for Macmillan’s reputation and whether or not a manuscript ‘would add to the prestige of either the author or his publisher.’120 In the case of inferior work, especially a novel of ‘endemic vulgarity,’ Sturges would declare, ‘it is not our book.’121 Difficult as it may be to assess the influence of the publisher’s read-

The Resplendent Reign 1946–1969

175

er, if we comb extant reports in publishers’ archives, she emerges – in shadow, if not in full view – from ‘the occult office, hitherto hermetically sealed, and hidden from all eyes … the chief barrier and false medium, excluding authors from the Public; and not infrequently from Posterity.’122 Holland and Sturges brought to the assessment of manuscripts literary acumen, as well as an intuitive grasp of the character of Macmillan. Their reader’s reports show ‘the way a firm’s [house] identity, once established, exerts an influence over the type of book accepted for publication.’123 Less influential than senior acquisitions editor Kildare Dobbs, Vivian Holland and Elizabeth Sturges – alongside other women readers and editors – were nonetheless instrumental in strengthening the house identity and reputation of the Macmillan Company of Canada. Their incisive and cogent analyses of manuscripts and nuanced understanding of Macmillan’s ‘morality, standards, taste, and … literary tradition’124 had a profound impact on the company’s publishing program. As Fritschner insists, even ‘unimportant readers have left an indelible imprint on literature, authors, publishers, and the public … [Their work] reminds us of the complicated and circuitous journey of a manuscript from the time an author first thinks he has finished with it until the moment when a publisher tells him that he will undertake to publish it or refuses to do so.’125 In fact, the readers’ reports of Holland and Sturges provide detailed evidence of the important function of female assessors. Taken together, the reports show how their work from the 1950s and beyond helped refine a modern literary aesthetic for Macmillan expressed through its roster of influential books. Poet Gwendolyn MacEwen as Publisher’s Reader Among the women freelance readers who assessed manuscripts for Macmillan, one name stands out as recognizable: the poet Gwendolyn MacEwen. The ability to identify a Macmillan reader of MacEwen’s literary stature and cultural significance is fortuitous. MacEwen’s contribution to Macmillan, as an astute and instructive reader of poetry in particular, sheds substantial light on her writerly vision. Moreover, her reader’s reports can be mined to show how her work as publisher’s reader illuminates the literary aesthetic that drove Macmillan’s trade publishing program of the 1960s. Over a period of four years, from November 1965 to October 1969, Gwendolyn MacEwen was a freelance reader for Macmillan. By 1965 MacEwen had published fiction and poetry whose mythopoeic vision

176

The Macmillan Company of Canada

and incantatory tone had captured the attention of critics and readers. Although she went on to enjoy a successful literary career and receive awards for her work – she was herself a Macmillan author – MacEwen always needed to supplement her income as a writer. In the 1960s, while she struggled to establish herself financially, the Macmillan Company of Canada employed MacEwen as a reader, offering her a ready means of securing additional income. By 1965, the year she began reading for Macmillan, MacEwen had published four books – Selah and The Drunken Clock, two poetry chapbooks self-published in 1961; The Rising Fire, a volume of verse issued by Contact Press in 1963; and Julian the Magician, a novel published by the Macmillan Company of Canada, also in 1963. MacEwen was a young woman in her twenties (aged twenty-four to twenty-eight) when she served as manuscript reader for Macmillan, but, as biographer Rosemary Sullivan asserts, she ‘was at the height of her confidence as a writer.’126 That confidence, as well as her generous spirit, was reflected in her meticulous evaluation of poetry, novels, plays, and non-fiction. That same certitude also spurred her dedication to writing and a belief that she could support herself as a writer. She was earning ‘enough money to live from poetry-reading tours,’ but MacEwen recognized that ‘art is not a safe profession.’127 She knew the precariousness of a writer’s income and welcomed the opportunity to supplement her earnings by reading manuscripts for Macmillan, the same publishing company that had issued her first novel. As a regular reader of manuscripts, MacEwen could rely on steady income from Macmillan; her initial reading fee of $11.25 per report was raised to $17.50 in May 1966. MacEwen was an intelligent, discriminating reader whose reports invariably pleased John Gray. In fact, since her high literary standards mirrored those of Macmillan, she was an ideal publisher’s reader. MacEwen’s extant reports reflect the maturity and sophistication that characterized her early writing. Not surprisingly, she was regularly called upon to assess the numerous poetry manuscripts that were submitted to Macmillan throughout the late 1960s. Since nearly half of her reports concern poetry, they provide a clear sense of her own literary aesthetic. They also reveal MacEwen’s grasp of the business side of publishing and the need for Macmillan to invest in books of poetry that would reach as wide an audience as possible. She did not lament the constrained market for poetry; instead, her judicious readings were framed by a desire to maximize the cultural and economic

The Resplendent Reign 1946–1969

177

impact of each volume published. MacEwen was the consummate publisher’s reader: discerning of artistic excellence, open to the varied pleasures of poetry, but cognizant of its narrow appeal and limited financial return. An acute appreciation for ‘what is poetry’ shaped MacEwen’s fair and reasonable responses to the manuscripts she read. She assessed each submission according to a consistent set of criteria for ‘true’ poetry, a term she reserved for exceptional collections of verse. For MacEwen, flawed poetry was marked by several distinguishable qualities: (i) unoriginal themes; (ii) flat language; (iii) an unremarkable style; (iv) the chaotic use of images; and (v) an inauthentic voice that resulted in superficial meaning. Above all, she decried the absence of discipline and control, what she regarded as ‘the sure sense of what is and what is not poetry.’128 MacEwen eschewed poetry that was hackneyed and sentimental in theme – drowsy, ‘sweet and well-worded, but altogether lacking in … originality.’129 She regretted, for example, that the narrow themes of ‘love, spring, loss, youth, freedom, and restraint … are the poet’s concern [in P. Lager’s No Curtains on My Window], perhaps too much of a concern,’130 she added. Similarly, she was not inspired by Richard E. DuWors’s collection of twenty-five poems on ‘religion, [and] life in general’ or James A. Couper’s poems ‘of modern life with an outcry against its brutality, of graduation … of poetry itself.’131 Instead, she praised Peter Miller’s Afterimages for its aesthetic ‘view of the world’ rooted in ‘classically poetical themes – life moving into death, [and] the transitory nature of beauty.’132 For MacEwen, Miller’s distinctive treatment of classical themes distinguished his poetry from the majority of conventional manuscripts. While MacEwen dismissed poetry that was cloying, she was especially disdainful of verse in which ‘nothing gets said in any complete sort of way.’133 She disliked wordiness and regretted a poet’s indulgence in metaphor and imagery at the expense of meaning, which she described as ‘little or no thought content.’134 For MacEwen, clear language, appropriate metaphor, and precise imagery were required to convey theme and their absence often produced ‘nothing more than cool quips,’135 as in David McFadden’s Poems. The artless use of language was of particular concern to MacEwen, whose reports display her highly refined appreciation for poetic language. She repeatedly remarked on a poet’s inexact or careless diction. Sarcasm and an ‘overabundance’ of words that were ‘ponderous, pushy

178

The Macmillan Company of Canada

and boring’136 usually indicated a poet’s immaturity. A lack of clarity and cohesion were shortcomings that tended ‘to dampen the effect’137 of many submissions. Moreover, words that were underlined or italicized for emphasis either lent a ‘hysterical note’ to a poem or resonated ‘like an incoherent shout.’138 In contrast to writers who misused or overused the evocative potential of words and phrases, the accomplished poet wrote in a ‘natural idiom’139 that was both clean and nuanced. MacEwen knew the value of revision and admired a writer’s preference for taut, precise language. She reserved her highest praise, however, for the poet whose skilful use of penetrating, expressive language rendered ‘a delicate fusion between intellect and emotion.’140 Although she might disregard a maudlin theme, she would always note inaccuracies of language. Stylistic infelicities marred the majority of poetry manuscripts MacEwen read for Macmillan. Particularly annoying were inexpert writers who sought to imitate the Black Mountain poets, whose work was on the rise during the 1960s. She disliked their ‘random sloppy style,’ specifically their use of the ‘formless stanza,’ ‘irregular line, radical spacing,’ and lower case ‘i.’141 Although she claimed that she could not ‘come to a conclusion about the point of such devices,’ she nonetheless condemned this ‘modern pseudo-poetry,’ filled as it was with spaces and annoying ‘air-pockets’142 – a favourite term – devoid of meaning. MacEwen was regularly frustrated in her desire to discover a poet who had ‘mastered the deftness and hardness of the medium.’143 She believed style should progress ‘naturally out of content,’144 free of selfconsciousness. Often, spare poems failed on account on their fragmentation and lack of cohesion, while longer poems read like ‘poem-gasps put into paragraph form.’145 Most rhymed poetry was ‘stiff and unoriginal.’146 In contrast, poems that were direct, ‘tight[ly]’ structured,147 and made novel use of sound patterns and syllabic rhythms – without calling attention to their craft – showed a poet’s integrity. The gifted poet of ‘extreme integrity’ successfully married form and content in ‘careful, elegant and sustained’ poems.148 Familiar or bloated images built on profuse language signalled a poet’s inability to mobilize ‘the necessary tools to temper his work.’149 Inchoate imagery and mixed metaphors also resulted in weak organization and inconsistent meaning. A poet who employed imagery to didactic purpose was pedantic and uninteresting. Imagery that was ‘rich and intricate,’150 however, evoked impressions suited to a poet’s unique concerns. As a practiced imagist, MacEwen was especially

The Resplendent Reign 1946–1969

179

attuned to ‘dazzlingly fresh and beautiful’151 images that served as conduits of meaning. Finally, for MacEwen a sure voice and an urgent, inspired tone forged a ‘center’ or ‘point of reference’ that gave a poem ‘form and meaning.’152 Unfortunately, an insincere voice and irritating mannerisms, telltale signs of an undisciplined poet, weakened many of the manuscripts submitted to Macmillan. The sterile tone of numerous manuscripts was ‘careful and calculating.’153 Further, a want of ‘true passion,’ identified by MacEwen as ‘inner inhibition’ or the absence of ‘emotional authenticity,’154 usually resonated as a hollow voice and predictably superficial or trite meaning. The rare poet who understood ‘that the only poetic voice is the authentic one’ had ‘definite virtues and individuality.’155 By fusing several ‘systems of thinking [i.e., magic, myth, religion, and science] into one coherent language,’ Lionel G. Harrison, for example, showed poetic maturity. Harrison’s intriguing themes and distinctive voice elicited high praise from MacEwen who was ‘floored’ by his work: it read as ‘something magical, something half-known … [closer] to what I call pure poetry than ninety-per-cent of the poetry being written today.’156 MacEwen’s literary standards were high, but that did not prevent her from being generous to inexperienced and accomplished poets alike. As a publisher’s reader, she was not in direct communication with writers themselves, but a deep commitment to poetry and a desire to foster a wide interest in the genre spurred her offer of advice in a number of reader’s reports. She encouraged Deborah Eibel, for example, to omit one poem from her otherwise ‘mature and sensitive’ collection: ‘Few women poets writing just now achieve Miss Eibel’s tautness or directness, and these poems are well beyond the efforts of most young or relatively unknown poets.’157 MacEwen’s response to Eibel’s manuscript reveals her encouragement of strong women poets. Similarly, she counselled R.M. Smith to revise his manuscript and submit it to a smaller publishing company; his writing did not warrant publication by Macmillan, but clearly ‘had much value for the writer and no doubt the various friends, acquaintances and colleagues for [sic] whom the poems are dedicated.’158 MacEwen’s evaluation of the collected verse of confederation poet Duncan Campbell Scott shows respect for a senior writer while it highlights her own well-developed sense of artistry: ‘On reading over Scott’s poems in this volume I had the impression that a complete collection of this type does not represent Scott at his best … But once we

180

The Macmillan Company of Canada

see the name of the poet we feel bound to sit up and pay attention. I think this is unfortunate, yet it is almost inevitable in a collected volume … I would say then, that unless there were a pressing need for a new issuing of the collected, that a bold and unusual selection of Scott would be the best step.’159 MacEwen’s fresh, contemporary reading of Scott was informed by an incisive eye and literary aesthetic that discerned the modern impulse in poems that were free of ‘the innocent, sylvan, and unfortunately outdated pastoral landscape taint which is present in much of his work.’160 Keenly attuned to literary excellence, MacEwen read hundreds of manuscripts in the hope of encountering gifted poets whose work ought to be published by Macmillan. That hope was tempered, however, by the market realities pertaining to books of poetry. During the late 1960s – partly in conjunction with Canada’s centennial celebrations – a flowering of nationalism encouraged the publication of Canadian works. Fiction and history figured prominently on Macmillan’s trade list, while volumes of poetry were relatively few in number. Since poetry had always been a risky undertaking for most publishers – verse has rarely recouped the costs associated with its production – Macmillan, despite its commitment to Canadian writing in general, was loath to invest in the publication of poetry books. Hence, the extreme caution that marked MacEwen’s assessment of poetry manuscripts. In October 1969, she admitted, ‘If Macmillan can only do one or two poetry books a year, then it would seem necessary to be quite selective about those MSS which are accepted … [and] it seems to me that those books should be recent collections of established poets, and/or first books by exceptionally talented younger poets. The matter then becomes one of degree, and it becomes necessary to distinguish between the very good new poets … and the odd really brilliant one who is bound to come along every now and again.’161 In the same report, MacEwen commended smaller publishing companies, such as Contact Press (1952–67), for issuing the work of many emerging poets.162 From our historical perspective, MacEwen’s praise of small publishers could be read as implicit criticism of Macmillan’s decision to allot little of its budget to books of poetry. By late 1969, in fact, MacEwen was no longer a regular reader of manuscripts for Macmillan. She may have felt frustrated by Macmillan’s slim poetry list – especially when new, independent publishing companies were willing to incur the financial risk associated with collections of verse. Since Macmillan’s trade list favoured prose over poetry, MacEwen

The Resplendent Reign 1946–1969

181

was less circumspect in her reading of plays, novels, and non-fiction, the subject of half her extant reports. She confessed, however, to being a poor ‘reader of drama, and [I] have rarely enjoyed reading a play, even a great one, under any circumstances.’163 Although she assessed relatively few plays, she read countless novels, several children’s books – both prose and verse – and many works of non-fiction. To each of these genres she applied the superior criteria evident in her evaluation of poetry, but she felt less constrained in recommending publication. A ‘compelling’ subject and ‘natural and spontaneous’ style, a ‘well-woven’ plot and human characters whose personalities were drawn with ‘indelible accuracy’164 were the marks of a successful novel, for example. She abhorred ‘grisly scenes’ in novels for children and rejected ‘terrifying lines’ in children’s verse that straddled ‘the dangerous borderline between what is truly innocent and what is definitely adult.’165 For MacEwen, a strong work of non-fiction addressed a subject of serious and wide interest, was well researched, and thoughtfully organized. MacEwen’s reports were punctuated by language that infers a specific set of literary and aesthetic values. Key words – ‘pure,’ ‘true,’ and ‘authentic,’ ‘classical,’ ‘disciplined,’ and ‘controlled’ – recur throughout her assessments and signal her esteem for solemn, high-minded works of literature. That MacEwen was both a Macmillan reader and a Macmillan author shows the compatibility of author and publishing company. MacEwen viewed literature through Macmillan’s cultural lens that validated serious and enduring over popular and ephemeral works. As the example of the Macmillan Company of Canada and Gwendolyn MacEwen confirms, cultural and symbolic capital were desired by publisher and author alike. By issuing MacEwen’s first novel Julian the Magician in 1963, Macmillan underscored its commitment to emerging Canadian writers whose work was distinguished by serious themes and exceptional craft. The Macmillan imprint conferred high literary status, respectability, and cultural significance on MacEwen’s work – Macmillan went on to publish her poetry, including The ShadowMaker (1969), which received the Governor General’s Literary Award for poetry, The Armies of the Moon (1972), Magic Animals: Selected Poems Old and New (1974), and her novel, King of Egypt, King of Dreams (1971) – qualities that elude the majority of authors, as Bourdieu affirms in his analysis of literary production. In return, as a reader for Macmillan, MacEwen sought to represent the interests of a long-established, vener-

182

The Macmillan Company of Canada

able publishing company known for producing works of high moral tenor, meant to enrich readers’ experience of the world. Further, the practical advantages that accrued to publisher and author during the period MacEwen served as manuscript reader for Macmillan – Macmillan benefited from MacEwen’s expert advice and she earned necessary income as a publisher’s reader – sustained their four-year readerly connection. Of longer lasting significance, however, are the literary judgments that can be traced through the extant cache of MacEwen’s reports, an incomparable record that offers rare insight into the aesthetic values of one of Canada’s most important twentieth-century authors and the publishing company that disseminated her work and doubly honoured her as author and reader. Gladys Neale Among the women who served the Macmillan Company of Canada under John Gray, Gladys Neale ranked among the most accomplished. Neale joined Macmillan in July 1936, at the age of twenty-two, and during the war she became acting manager of the education department. When he returned to publishing from overseas service, Gray intended to train a new salesman as head of education. By 1950, however, the male trainee had chosen academe over publishing and Gray, somewhat reluctantly, appointed Neale manager of the department she had overseen for many years. In 1959 she became secretary of the company; in 1962 she was made a director; and in 1967 she became a vice-president of Macmillan. The highly influential Neale, along with her colleague Ellen Elliott, were the first executive women in Canadian publishing who did not owe their positions ‘to a husband’s influence.’166 Gladys Neale lived with her mother and siblings in their Main Street home in Toronto’s Danforth area. Neale had a dynamic personality and a good sense of humour, a love of golf and hockey, travel, and martinis. She spoke impeccable English and was always well dressed. Of Baptist background, she also taught Sunday school. To Michael Davies, who joined Macmillan’s education department in 1967 to work under Neale, she was an ambitious woman who commanded respect.167 To others, she was a bit of a tartar. With the exception of three years at the rival firm Clarke, Irwin, where she arrived in 1980 to rebuild the company’s educational program,168 Neale’s career was spent at Macmillan. A teacher by train-

The Resplendent Reign 1946–1969

183

ing, she graduated from Toronto’s Normal School, taught for a brief period, but soon realized that she ‘wasn’t cut out to be a school teacher.’169 Having decided that she ‘really wanted to work with books,’170 Neale secured a temporary position at Macmillan. Twice she held clerical contracts of two or three months’ duration before being offered a permanent position in Macmillan’s in-house library, which opened to the public on Saturdays. When she joined Macmillan, her weekly salary was $12.50, minimum wage for women at the time, and $2.50 less than she had been earning cutting and ‘run[ning] off stencils’171 at the Canadian Institute for International Affairs. She soon was transferred to the education department, where eventually Neale became ‘one of most successful and respected educational publishers of her generation.’172 Neale treated all her staff equally and, throughout her tenure at Macmillan, battled for ‘the cause of Canadian books for Canadian schools’ out of a belief that ‘a healthy Canadian publishing industry is an integral part of the Canadian identity.’173 In retirement, the indefatigable Neale continued her groundbreaking contribution to educational publishing. Between 1981 and 1998 she served on the board of directors of Laubach Literacy of Canada, a national adult literacy foundation, and supervised the publication of twenty-eight books for adult literacy students. Gladys Neale was an unusual woman for her time. Independent and resourceful, she was encouraged to pursue a career by her mother who regarded the position at Macmillan as a professional opportunity for her daughter. Ultimately, Neale also won the support of her male colleagues, but first she had to prove her worth to Macmillan. Neale travelled regularly across Canada to promote Macmillan’s books. Initially, she was accompanied by her co-worker Ellen Elliott, but Neale soon journeyed alone. Annually, she made at least one trip west and several trips east to meet with members of provincial departments of education, key educators, and authors. In hotel rooms across the country, she displayed trunk loads of books. During one trip to Edmonton, Neale received a letter from John Gray, in which he noted the ‘kick I get out of seeing you tear into the educational problems when you get going on one of your trips. If you will forgive the figure of speech it is just like watching a war horse as he catches sight of the battle, and from our point of view it is a wonderfully reassuring thing.’174 Given the obstacles she faced – a profound cultural bias against professional women, the threat of demotion in favour of male colleagues, underrecognition of her work, and lesser remuneration and company ben-

184

The Macmillan Company of Canada

efits – it is remarkable that Neale was known ‘as a formidable woman who grew more so with age.’175 A senior employee and head of educational publishing, Gladys Neale was also a diligent in-house reader. While Vivian Holland and Elizabeth Sturges read trade manuscripts, Neale attended to the quality of educational texts, the potential of school books to reach a targeted audience, and their marketability. Taken together, her reader’s reports convey initiative, an appealing sense of humour, a deep understanding of the book trade, and a close connection to John Gray. Her business acumen was reflected in assessments that held all educational submissions to the highest literary and market standards. Neale eschewed work that was ‘prosaic and uninspiring.’176 Clarity, she believed, did not preclude the presentation of facts in elegant, engaging prose that avoided the inappropriate use of slang. Neale favoured educational books that were both informative and readable, written with ‘vivid, dramatic and personal style,’177 regardless of subject. Ever mindful of audience, Neale understood the various curricular needs of primary and secondary students. Had The Golden Trail: The Story of the Klondike Rush (1954) ‘told the story of one of the men who actually made the terrible trip from the Coast to Dawson [City],’ young readers of Macmillan’s Great Stories of Canada series, Neale counselled, would find Pierre Berton’s rendering of ‘the first discovery of gold’178 more exciting. Like Holland, she relished adventure tales. Farley Mowat’s Lost in the Barren Lands included ‘authentic material on life in the far north’ that added ‘to the value of the book,’ and the description of how the protagonists ‘used the resources of the country to survive’179 would appeal to boys. A preference for authenticity did not dampen Neale’s appreciation for fantasy. Michael A. Hicks’s The Griffin Laughed, for example, was a delightful ‘mixture of “Once upon a time” and modern day happenings.’180 Manuscripts that combined genres were usually met with disapproval, however. Neale declined Anton Mohr’s Almost a Fairy Tale, neither ‘a good adventure story for boys and girls [n]or a travel book. There is too much fact mixed up with fiction,’ and Elizabeth K. Hubbard’s Prairie Folk, which fell ‘between being a school text and a juvenile … because it covers only a portion of the courses of studies’181 in the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. Since the success of an educational title depended on its acceptance by provincial boards of education – it was the rare text that could successfully straddle educational and trade markets – it is not surprising

The Resplendent Reign 1946–1969

185

that Gladys Neale’s concern with a manuscript’s marketability exceeded that of either Vivian Holland or Elizabeth Sturges. Biographies of Canadians, for example, which were ‘much in demand’182 by departments of education, schools, and teachers, wanted accuracy and interest to be successful. Neale rejected Edwin C. Guillet’s Canada’s Literary Pioneers for its ‘boring’ treatment of ‘obscure’ individuals.183 Other works were insufficiently comprehensive, poorly organized, or too ponderous to appeal to student readers. Although much of Neale’s energy was spent evaluating school books – spellers, readers, history, geometry, and mathematics textbooks – she also assessed juvenile titles. When she encountered an especially promising children’s manuscript, like Holland, she astutely proposed co-publication with Macmillan New York or Viking Press as a way to offset the cost of its production. It was due largely to Neale’s capable management that Macmillan was perceived as ‘serving the development of Canadian Education and Canadian national consciousness.’184 Neale was cognizant of her accomplishment as an educational publisher. In 1998, a year before her death, she admitted to interviewer Roy MacSkimming, author of The Perilous Trade, that she ‘became really a successful school book publisher. As a matter of fact, the school book department was the only profitable [department] in Macmillan … the only one making any money … I always said that I made my contribution to Canadian culture because it was partly the revenues of the school book department which enabled John Gray to do some of his trade publishing. So I took a little credit.’185 Late in her career, Neale’s accomplishments were recognized by a number of her male colleagues, most notably by John Gray. Gray’s early reluctance to appoint a woman as head of education eventually gave way to respect for Neale. In 1965, for example, as he contemplated retirement, he considered her as a potential successor. In his memoir Fun Tomorrow, issued just before his death in 1978, Gray described Neale as ‘capable of handling … responsibility … Attractive, hardworking, and forceful, she was … well known and much respected by educators across the country.’186 In 1998 Neale conceded, ‘It took him some time and hard thinking, but he finally “did right” as far as I was concerned.’188 Today, we admire Neale’s drive and laud her pioneering efforts on behalf of Macmillan. John W. Irwin, fellow publisher and president of the Book Society of Canada, worked closely with Neale on several professional committees. In 2008 Irwin corroborated Gray’s assessment of Neale and celebrated her intelligence, conscientiousness, and devotion

186

The Macmillan Company of Canada

to Macmillan.189 Gladys Neale’s success as head of Macmillan’s education department was exceptional; as she admitted late in life, her triumphs underwrote the trade publishing that gave John Gray such deep satisfaction and earned Macmillan its reputation as a premier Canadian publisher of educational and trade books. Gray’s Authors In 1946, when John Gray was appointed general manager, Macmillan was recovering from the constraints imposed by the Second World War. Gray seized the opportunity of economic renewal and a heightened public interest in Canada to forge a quality trade list of original domestic titles. Gray was committed to issuing serious trade books – fiction, poetry, biography, and history, for example – that would articulate the country’s maturing nationalism and appeal to a Canadian audience. He was determined to raise the quality of Canadian writing by elevating the reading tastes of Canadians, boosting royalty payments to authors, and enlisting the support of book retailers through a return policy of 5 per cent on their total trade purchases and by passing on the savings to booksellers when a federal sales tax on books was repealed in 1953. In the 1950s the agency system, whose profits had supported trade publishing in Canada, was crumbling as British wholesalers ‘began shipping books directly to retail booksellers and institutional libraries.’190 In 1955 Gray understood that Canadian literature still lacked ‘a rational commercial basis, and must for years to come’; that ‘imaginative publishing and a tightly planned business operation are mutually exclusive; [and] the result is that Trade publishing … is always in something of a turmoil.’191 Nonetheless, he was optimistic for the future of Canadian publishing – ‘We shall not build the New Jerusalem in our time but we shall get in some good work on the foundations’192 – and, like Eayrs, he sought to encourage and issue the work of indigenous writers, despite financial risk. Gray, as we have seen, also used ‘profits from schoolbooks to publish novels, history, [and] poetry.’193 Over the years, Gray’s commitment to publishing work by Canadians intensified and was endorsed officially in 1962 by Canada’s ratification of the Universal Copyright Convention, which granted American copyright protection to Canadian editions. It was heard clearly in his patriotic pronouncement of 1967, Canada’s centennial year: ‘A house’s character … will be best known for its editorial policy in the publishing of general books. In Canada this has meant above all whether it looks

The Resplendent Reign 1946–1969

187

for and publishes Canadian books.’194 For Macmillan, 1967 was a stellar year that saw the publication of J.M.S. Careless and R. Craig Brown’s The Canadians 1867–1967, a sumptuous book of 856 pages with monochrome and colour plate inserts, Joseph Schull’s The Nation Makers, and novels by Gérard Bessette (Incubation), Austin Clarke (The Meeting Point), and Hugh MacLennan (Return of the Sphinx). Gray’s nationalism and desire to foster a love of country also inspired the Macmillan Company of Canada’s centennial project. To encourage appreciation for Canada, the company set aside $10,000 to cover the cost of return airfare for fifty-five long-term employees to visit any national destination of their choice. In his early years at Macmillan, Gray’s encounters with writers like Mazo de la Roche and Grey Owl bound him ‘to the publishing business, giving me a sense of being a hand in a creative process … I could be exhausted and angry and frustrated, but never bored.’195 De la Roche, for example, accepted Gray’s criticism over that of her Boston editor, Edward Weeks: ‘I always feel that your criticisms are wise, and far from finding them “carping” I am glad to make haste to follow your suggestions.’196 Gray loved the very idea of publishing books, relished his work with authors, and was always awaiting a writer’s ‘next book.’197 He appreciated the unique connection between publisher and author, and recognized that solid relationships, although slow to build, could ‘stand a lot of strain.’198 He neither valued the role of publisher or editor over that of the author as creator, nor did he begrudge writers the ‘encouragement and reassurance’199 he knew they needed. Rather, he stood ‘among the privileged few to whom an author can talk about his lonely work.’200 Hence, his easy way with writers, even the more temperamental novelists like de la Roche whose pique was often directed at less diplomatic editors like Edward Weeks. Throughout his career, Gray laboured on behalf of authors. He admitted to doing more editorial ‘work on manuscripts’201 than most American publishers, who relied extensively on the expertise of readers and editors. Although he was primarily interested in works of history and biography, Gray tried to read all manuscripts that were favourably assessed by Macmillan’s readers. A well-organized individual and ‘painstaking grammarian’ of ‘discriminating taste,’202 his reading occupied many hours, both at the office and at home. Gray’s ‘first job’ was to help authors realize their ‘full potential’ and he consistently followed his own ‘golden rule’ for editors: ‘[When] dealing with … writers who know what they are doing don’t edit any

188

The Macmillan Company of Canada

more than requested to do; stand by to help if called on. Occasionally even the most assured writer will get too close to his work and may then welcome a hint of how it appears to someone else … The ideal role for the editor … calls for sympathetic understanding, some talent for listening, judgment and good sense.’203 Tactful and gracious, Gray derived deep satisfaction from his ‘close association[s] with some of the best minds and the richest personalities in society.’204 Ethel Wilson, W.O. Mitchell, Adele Wiseman, Robertson Davies, and Hugh MacLennan were among the prominent Macmillan authors who took counsel and encouragement from Gray, a publisher who admired their work and enjoyed their company. John Gray’s connection with Ethel Wilson was marked by ‘affection and deep respect’205 for her work and her person. To Wilson, Gray was an ideal ‘editor, confidant, literary executor, and beloved friend,’206 but Wilson’s first editor at Macmillan was Ellen Elliott, to whom she had submitted The Innocent Traveller in November 1944. Hetty Dorval followed in October 1945, and Wilson and Elliott corresponded over both works. Although readers’ reports were favourable, The Innocent Traveller required revision. Hence, the publication of Hetty Dorval in 1947 – in advance of The Innocent Traveller – when Elliott no longer was connected with Macmillan and could not share in Wilson’s early success. As biographer David Stouck explains, ‘Wilson had worked cordially with Ellen Elliott, but it was working subsequently with Gray that made her association with the Macmillan Company such a happy and profitable one. Elliott had recognized Wilson’s talent, but Gray entered into a personal friendship with the author which constituted one of the creative conditions for her writing.’207 Like Ellen Elliott, Daniel Macmillan admired Wilson’s work. In 1947, while visiting London, Wilson met Macmillan who was impressed with her intelligence and literary promise. No doubt, his regard for Wilson’s fiction was rooted in Macmillan and Company’s valuing of carefully crafted, serious literature. In contrast, as Stouck points out with reference to the novel Swamp Angel, published by the Macmillan Company of Canada in 1954, Gray did not appreciate the distinguishing features of Wilson’s prose: ‘her use of omniscient narration … [and] spare and fragmented [style].’208 Regardless, a deep affinity bound publisher and author, for Gray offered precisely the support Wilson needed to flourish as a writer: kindly and regular attention, unfailing encouragement, and expert editorial guidance. In later life, so deep was her feeling for Gray that

The Resplendent Reign 1946–1969

189

Wilson regarded him as a son.209 Ironically, Gray died two years before Wilson, but not before he had the opportunity to pay public tribute to the author whose career he had nurtured. In November 1961, the year she received a Canada Council award and the Macmillan Company of Canada published her final book, Mrs Golightly and Other Stories, he spoke at an event honouring Wilson. Gray described ‘the pleasure and interest of working’ with Wilson and celebrated her ‘special gifts – her insight into character, her wit and gentle irony, her love of country – above all of British Columbia.’210 Gray’s remarkable ability to form alliances of trust resulted in many pleasurable and profound friendships with writers. W.O. Mitchell was one of Gray’s most cherished authors and they developed a long and close association. In correspondence with the charismatic Mitchell, the author’s financial situation was addressed regularly. Here, Gray was not only publisher but financial advisor, always worried that Mitchell might overextend himself. When Mitchell telegraphed, ‘Could use any Canadian royalty balance English royalty advance,’ Gray responded cautiously to the author of Who Has Seen the Wind, which was selling slowly: ‘I hope your quiet “could use” doesn’t mean very much more than it says … I’d like to do anything in reason to be helpful, but I would caution you against mortgaging future royalties any more than you need to, because of … your always being months or years ahead of yourself.’211 Although he felt uncomfortable in the role of ‘fat elderly banker … the fault of the cursed chair I sit in,’212 Gray was confident that he was serving the author’s interests and would not advance further royalties unless absolutely necessary. Gray’s decision did not prevent him, however, from asking about Mitchell’s next book, news of which he awaited anxiously. Over the years, Mitchell accepted with goodwill his publisher’s counsel on the matter of royalty payments, and once expressed his appreciation by offering to kiss Gray’s ‘Royal American.’213 Gray’s own admonishing cry of ‘My dear Bill: We love you dearly but you are a terrible man to get an answer from’214 signalled the openness and intimacy of the friendship that sustained both publisher and author. The warm connection between Gray and Adele Wiseman, founded on mutual respect and affection, lasted two decades. Gray was deeply moved by The Sacrifice and charmed by its author. Over the years, author and publisher exchanged letters that concerned both their professional and personal lives. When, for instance, Wiseman learned that Gray had been ill, she wrote entreating her publisher to care for himself. Gray’s

190

The Macmillan Company of Canada

answer to Wiseman’s expression of solicitude – ‘Oh, Grandmother what a shaky finger you have! All the better to admonish you with my dear’215 – belied the friendship they had come to share. Gray’s letter to the Guggenheim Foundation in support of Wiseman’s 1957 application described ‘a significant writer’ whose ‘cheerful self confidence … is one of the many remarkable things about her.’216 Kildare Dobbs recalled in 1999 that John Gray grew ‘very fond of Adele Wiseman. He used to smile whenever her name came up.’217 He also remembered that Gray felt ‘protective’218 toward Wiseman. In the summer of 1957, for example, when she could not afford to travel from London to Winnipeg to attend the Governor General’s Literary Awards ceremony, Gray arranged to cover the cost of an international flight. He also gave her sound advice on applying to the Canada Council for arts grants. After each kindness, Wiseman wrote to acknowledge Gray’s generosity. In 1967 Gray still hoped that Wiseman, having ‘done at least one book of great promise … might at any time do more.’219 But Wiseman’s career did not unfold as she and her publisher had envisaged. Although the extended essay, Old Markets, New World, had been published by Macmillan in 1964, a second novel, Crackpot, was rejected and issued in 1974 by McClelland and Stewart. Nonetheless, Wiseman’s early promise and buoyant personality had won her the respect and affection of John Gray. He showed support for a number of her projects and assisted her at various points in her career. In fact, Gray’s compassion for his authors was conveyed most powerfully in his correspondence with Wiseman. The force of The Sacrifice remained with Gray and forever shaped his response to its author. Gray’s relationship with Robertson Davies also combined professional and personal concern. In January 1958, when he learned that relations between Davies and Clarke, Irwin had become strained over A Mixture of Frailties, Gray lost no time in approaching the author, with a view to becoming Davies’s publisher in Canada. When the same work made the rounds at Macmillan, it was read with ‘pleasure and curiosity … It is a very long time since we have had any novel in which there was so much general pleasure. Not only do we like it but we think we can sell it, which you will agree is important.’220 By April, negotiations with Willis Kingsley Wing, Davies’s New York literary agent, had led to a publishing contract between Macmillan and Davies. No doubt, Davies appreciated Gray’s initiative and timely action on his behalf. Later, Gray would be especially glad to learn that Davies was ‘get-

The Resplendent Reign 1946–1969

191

ting on with a[nother] novel and that you appear cautiously pleased with it. This really is splendid news.’221 That novel was Fifth Business, the first volume in Davies’s important Deptford trilogy. On 29 October 1970 Fifth Business was launched in grand style at Captain John’s Restaurant in Toronto Harbour, the site where Davies’s Percy Boyd Staunton drowned in his Cadillac convertible. Fifth Business quickly became ‘big business’222 for Macmillan. It remained on the Toronto Daily Star’s national best-sellers list for forty-two weeks and sold 145,800 copies by the end of 1976. Macmillan went on to publish the second and third books in the Deptford trilogy: The Manticore (1972), which won the Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction, and World of Wonders (1975). The affinity between author and publisher grew over time. Davies believed Gray’s interest in his work ‘was everything that an author could dare to hope for’223 and Gray took pride in having published Davies’s landmark fiction. The abiding friendship that developed between John Gray and Hugh MacLennan was founded on similarities. Not only were they the same age, both publisher and author, having ‘seen the same strange times,’224 shared an interest in the history, politics, and culture of Canada and an appreciation for classical literary forms. As MacLennan biographer Elspeth Cameron notes, the two men were ‘sympathetic intellectually and emotionally’ and Gray undoubtedly became MacLennan’s closest personal friend.225 Beginning with a 1948 school edition of Barometer Rising (first published in 1941 by Duell, Sloan and Pearce of New York), MacLennan’s fourth and subsequent books were issued by Macmillan and the novelist soon came to rely on Gray for encouragement and expert editorial advice; he declared Canadian writers ‘fortunate in having you where you are.’226 Gray and MacLennan met in June 1946 at a meeting in Toronto of the Canadian Authors Association, soon after Gray’s return to publishing. They charted their relationship through regular correspondence and periodic visits that ended only with Gray’s death in 1978. Between MacLennan’s winter residence in Montreal, his summer retreat in the Eastern Township village of North Hatley, and Gray’s office in Toronto there was a flurry of lengthy, intimate letters that covered a wide range of subjects, including ‘Canada’s national character,’227 the state of its literature, and the progress and reception of MacLennan’s work. Early on, publisher and author exchanged views on Canadian writing. MacLennan accepted Gray’s notion of Canada as ‘rich, and comparatively unexploited … our chief difficulty lies in making its richness

192

The Macmillan Company of Canada

apparent to outsiders,’ but he added that what was needed to assist the development of Canadian letters were ‘more competent, less provincial reviewers in the journals, and less jealous reviewers in the academic periodicals. Above all, an end to this idiotic bleat about “the great Canadian novel.”’228 Throughout his career, as this comment implies, MacLennan monitored the critical response to his work and was especially sensitive to negative reviews of his books. When Gray read the manuscript of MacLennan’s The Watch that Ends the Night, he was profoundly moved by what he knew to be a largely autobiographical novel. Gray knew that the rheumatic heart condition and recent death of Dorothy Duncan, MacLennan’s first wife, both informed the characterization of Catherine Stewart and had prompted MacLennan’s work. The private launch of the novel on 17 February 1959 – a two-hour lunch ‘of good food and good talk’ held in the boardroom of 70 Bond Street where the ‘atmosphere was very Canadian and relaxed’229 – marked the closeness of Gray and MacLennan and augured the rise of MacLennan’s reputation. In addition to MacLennan and Gray, Macmillan editor Kildare Dobbs and promotion manager Evelyn Weatherill, writers Ralph Allen, Pierre Berton, and Charles Bruce, critics Arnold Edinborough, Robert Fulford, and Laurie McKechnie, and journalists William Arthur Deacon and Ted Pope gathered to celebrate the publication of MacLennan’s novel, ‘the pleasantest literary-social event’ Deacon had yet to attend, where everyone ‘was up to his eyes in books; [and] most were old friends of most of the others.’230 To Deacon, in particular, Gray was a ‘partner’ who proffered ‘vital backing … over a working lifetime.’231 When The Watch that Ends the Night sold 18,000 copies in Canada within the first year and went on to win MacLennan a record fifth Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction, author and publisher enjoyed their mutual triumph as professionals and friends. MacLennan relished the much deserved public recognition and Gray took a publisher’s pride in the author’s achievement. Gray gratefully accepted MacLennan’s success as ample reward for his championing of the work of so many Canadian novelists. Gray understood that the solitary work of writing could weigh heavily on a writer and he recommended ‘casual’232 visits to boost an author’s spirits. When distance prevented the opportunity to visit in person – and most authors did not live in Toronto, the home of Macmillan – Gray’s personal letters could bridge the physical divide between publisher and author. On 8 November 1960, for example, in response

The Resplendent Reign 1946–1969

193

to the positive reception of Scotchman’s Return and Other Essays, Gray wrote to MacLennan in Montreal: ‘I don’t remember having seen so pleasant a group of reviews, warm-hearted, appreciative, indeed exactly in the mood which the book should evoke. It seems to me that this is one of the half recognised rewards for which all artists live and seldom win. For me this has something of the pleasure of sitting in on a kind of ultimate prize-giving.’233 A concern that Macmillan’s authors should receive support and recognition shaped Gray’s professional correspondence. As publisher, he believed that writers ‘need encouragement and appreciation – and more than the rest of us, they deserve it.’234 Gray knew that creative work was arduous and he understood the writer’s personality, masterfully analysed in his published article, ‘Author and Publisher.’ Gray embraced Eayrs’s notion of the authorpublisher partnership, but he often went further in his own efforts to nurture writers. In fact, the joint professional interests of author and publisher appear not to have motivated Gray so much as the pleasure he derived from communing with writers. Hence, as far as Gray was concerned, ‘the best news of 1961’ was that MacLennan had begun ‘a new novel. I can’t fully understand how formidable a step this must be though I have some sense of it, and I hope you are not without some sense of joy as you move into the new problem, however demanding. May it go well – a sentiment that would be echoed by tens of thousands if they knew what you were about.’235 As a writer himself, Gray apprehended the psychology of the novelist. MacLennan’s frank admission – ‘novels originate with me in a certain state of psychic unease akin to an overflow of water in a well. One has to wait for them’236 – would have resonated with Gray, who, at the time, was struggling with his biography of Lord Selkirk. Conscious of the need to bolster a writer’s ‘failing confidence,’237 and despite his claim to the contrary, Gray grasped the significance of MacLennan’s latest venture, which was issued by Macmillan in 1967 as Return of the Sphinx. Moreover, when the novel was damned by Canadian reviewers, Gray sought to protect MacLennan – ‘Don’t let the bastards get you down’238 – and withheld his view that it was a lesser work. Toward the close of Gray’s career, author and publisher took account of their relationship and MacLennan celebrated his fortunate association with the Macmillan Company of Canada: ‘I have found Macmillan helpful in every way any author could desire … without such energies as your firm displayed … my work would [not] have been as available to the Canadian reading public.’239 MacLennan’s personal tribute to

194

The Macmillan Company of Canada

Gray on the occasion of his retirement moved the publisher to express his reciprocal feelings for the author, whose gifts of ‘compassion and courage and insight’240 he treasured. Gray traced his development as a publisher through his career-long association with MacLennan, and together publisher and author looked back in muted wonder at the trials and triumphs of the past.241 Due in part to an explosion in Canadian writing that began in the late 1950s, Gray’s record of publishing the work of lesser known or emerging poets, playwrights, and novelists exceeded that of Eayrs. Poetry by Anne Wilkinson (The Hangman Ties the Holly, 1955), Robert Finch (Dover Beach Revisited and Other Poems, 1961), and Susan Musgrave (Grave-dirt and Selected Strawberries, 1973) appeared on Macmillan’s list, as did prose by Sinclair Ross (The Well, 1958) and Norman Levine (From a Seaside Town, 1970). Gray admired Ross’s skill and offered advice and encouragement to counter the early indifference of critics and readers. F.R. Scott and A.J.M. Smith’s idiosyncratic The Blasted Pine, an anthology of satire, invective, and disrespectful verse by Canadian writers, appeared in 1957. Popular enough to warrant reprinting in 1960, 1962, and 1965, it was revised and enlarged in 1967. Under Gray, Macmillan also issued Governor General’s Literary Award winning works by newer writers: poetry and plays by James Reaney (A Suit of Nettles, 1958; and The Killdeer and Other Plays, 1962), and novels by Colin McDougall (Execution, 1958) and Robert Kroetsch (The Studhorse Man, 1969). The publication in 1958 of a foundational study of Canadian literature edited by Malcolm Ross, The Arts in Canada: A Stock-taking at Mid-century, complemented Gray’s expanding trade list of poetry, drama, and prose. During the heady 1960s, profits from educational publishing were used to underwrite increasingly risky ventures. That several of these publications were subsidized by grants to publishers administered by the Canada Council – as a foreign-owned, Canadian domiciled company, Macmillan was eligible to receive funding from both the Canada Council for the Arts and the Aid to Scholarly Publications Program – indicates the degree to which the Toronto branch was treated as a Canadian operation. Gray’s belief that a ‘book may be less than good and yet full of promise and worth publishing’ led to his decision in 1962 to issue George Elliott’s The Kissing Man, an uneven collection of linked short stories whose magical and haunting setting242 resonates with today’s readers – proving that Gray was the first discerning critic of Elliott’s captivating and highly original treatment of life in small town Ontario. The following year, in the interest of fostering understanding

The Resplendent Reign 1946–1969

195

between English and French Canada, just as the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism began its six-year study of bilingualism in Canada, he issued Dear Enemies: A Dialogue on French and English Canada, jointly written by English-Canadian novelist Gwethalyn Graham and French-Canadian journalist Solange Chaput-Rolland. In both content and form the book was groundbreaking: the frank exchange of personal letters about English-French relations was published in English by Macmillan and in French as Chers ennemis by Montreal’s Les Editions du Jour. Each writer translated the other’s letters. In 1964, Gray boldly launched Jane Rule’s career as a writer and lesbian activist by issuing her controversial first novel, Desert of the Heart, which charts the love affair of two women in Reno, Nevada. Gray’s personal interest in Canada’s past influenced his decision to publish seminal works of biography and history by Donald Creighton, J.M.S. Careless, and Ramsay Cook. In fact, before the rise of scholarly presses in Canada, Macmillan was a proponent of works that successfully straddled specialized and trade markets. Gray advocated publication of Donald Creighton’s landmark biography of John A. Macdonald, for example. He persuaded Daniel Macmillan of the need for ‘a good biography and I believe there is little doubt that Creighton will do such a book … it would be a great pity if we lost this book.’243 Creighton’s two-volume biography of Canada’s first prime minister, John A. Macdonald: The Young Politician (1952) and John A. Macdonald: The Old Chieftain (1955), established its author as a masterful writer and Macmillan as a premier publisher of Canadian biography and history. After both volumes received the Governor General’s Literary Award for nonfiction, William Arthur Deacon wrote to Gray in 1956, ‘Your John A. will sell as long as you live.’244 Creighton was a prolific author, whose other books for Macmillan included Dominion of the North: A History of Canada (1957); The Story of Canada (1959); The Road to Confederation: The Emergence of Canada, 1863–1867 (1964); Canada’s First Century 1867–1967 (1970); and Canada: The Heroic Beginnings (1974). Gray and Creighton developed a warm relationship based on mutual interests and reciprocal respect. Gray was the first to recognize Creighton’s achievement – ‘[He] set a standard that was to lift the quality of Canadian biography and awaken national consciousness’ – while Creighton often expressed appreciation for Gray – ‘[He] has done as much as any person living to encourage Canadian writing and to promote Canadian literature.’245 Another gifted historian was J.M.S. Careless, whose two-volume biography of Toronto newspaper editor George Brown, Brown of The

196

The Macmillan Company of Canada

Globe. Vol. One: The Voice of Upper Canada 1818–1859 (1959) and Brown of The Globe. Vol. Two: Statesman of Confederation 1860–1880 (1963), was issued by Macmillan. The second volume won the Governor General’s Literary Award for non-fiction. Careless echoed Creighton’s assessment of Gray as a ‘publisher, author and historian, concerned with national, provincial and local topics, biography or basic primary documents … [who] has been personally both active and productive in markedly contributing to the cultural development of Canada.’246 Ramsay Cook, who was Gray’s neighbour on Woodlawn Avenue West and whose original works Canada and the French-Canadian Question (1966) and The Maple Leaf Forever: Essays on Nationalism and Politics in Canada (1971) appeared under the Macmillan Company of Canada imprint, similarly described his publisher as having ‘played a long and generous part in the development of this country’s cultural life.’247 Another Macmillan history that received the Governor General’s Literary Award for non-fiction was Frank H. Underhill’s In Search of Canadian Liberalism (1960). The publication in 1968 of Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s Federalism and the French Canadians was in keeping with Macmillan’s practice of issuing work by and about prime ministers – past and future. Two years later, when the University of British Columbia medal for popular biography was awarded to James H. Gray for his autobiographical work, The Boy from Winnipeg, the selection committee took the opportunity to laud the Macmillan Company of Canada ‘for turning out more good biographies, year after year, than any other publisher in Canada.’248 Several years earlier, Harold Macmillan himself had remarked on Gray’s success in the field of biography and had written to congratulate him on the publication of Joseph Schull’s biography of Wilfrid Laurier, Laurier: The First Canadian (1965).249 Gray’s goodwill also extended to writers who were published by other houses. Mordecai Richler’s early work was issued by London’s André Deutsch, but that did not prevent him from forming a friendly association with Gray. Gray was a referee who helped earn Richler a Canada Council junior arts fellowship in 1958 to work on The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. In his letter of reference addressed to the director of the Canada Council for the Arts, Gray described Richler as a serious writer who had been forced to write for television and magazines in order to support his family. In urging the Council to support the ‘young writer … who would derive such profit from your help,’250 Gray affirmed his belief in writers as deserving of governmental recognition and financial support.

The Resplendent Reign 1946–1969

197

To Richler, Gray was ‘one of the most prescient and conscientious’251 of publishers. Author and publisher shared an excellent sense of humour and their laughter resonated across their correspondence. In 1967, when Richler cited a Maclean’s reference to the Macmillan Company of Canada as ‘the conservative British publisher,’ Gray cautioned, ‘Don’t believe everything that is written in Maclean’s … I don’t even believe everything you write in Maclean’s, but I enjoy it.’252 That same year, as editor of Canadian Writing Today (issued by Penguin in 1970), Richler complained to Gray: ‘What a shame there is no pornography in your Canadian catalogue, or am I missing something in not asking for a copy of Louis St Laurent??? I’m hoping mine will be the first filthy Canadian anthology.’253 Gray conceded that Macmillan’s pornography offerings were, indeed, poor: ‘We probably don’t get our share of it among the manuscripts and what we do get is dreary beyond words.’254 Finally, when Gray invited Richler to write a children’s book for Macmillan, Richler responded that he had already promised such a book to Jack McClelland (McClelland had entered his father’s firm in November 1946); moreover, he declared all his novels ‘children’s bks, didnt [sic] you know that? Admittedly Cocksure [1968] is not yet required grade six reading in Ontario schools, but, next year maybe.’255 Gray never denied that publishing was ‘a rough combination of art and business and guesswork’; he also recognized that ‘publishing businesses … swing wildly between the extremes of success and failure … [because they depend] heavily on factors that don’t yield to prediction or precise measurement.’256 Such humility characterized Gray’s approach to books and his relationships with authors. He was loath to exaggerate his successes, since he knew that failure could be lurking between the covers of the next book to be issued by Macmillan. He once admitted, for instance, to being wary of best-selling books that seduce publishers into thinking ‘they’ve found a magic formula for success … [where] there is no formula.’257 While he strove to publish successful works, Gray knew that his discerning sense of a strong manuscript and keen grasp of the literary tastes and cultural milieu of Canada – still developing, ever changing – was all the control he wielded over his trade publishing program. Hence, Gray took particular pleasure in the unpredictable, often rewarding interactions between publisher and author. Morley Callaghan valued Gray’s ‘reliability’ and ‘personal integrity’ and Robertson Davies described his ‘good touch with writers. He was always encouraging without being feverish, helpful without being controlling

198

The Macmillan Company of Canada

… the best type of … publisher – friendly, courteous and businesslike.’258 Whether or not he realized it, Gray’s openness and flexibility – his ‘good touch’ – were key to his general sense of achievement. As he confronted the persistent challenges facing Canadian publishers of his day, he made certain to derive satisfaction in communing with authors. Series Publication John Gray’s impressive trade list was supported by series publication, a notable marketing practice that began in 1911 during Frank Wise’s presidency, continued under Hugh Eayrs, and expanded throughout the twentieth century. The Great Stories of Canada, for example, a semiliterary juvenile series, began in the 1950s. The Laurentian Library was conceived in the 1960s, partly in response to the successful New Canadian Library, a paperback reprint series issued by the rival Toronto firm of McClelland and Stewart, and as an attempt to retain the rights to books by keeping them in print. Like his predecessors, Gray used these series as ‘key publishing strateg[ies]’ intended ‘to influence socialisation and to exert moral and social control … to shape [readers’] values and behaviours.’259 The Great Stories of Canada series was conceived by Gray in 1952 and reflected his long-standing interest in Canadian history. Gray envisaged a succession of trade books that would appeal to readers aged eleven to sixteen and also serve the educational market, ‘a series of junior popularly written accounts of particular events or people of importance in Canadian history.’260 Among Macmillan’s first juvenile series, the books ‘would be first and foremost good stories; secondly, sound and accurate as rigorous research could make them.’261 The first title in the series appeared in 1953 and by 1959 a total of twenty books had been published, endorsed by Robertson Davies as ‘a library of Canadian Stories, written by some of our best authors, which will stand beside anything of its kind in English anywhere. If your children do not know it already, do not stint them any longer.’262 The new series was widely promoted in the national press – in half- and full-page advertisements in newspapers such as the Montreal Star, the Ottawa Journal, the Toronto Globe and Mail, and the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix – in The [Boy] Scout Leader, and on national radio as ‘action-packed, adventurous, true-to-life tales [that] make Canada’s colourful history come to life. The details of the exploits of early explorers, traders and

The Resplendent Reign 1946–1969

199

scouts are faithfully told yet are recounted in a thrilling, easy-to-read style.’263 As editor Kildare Dobbs explained, vigorous advertising helped establish the series ‘in the public mind. Promotion of this sort would, of course, be impossible for individual titles which do not form part of a series. Budgets for such books, with their potential sale of say two or three thousand, are obviously too slender to buy space on this scale.’264 Not surprisingly, given the series’ emphasis on exciting adventure tales, the majority of readers were boys who featured prominently in Macmillan’s advertisements, dressed in jackets and ties and studiously engaged in reading the latest title. Written by well-known, respected authors – Thomas Raddall, Edward McCourt, Roderick Haig-Brown, and Pierre Berton, for example – the Great Stories of Canada found favour with readers and critics alike. In the first five years of the series, three books were awarded the Governor General’s Literary Award in the juvenile category: Marjorie Wilkins Campbell’s The Nor’Westers: The Fight for the Fur Trade (1954), Edgar Allardyce Wood’s The Map-Maker: The Story of David Thompson (1955), and Wood’s The Great Chief: Maskepetoon Warrior of the Crees (1957). Available in Canada, the United States, Britain, and Australia, the volumes sold steadily; by 1960 several titles had sold more than a quarter million copies. The success of the Great Stories of Canada was significant for several reasons. First, the series’ emphasis on important historical figures and events reflected Gray’s commitment to fostering a sense of nationalism. Gray ‘[dis]agreed with those inverted patriots who held with morose pride that Canadian history was dull.’265 He understood that national pride required nurturing and he utilized the vehicle of the juvenile series – at once didactic and entertaining – to promote his view of Canada’s past as exciting and worthy of study. Second, the books broke new ground as a Canadian juvenile series that straddled trade and educational markets. Their success demonstrated the positive effect of strategic promotion and confirmed the value of advertising books as commercial merchandise. Finally, the merit of series publication as a long-term investment was further confirmed as reissues of several volumes in the Great Stories of Canada series sold steadily over twenty years. Riding on the success of the Great Stories of Canada, Macmillan launched another juvenile series, Buckskin Books. In 1962 the company sponsored a contest for the best story based on incidents in Canadian history aimed at readers aged eight to ten. Adelaide Leitch received the

200

The Macmillan Company of Canada

prize of $5,000 for The Great Canoe, published that year by Macmillan alongside two other Buckskin Books, Lorrie McLaughlin’s West to the Cariboo and Beulah Garland Swayze’s Father Gabriel’s Cloak. A total of twelve books appeared in the series, which ceased publication in 1966 and included Andrew Tolliver (1963), Richard B. Wright’s first published work of fiction, a mystery about a small-town robbery. At the time, Wright was an editor at Macmillan and an aspiring writer. Disappointed by the manuscripts he assessed, he submitted his own work under a pseudonym and only disclosed his authorship once it was accepted for publication. A popular and enduring book, it was reissued in 1984 by Nelson under a new title, One John A. Too Many.266 Unfortunately, Gray was less discerning when it came to the paperback revolution. The Laurentian Library, Macmillan’s paperback reprint series, began in September 1967, Canada’s centenary, nine years following the inception of the renowned New Canadian Library issued by McClelland and Stewart. In the early 1950s Malcolm Ross, at the time professor of English at the University of Toronto, met with Gray to discuss the possibility of publishing a paperback reprint series of Canadian literature. Ross argued that nationalist sensibility and the rise of Canadian literature courses in secondary schools and universities across the country was generating a need for inexpensive texts. When the conservative Gray politely declined Ross’s offer to edit such a series for Macmillan – the publisher soon regretted his negative decision – Ross approached Jack McClelland. Unlike Gray, who was preoccupied with rebuilding his company after the difficult war years and wary of the long-term prospects for Canadian literary paperbacks, McClelland accepted the proposal and in 1958 the first four titles in the New Canadian Library were issued under Ross’s general editorship. McClelland, a man of erratic brilliance, was always more willing to take risks than Gray. He encouraged and published the work of noted writers such as Irving Layton, Pierre Berton, Farley Mowat, Peter C. Newman, Mordecai Richler, Margaret Laurence, Leonard Cohen, and Margaret Atwood and was revered by many in the book trade as the symbolic heart of independent Canadian publishing.267 That Ross first sought an affiliation with Gray, however, showed his regard for Macmillan as an autonomous publishing house that might have embraced the national project he envisaged. Disappointingly, the Laurentian Library, Macmillan’s belated attempt at a paperback literary series, never matched the sustained success of McClelland and Stewart’s New Canadian Library, which still retains its hold on the paperback reprint market for Canadian literature.

The Resplendent Reign 1946–1969

201

The Laurentian Library included the work of prominent novelists, among them Ethel Wilson, Morley Callaghan, Hugh MacLennan, Robertson Davies, W.O. Mitchell, Adele Wiseman, and Timothy Findley. Packaged as trade paperbacks aimed at the general reader and suitable for the educational market, Gray sought to retain the rights to books by keeping them in print. A devoted publisher, he also hoped to find ‘a new, wider circle of readers’268 for his loyal authors. After a false start, when Macmillan lost money by redesigning and resetting the first six titles in the series, all subsequent titles were paperback reissues. By 1972 fourteen titles had been published and sales had increased from 9,435 in 1967 to a total of 63,079, further evidence that series publication was a sound, long-term undertaking. But the Laurentian Library could not compete with McClelland and Stewart’s New Canadian Library, its only true rival. Hugh Kane, successor to John Gray, articulated in 1973, ‘Our books are manufactured very cheaply, printed on newsprint, and do not contain any introductions. They are, therefore, not nearly so useful to Can-Lit students. Several people have advised me … to revamp our plans by appointing an acceptable General Editor for Laurentian Library; by including introductions to each new title; and by improving the quality of our product.’269 Although the series expanded to fifty titles and continued until 1979, the Laurentian Library never was ‘revamp[ed]’ and did not go on to achieve significant success. That Gray was late to embrace the paperback cannot be disputed – from our current perspective, his initial reluctance appears overly cautious – but his overall publishing program was instrumental in fostering the Canadian writing that gave rise to highly influential reprint series such as the New Canadian Library and, to a lesser extent, the Laurentian Library. Today, the Laurentian Library remains notable as Macmillan’s quality paperback venture that signalled the vibrant growth of modern Canadian literature. Over the course of the twentieth century, Macmillan’s commitment to series publication across a wide range of genres – including educational, topical, historical, juvenile, and literary series – helped establish a national cultural identity for Canada, separate from Britain and the United States whose books otherwise dominated the classrooms, libraries, and bookstores of the country. In fact, from the outset Macmillan’s series were much more than opportunities for ‘entrepreneurship.’270 Each Macmillan series sought to furnish Canadian readers ‘with a common experience and a standardized piece of work’271 that also reflected

202

The Macmillan Company of Canada

their own cultural values and world view. That those values and world view grew in clarity and scope over the course of the century was due in large part to Macmillan’s visionary publishers and their everincreasing determination to cultivate an identifiably Canadian sensibility through vigorous and diverse series publication. Changing Times In early February 1958, when he was asked by Charles Johnson of Oxford University Press Canada to head Oxford’s operation in New York, John Gray was impelled to take stock of his career as a publisher. At mid-life – Gray was fifty – he came ‘to realize how tight [are] the bonds that bind me – to the staff, to the Macmillans and to this country … Perhaps this means I want to be a big toad in a small puddle – but it isn’t only that … All my interests lead me to enjoy the opportunities of publishing in Canada now frustrating as it is.’272 In fact, Gray’s commitment to the Macmillan Company of Canada, made early in his career, never waned. For better or worse, he devoted himself to Macmillan and the joint cause of Canadian letters and Canadian publishing. The year 1970 marked Gray’s fortieth anniversary with the Macmillan Company of Canada. While the parent company celebrated his ‘marathon of endurance and splendid achievement’ and Gray expressed gratitude to Harold Macmillan for his ‘time in publishing … [and] the personal relationship with you and members of your family,’273 significant changes were already taking place at the Toronto branch. The previous year had brought a change in management to the company. Hugh Kane was hired as president, while Gray became chief executive officer and chairman of the board, still at the helm of the company. Kane was a man of experience and reputation; he had worked for McClelland and Stewart for thirty years and had risen to the position of vice-president. As publishing colleagues, Gray and Kane shared a long and friendly connection. Gray hoped Kane would help him find a suitable successor to run Macmillan. Together, they managed the company for almost four years and, despite financial difficulties that plagued Macmillan and the publishing industry more broadly, Kane believed ‘there was never any basic conflict and I do not think any two people could have worked together with greater compatibility.’274 Despite the high point of Canada’s centenary and an attendant rise in nationalist spirit, the late sixties and early seventies were challenging years for Canadian publishing houses. Following the Second World

The Resplendent Reign 1946–1969

203

War, the market for original domestic books did not increase significantly. Publishers still issued record numbers of Canadian works, in spite of the idiosyncrasies that characterized their industry: in general, the irony of a vast geography coupled with a small domestic market for books; the rising production costs of domestic texts;275 and the consequent need to continue as agents for foreign publishers. The year 1968 saw the elimination of textbook stimulation grants by the Ontario Ministry of Education and the introduction of new, relaxed ‘rules governing the annual list of approved textbooks,’276 all of which gave the province’s teachers more flexibility in their choice of texts. These changes wrought instability among publishers who previously had relied extensively on profits from regular textbook sales to support their various undertakings. Two events of 1970 were even more ominous. On 24 September 1970 Quill and Quire announced the sale of W.J. Gage to the American educational publisher Scott, Foresman, to take effect on 1 January 1971. Gage had its beginnings in the 1840s, was incorporated in 1883, and had become a ‘venerable’277 textbook publisher. During Frank Wise’s presidency, editor John Cameron Saul had left Macmillan to join Gage. If the sale of Gage portended disaster, the sale of Ryerson Press to the American firm McGraw-Hill, a mere two months later on 1 December 1970, devastated the book trade. Ryerson Press, the trade publishing arm of the United Church Publishing House, whose origins could be traced back to 1829 and the founding of the Methodist newspaper the Christian Guardian, was Canada’s oldest publishing company.278 In the wake of both sales, Gray commented wryly in a speech to the Canadian Book Publishers’ Council, ‘If there is a state of crisis in Canadian ownership it has been around for a long time.’279 As if to corroborate Gray’s statement, the following year McClelland and Stewart was effectively saved from bankruptcy through an interest-free loan from the Ontario Development Corporation (in the amount of $961,645).280 A despondent Gray observed in 1971, ‘The present publishing situation in which Canadian books ride on imported books, or schoolbooks, is less than satisfactory, even inhibiting.’281 Gray’s obvious gloom, which did not emerge until the late 1960s, may have been exacerbated by health concerns. In the spring of 1971, he underwent treatment for skin cancer; he was assured, however, that his other skin rashes were of no medical concern. Also in the 1970s, the Macmillan Company of Canada underwent radical changes. On 10 November 1972 it was announced that the

204

The Macmillan Company of Canada

Toronto branch of Macmillan was to be sold by its British owners to Maclean Hunter Limited – where Hugh Eayrs was once assistant editor – for the purchase price of $3,250,000.282 Kildare Dobbs’s article in the Toronto Daily Star announcing the sale was headlined ‘Macmillan Was Canadian Long before It Was Canadian-Owned,’283 an unequivocal lament for the transfer of ownership to a commercial publisher of magazines. Although Gray insisted that the sale promised financial stability and ensured ‘future growth’ of the company, under Maclean Hunter the Macmillan list would include academic, business, and financial works, and fewer literary titles.284 Ironically, the Macmillan Company of Canada, which for so long had functioned autonomously, was finally Canadian-owned, but Canadian ownership would not protect it from future difficulties. Gray claimed surprise that Macmillan and Company had ‘let the Canadian company go so readily’ and was deeply distressed by ‘the whole painful shock and dislocation of the take-over,’285 but he had known for some time that London was evaluating the current state and future viability of the Toronto branch whose profits had been declining for several years. Throughout 1971 Macmillan and Company undertook an examination of the Canadian operation. In the fall, Hugh Kane visited London for face-to-face discussions with his British principals, and director Nicholas Byam Shaw of the parent company made a return visit to Toronto. As London’s intentions became clearer – the British directors decided to seek Canadian investment in the Toronto branch – Harold Macmillan wrote to reassure Gray: ‘It is your own personal prestige which has helped so much to make MCC [i.e., the Macmillan Company of Canada] one of the most respected Canadian publishing houses’; and London colleague Frank Whitehead celebrated ‘the eminent Macmillan tradition you have so carefully built up in Canada.’286 Macmillan and Company was driven by a constellation of factors: a need for working capital to finance new publishing ventures in developing countries; an increase in British taxation; a sharp decline in the Macmillan Company of Canada’s educational publishing, which negatively affected its profits; a steady reduction of Canadian interest in British publications, exacerbated by the ongoing delayed delivery of books from Britain to Canada; competition from American jobbers who penetrated the Canadian market; a rise in booksellers’ returns; a deepening Canadian nationalism and growing inhospitality toward foreign-owned publishing companies; the concomitant

The Resplendent Reign 1946–1969

205

rise of small, independent publishing houses that competed with the Toronto branch; and uncertainty over finding a suitable successor to Gray. When the sale was finalized on 30 March 1973, the break with the Canadian branch was felt by its parent company as ‘something of a wrench.’287 In his understated way, Gray took one last opportunity to thank Harold Macmillan ‘for many years of kindness and real help … It hasn’t always been an easy time, but it has been a happy one.’288 British director Alan Maclean, who had been closely associated with Gray, waited three months ‘for a quieter moment’ to write to his Canadian colleague. Maclean celebrated Gray’s ‘voice of sanity,’ dignity and grace, and added that he was ‘missed by many at this end and particularly by me.’289 Hugh MacLennan felt the depth of Gray’s sadness and wrote to comfort his dear friend: ‘I grieve for what this must mean to you, but I beg you not to think it’s a wiping out of your work. None of us ever achieves his conscious aims … and the best of anyone’s best is seldom realized in his time. You have been the best publisher I ever had dealings with – the wisest, the most compassionate and the most encouraging in time of trouble.’290 John Gray remained chief executive officer of Macmillan until his retirement on 30 March 1973. In light of the pressing problems facing the publishing industry, Gray’s retirement signalled the end of an era for his many colleagues in the English-language book trade centred in Toronto. For Kildare Dobbs, who regarded the publisher as mentor, Gray’s ‘was no ordinary retirement … it could be the end of … committed publishing in which authors and excellence mattered as much as balance sheets.’291 When he learned of Gray’s impending retirement, Jack McClelland wrote immediately to his friend and cohort, who for years had shared the risk of publishing Canadian books: ‘There are only two people in Canada for whom I have ultimate respect in terms of knowledge of book publishing, experience and integrity and judgement. You are one of those two people. The other? Myself of course.’292 McClelland’s humour did little to mask the sense of loss he felt as Gray – sometime rival, long-time friend – prepared to leave publishing. Lovat Dickson, retired since 1964 and living in Toronto, affirmed that Gray had ‘been of great value to the Macmillan business … You really kept it Canadian.’293 Gray’s retirement was much feted. On 30 March 1973, his last day at Macmillan, an in-house party was held in his honour. On 6 April a private retirement party was held at the home of Ruth Godson, Macmillan’s personnel advisor. On 4 May Maclean Hunter hosted a dinner

206

The Macmillan Company of Canada

party in Gray’s honour at the Royal York Hotel, with Hugh Kane as master of ceremonies. Among the guests were many writers who had worked closely with Gray – Morley Callaghan, Hugh MacLennan, Robertson Davies, W.O. Mitchell, Gwendolyn MacEwen, Marjorie Wilkins Campbell, Donald Creighton, and J.M.S. Careless – a sign of their esteem for their publisher. Finally, on 31 May, the Canadian Book Publishers’ Council hosted a reception and buffet supper at member Barney D. Sandwell’s residence in the Caledon Hills. In retirement, Gray himself intended to return to his first love – writing – and he soon began work on his memoirs, which he envisaged as a work in two volumes. Gray was fortunate in his editor at Macmillan. Douglas Gibson, who was hired from Doubleday in March 1974, was much like Gray – a highly intuitive editor who was devoted to the authors he published. In October 1977, when Gibson received the manuscript of Gray’s first volume of memoirs, he read it with the careful attention that later became the hallmark of his distinguished imprint at McClelland and Stewart, Douglas Gibson Books. Gibson admired Gray’s story, told ‘with grace and wit … a rueful honesty and gentle charm,’294 and offered him a royalty advance of $2,000. In revising his manuscript, Gray, like so many of his own authors, heeded his editor’s advice: he omitted several war reminiscences and added literary anecdotes and portraits of authors. All too soon, however, it became known that Gray was dying of cancer and would not live to write the second volume of his memoirs. Gray battled cancer in his final years; he required surgery to remove a cancerous ear and afterward wore a prosthesis. Out of compassion and admiration for the senior bookman, Gibson sought to expedite publication of Fun Tomorrow: Learning to Be a Publisher and Much Else. The book was scheduled for publication in September 1978, but Gray’s condition was deteriorating rapidly. By special arrangement, Hunter, Rose and Company printed the edition – the president of Hunter, Rose was Guy Upjohn, the son of Frank Upjohn, Gray’s one-time co-editor and close colleague at Macmillan – and four specially hand-sewn copies in dust jackets were produced quickly and delivered by Gibson to Gray’s family members, who were keeping vigil at Wellesley Hospital. Robert Fulford, editor of Saturday Night, also managed to send Gray an advance copy of his forthcoming review of the book (published in September 1978). The thoughtfulness of these efforts mirrored the solicitude that characterized Gray’s long career in publishing. Gibson and Gray – in the reversed roles of publisher and author – derived

The Resplendent Reign 1946–1969

207

deep satisfaction from their joint undertaking: Gibson, in seeing the book through the press and delivering it to Gray’s family, and Gray, in being able to admire a copy of his memoir, published just two days before his death on 9 August 1978 at the age of seventy-one. Reviewers of Fun Tomorrow were uniform in their praise for Gray’s ‘self-effacing’295 persona, evocative remembrances, and elegant prose. No doubt, however, Gray, the writer-publisher, would have best appreciated George Parker’s astute observation: ‘Gray has the fiction writer’s talent for succinct characterization and pithy dialogue. Moreover, as we have come to expect from Macmillan, this book is handsomely produced and free from typographical errors.’296 Douglas Gibson once described Canadian publishing as ‘an ethical profession’ and he counted John Gray among the ‘men of honour, who set the standard’297 for that profession. That sentiment was echoed by the many associates, authors, and friends who attended Gray’s funeral and mourned the passing of one of Canada’s most loved and highly respected bookmen. In an obituary published in Ontario History, Lovat Dickson, who had had a hand in Gray’s rise at Macmillan, offered a moving tribute to his colleague and friend: ‘John Gray was never a man to count his own achievements. But to have been a scholar-publisher, to have written two such books as Selkirk and his unfinished autobiography, Fun Tomorrow, while building a great publishing company and sinking himself in other writers’ ambitions and schemes, is surely the mark of something rare enough in the world but even rarer in Canada where in a market so largely supplied by imported books there has been little encouragement for them, a man of letters … the world will never seem so bright again without his companionship.’298 In 1978 Macmillan instituted the annual John Gray Award to honour an employee’s exceptional contribution to the company. Two years after Gray’s death, Ivon Owen, manager of Oxford University Press Canada from 1963 to 1973, with the support of colleagues Lovat Dickson, William French, Jack McClelland, and Frank Upjohn, proposed a study of book publishing in English Canada from 1945 to 1980 to commemorate Macmillan’s fourth president. Owen envisaged his work, in part, as a companion piece to Gray’s published memoir – ‘the missing volume of a bookman’s biography’299 – but funding for the project could not be secured. Regrettably, what would have been a personal tribute to Gray and a public record of the years he spent in publishing was never written. Gray was long remembered, however, for his achievement and grace at the helm of Macmillan. He is still remem-

208

The Macmillan Company of Canada

bered today by eminent members of the publishing world, including Douglas Gibson whose own brand of professionalism and grace recalls that of John Gray, whose writerly gift Gibson admired and whose editorial standards served as his touchstone. In his historical overview of the company, Bruce Whiteman notes that large publishing houses like the Macmillan Company of Canada deserve more credit for ‘fostering the growth of Canadian writing’ in the last century. He is loath, however, to nominate Macmillan ‘for the role of hero.’300 Heroic or not, the commitment of Macmillan to building an indigenous literature for Canada was impressive. As general manager of Macmillan, John Gray built on the earlier efforts of Hugh Eayrs, who established the firm’s reputation for making fine books by and for Canadians. As president, Gray’s assiduous work consolidated the press as Canadian in focus and purpose. Gray’s ingenuity produced a literary culture – many of the books he issued went on to become seminal Canadian texts – a literary aesthetic – those same books helped shape the current understanding of Canadian modernism – and a culture of authorship for Canada – throughout his career, Gray worked diligently to promote the work of Canadian authors and to ensure their livelihoods from writing. That Gray ‘oversaw the most prosperous and successful period’301 in Macmillan’s history was due, in no small part, to his own labour. His enormous contribution to Canadian publishing was Gray’s public legacy. It was also the private inheritance of Hugh Kane, who in 1969 assumed responsibility for Macmillan and, aided by his colleague and peer, vied to steer the company through its most trying years.

5 The Final Reign 1969–1976: Hugh Pyper Kane

Hugh Pyper Kane: A Tough Role in a Tough Time From 1 August 1969 to 27 September 1976 Hugh Kane was associated with the Macmillan Company of Canada, first as president and later as vice-chairman of the board and director of its trade division. An accomplished bookman with thirty-three years’ experience in publishing at McClelland and Stewart, Kane was chair of the Book Publishers Association of Canada from 1962 to 1963, president of the library wholesaler Co-Operative Book Centre of Canada from 1963 to 1966, and president of the Canadian Book Publishers’ Council from 1966 to 1967. For a period in the 1970s, he was honorary president of the Toronto Public Library’s world-famous Osborne Collection of Early Children’s Books. Kane’s tenure as president of Macmillan was not easy, for several reasons. First, between 1969 and 1973 he worked alongside John Gray whose position as chief executive officer and ostensible head of Macmillan eclipsed Kane’s role as president. Second, Kane joined Macmillan when the company was in a period of decline and was struggling with financial difficulties. Despite his success in boosting the company’s economic profile, in March 1973 its British owners sold the Canadian branch to Maclean Hunter Limited. Finally, under Maclean Hunter, Kane’s senior position with Macmillan shifted considerably. By 1976, having been displaced by younger chief executive officers, he returned to McClelland and Stewart. Notwithstanding these challenges, Kane’s presence at Macmillan benefited the ailing company. As a veteran publisher, he worked collegially to enhance Macmillan’s publishing programs and to sustain the company’s position at the forefront of Canadian publishing.

210

The Macmillan Company of Canada

Hugh Pyper Kane was born on 13 September 1911 in Belfast, Northern Ireland, the second of two children – a daughter and a son – of Hugh Smiley Kane, a sea captain, and Alice Harvey Pyper, a lover of poetry. When he was ten, his family immigrated to Canada. To accommodate his father’s work as a ship’s captain, the Kanes settled in Saint John, New Brunswick, and summered in Montreal. In 1928, after graduating from Rothesay Collegiate School near Saint John, Kane accepted a job in Montreal with the Sun Life Assurance Company. His dream to become an actor soon took him to New York where he lived for a year and a half. Under the tutelage of his uncle Whitford Kane, a Shakespearean actor, Kane realized, however, that he ‘would never be anything but a second-rate actor.’1 His elder sister, Alice Kane, became a children’s librarian at the Toronto Public Library and was renowned as an author and storyteller. In 1936 Kane visited Toronto to see young John Gielgud perform as Hamlet. A letter of introduction from children’s librarian Lillian Smith, a family friend, helped secure his first job in publishing as a sales representative with book distributor S.J. Reginald Saunders in Toronto. One year later, Kane joined McClelland and Stewart and worked under founders John McClelland and George Stewart. He rose through the ranks of the company and in 1955 was appointed executive vice-president under Jack McClelland. Kane’s career at McClelland and Stewart spanned more than three decades; together, he and Jack McClelland worked tirelessly to transform the company from an agency operation into an independent and highly regarded trade publisher. During the Second World War, from 1942 to 1946, Kane served overseas in the Royal Canadian Artillery. After the war he returned to Montreal to visit his family; there he ‘rested up a while, then headed back to Toronto and started to pick up the pieces.’2 With his first wife, Dorothy (who died in 1952), Kane had a son, Sean, who went on to become an author and professor of English and Cultural Studies at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario. Kane married Lorna Elizabeth Would in 1955 and they had one daughter, Maire Elizabeth. The family lived at 14 Summerhill Gardens in mid-town Toronto. Kane was a complex, dynamic personality. A ‘gentleman publisher of the old school,’ he was distinguished by ‘a beautiful shock of white hair’ and esteemed by friends and colleagues for his sophistication and ‘demand for excellence.’3 At the same time, he was characterized by ‘outspokenness, a reluctance to suffer fools, and a love of laughter.’4 When, for instance, the din outside Macmillan’s offices at

The Final Reign 1969–1976

211

70 Bond Street grew intolerable, Kane ‘would stick his … head out of the board-room window and bellow red-faced insults’ at the students congregated below from nearby St Michael’s Choir School.5 Kane was known as ‘a wit and a tease, both sensitive and irascible, and at once the elder statesman and the impish schoolboy.’6 His mannerisms included a ‘tuneless whistle and rapid light footsteps down the halls’ of Macmillan; the jingling of pocket change when content; the rapid tapping of an unlit Philip Morris on the side of the cigarette package when perturbed; and a ‘darkening face when angry.’7 Poet Dennis Lee described Kane as ‘a man of stature … [with] a crazy alertness, [and] a love of life.’8 Friends and adversaries alike were rattled by Kane’s mischievous sense of humour. A practical visionary, Kane held his calling in high regard and believed the publisher served a catalytic function: to develop cultural identity by encouraging the work of authors and reaching out to readers. His relative disinterest in the business side of publishing was due to a keen appreciation for the idiosyncratic marriage of art and commerce that characterized much of the book trade and the ‘absurdities’ that resulted when ‘business theory is applied to book publishing.’9 In his view, the successful publisher had ‘business sense and editorial sensitivity, plus a gambling streak. On top of this, he requires a strong acquisitive instinct although that should not be apparent.’10 Unlike John Gray, Kane was not an editor; he liked to joke that he could not distinguish ‘a sonnet from a sonata.’11 Like Gray, however, he was naturally supportive of writers and often sought to raise a writer’s flagging spirits, as he did for Rache Lovat Dickson following Macmillan’s publication in 1973 of Wilderness Man, Dickson’s study of the conservationist Grey Owl. Publication was anticlimactic for Dickson, who had immersed himself fully in the writing of his book and was deeply shaken by his re-evaluation of Grey Owl as Native imposter. Kane recognized the symptoms of postpublication dejection – common among authors – asserted the value and interest of Dickson’s work, and reiterated the importance of their friendship, which he esteemed ‘highly and would not want to lose.’12 Hugh Kane’s decision to leave McClelland and Stewart was a difficult one. His career was linked inextricably with the company and he and Jack McClelland shared a deep connection. Over the years, however, Kane and John Gray had developed a friendship founded on common experience and knowledge of the ‘tough, tough business’13 of Canadian publishing. Both men began their publishing careers in the 1930s; they started as sales representatives, marketing their books across the

212

The Macmillan Company of Canada

country, and rose through the ranks of their respective firms; they took the traditional view of publishing as a noble undertaking; and they served overseas during the Second World War. Often, they consulted one another on publishing issues. Soon after joining Macmillan, Kane described their amiable rivalry: ‘It’s almost unheard of in Canadian business for one company to know as much about other companies as we do in publishing. I’ve admired John Gray and been a friend of his for more years than I can count. We’ve had many good evenings together … and I’ve always admired the performance of Macmillan’s.’14 Nonetheless, Kane claimed to be surprised by Gray’s offer to join Macmillan as president. His later description of accepting Gray’s proposal belied the heart-to-heart discussions that led to his appointment: ‘One day [early in 1969] John Gray, who was about to retire, called me up. He offered me a job. I wasn’t particularly anxious to leave M&S and made no sudden decision, but after a period of six weeks I finally accepted the presidency of Macmillan with John moving up to chairman.’15 In fact, Gray had first approached Kane about joining Macmillan in July 1968. Kane ruminated for ten months, during which time he had several discussions with Gray and McClelland. Eight years away from the usual retirement age of sixty-five, Kane deliberated over three issues: compensation (he was supporting a young wife and four-yearold daughter), job security, and job satisfaction. First, with little savings from his many years in publishing – an industry that chronically underpays its employees – Kane’s desire for remuneration appropriate to his vast experience was sound. Second, comfortable in his long-time position as associate of Jack McClelland, he wanted assurance that, if he were to join Macmillan, he would be given the opportunity to ‘make a major contribution to the continuing development of a well-organized, profitable publishing firm.’16 He worried openly that Gray’s offer did not appear to provide the necessary ‘status’ to enable him ‘to perform effectively.’17 Finally, Kane’s personal situation was further complicated by the fact that he was a shareholder in McClelland and Stewart. After George Stewart’s death in 1955, Jack McClelland had purchased the founding partner’s shares from Stewart’s widow. The following year, he had distributed 24 per cent of the shares to Kane and 19 per cent to fellow director Mark Savage.18 By 1969, however, McClelland and Stewart was in precarious financial health and the value of its shares was undetermined. Kane retained his shares in the hope that the company would rally sufficiently to pay him appropriately upon his retirement. In June 1969, as Kane later recalled, ‘Maurice Macmillan flew across

The Final Reign 1969–1976

213

the north Atlantic to have dinner with me and to offer me the Presidency of Macmillans, returning to London the following afternoon. Seldom has anyone travelled so far to have dinner on the roof of the Park Plaza [Hotel].’19 Macmillan and Kane reached an agreement that satisfied both parties, and on 1 August 1969 Hugh Kane became the fifth president of the Macmillan Company of Canada. His annual salary of $27,000 matched what he had been earning at McClelland and Stewart and compared favourably with Gray’s $32,000 per annum. By 1975 Kane was earning an annual salary of $36,000. Privately, Jack McClelland felt Kane’s departure as ‘a severe loss to the firm … damaging to our agency associations, to our marketing capabilities and to internal morale.’20 Yet, he announced to his staff that ‘we must all take great pride in … [Hugh Kane’s] appointment to one of the most illustrious positions in Canadian publishing and wish him every success in the years ahead.’21 Fourteen years later, McClelland recalled that it ‘was a blow to have him go, but it was definitely a good thing for him at the time.’22 That the association between McClelland and Kane sustained this professional blow testifies to the lasting bond they developed over many years of jointly shepherding McClelland and Stewart through successes and setbacks. Gray’s own announcement was characteristically tactful and comforting, if paternalistic. He welcomed Kane as ‘one of the few people … worthy to be invited’ to join Macmillan in a senior capacity, solicited the same support for Kane that he enjoyed from the staff, and reassured them that this ‘is in no sense a farewell,’ that he expected ‘to be here for some time yet.’23 That Gray did not recommend a successor from within the ranks of Macmillan might seem unusual for so seasoned a bookman. On the surface, it appeared as if he did not have sufficient confidence in any member of his senior staff to lead the company. In fact, for a time he had considered grooming Patrick Meany, manager of the college and medical division, for the position of president. The choice of Hugh Kane left no doubt, however, that Gray had been in search of an excellent candidate. At McClelland and Stewart, Kane had represented Alfred A. Knopf, Grove Press, Little Brown, and Lippincott; he had the requisite experience, ability, and knowledge to assume responsibility for Macmillan’s future. A highly skilled publisher nearing retirement age, Kane was, however, more peer than protégé to Gray. Indeed, in light of his age, the London directors viewed Kane’s appointment as temporary and considered it his primary task to identify an appropriate successor. Gray’s proprietary feelings for Macmillan may have influenced

214

The Macmillan Company of Canada

the selection of Kane, who proved to be both capable and respectful of seniority. Had Gray favoured a younger man, the course of Macmillan may have been steered differently. Following his departure from McClelland and Stewart on 19 June 1969, Kane spent four weeks in the United Kingdom. He met with new associates at 4 Little Essex Street, London (where the publishing side of Macmillan and Company had moved in 1965), and Basingstoke, the site of Macmillan and Company’s warehouse and administrative departments, approximately forty miles southwest of London. Upon his return to Toronto, Kane adapted quickly to ‘the formality and relative stuffiness’ of Macmillan, but was determined ‘to open the windows and let some air in to 70 Bond Street’24 where tea and biscuits were served daily. He made himself accessible and helped ‘with problems at almost any level.’ He also ‘roamed pretty freely’25 through Macmillan’s trade division and brought his wide experience to bear on editorial and marketing issues. In fact, Kane had to ease his way into Macmillan. Initially, Gladys Neale, whose success had been hard-won, felt Kane undervalued her contribution to the company. Similarly, Donald Sutherland, manager of the trade department, believed his position was under threat by Kane’s appointment. Once Kane had established a place for himself in the company, however, both Neale and Sutherland warmed to him. On the other hand, despite their contrasting characters – Gray’s caution versus Kane’s flamboyance – and differing views – Gray disagreed with Kane’s decision to increase the prices of books and to promote the accounting department’s Michael Gyi over the service department’s Jack Keay – the working relationship between Gray and Kane was largely free of conflict. The Ontario Royal Commission on Book Publishing At McClelland and Stewart, Kane had worked diligently to ensure the viability of the company and to counteract Jack McClelland’s extravagance. He brought the same drive and cautious optimism to Macmillan. To reduce unprofitability, for example, he insisted on raising the prices of imported and Canadian books and the result was three break-even years for Macmillan. He continually affirmed the company policy ‘to seek and publish as many good manuscripts as we can find restricted only by the availability of capital for further speculative investment.’26 Kane was cognizant, however, that his ability to act on behalf of Mac-

The Final Reign 1969–1976

215

millan and its authors was limited while John Gray remained chief executive officer of the company, especially since the London directors retained a primary connection with Gray. Throughout 1971, for example, a year of considerable financial uncertainty for the parent company, the London directors corresponded directly with Gray about key matters pertaining to the Canadian branch. Repeatedly, they pressed him to find an appropriate successor to Kane, someone ‘who can perpetuate the eminent Macmillan tradition you have so carefully built up in Canada, but with sufficient flexibility to adapt to what must be changing circumstances.’27 In the spring of 1971, when Gray stepped down as chief executive officer, Kane seized control of Macmillan. Several months earlier, in December 1970, Ontario Premier John Robarts announced a Royal Commission on Book Publishing. The sales of W.J. Gage and Ryerson Press in late 1970 had had a catalyzing effect on publishers, authors, the media, and the public who sought protection against further takeovers and called for a full investigation into the state of Canadian publishing. Moreover, a recent report to the federal Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce by Ernst and Ernst provided much needed statistical analysis of Canada’s book trade and offered several recommendations. Most tellingly, Ernst and Ernst reported that a mere 25 per cent of the $222 million worth of books consumed by Canadians in 1969 had been published in Canada. The Report also emphasized the need to rationalize the publishing industry and improve Canadian access to the American market.28 Chaired by lawyer and author Richard Rohmer, the Ontario Royal Commission on Book Publishing also included Conservative politician Dalton Camp and University of Toronto Press director Marsh Jeanneret. The Commission was asked to profile Canada’s publishing industry, its contribution to the cultural life and education of Canadians, and the impact of foreign-owned publishers on the book trade. Since all of Canada was served by the English-language book publishers based in Toronto, the Royal Commission was presented with 185 briefs and commissioned nineteen background papers that addressed all facets of the industry.29 In 1971, although Gray was chief executive officer with deep, first-hand knowledge of Macmillan, it was Kane who authored the expansive Royal Commission brief in which he publicly assumed responsibility for Macmillan and underscored the company’s immense contribution to Canadian literary culture. Kane’s brief was incisive and articulate; it showed his comprehen-

216

The Macmillan Company of Canada

sive understanding of indigenous publishing practice and elucidated Macmillan’s seminal role throughout the twentieth century in fostering Canadian culture. He wrote with authority, tempered with grace, wisdom, and a sense of nationalistic pride in the cultural work performed by publishers. In his twenty-nine-page overview of the Macmillan Company of Canada, Kane stressed the fact that British ownership had ‘had no limiting effect upon our cultural duty as a Canadian publisher and will have no such effect in the future.’30 He added that Canadian publishing had grown to the point that it accounted for 60 to 65 per cent of Macmillan’s annual business.31 In support of his argument that Macmillan had always seen itself as Canadian and ought to be recognized for its historic contribution to Canadian culture, he cited Hugh Eayrs’s groundbreaking work in the 1920s as publisher of folklorist Marius Barbeau, historian George M. Wrong, poet E.J. Pratt, and novelists Morley Callaghan, Mazo de la Roche, and Frederick Philip Grove, as well as the best-selling novel in translation, Maria Chapdelaine. ‘It is safe to claim,’ Kane asserted, ‘that in this period no publisher in Canada was doing more to begin the definition of Canadian identity.’32 In the post-war period, which brought long-awaited renewal to the Canadian book trade, Macmillan benefited from a rise in educational publishing and used educational profits to fuel its trade program of landmark Canadian titles. Kane cited 1951 as a watershed year that brought Governor General’s Literary Awards to three Macmillan authors: novelist Morley Callaghan for The Loved and the Lost, poet Charles Bruce for The Mulgrave Road, and biographer Josephine Phelan for The Ardent Exile: The Life and Times of Thos. Darcy McGee. The early 1950s also saw the publication of Hugh MacLennan’s novel Each Man’s Son (1951), volume one of Donald Creighton’s biography of John A. Macdonald (1952), and the inaugural volumes in the series Great Stories of Canada (1953) and Pioneer Books (1953). In his 1971 brief to the Commission, Kane admitted that the past two years had been the worst his company had experienced since 1950, and cited several reasons for the decline in business: the effects of deflation; changes to the educational system and the resulting reduction in publishing contracts for educational books; the practice of ‘buying around’; and the rise of photocopying. To mitigate these problems, Kane’s brief to the Commission – conceived in the spirit of cooperation and conciliation – proposed sound solutions. First, he suggested separate school budgets for textbooks, library books, and audio-visual materials as one means of ensuring that Canadian publishers would be contracted to

The Final Reign 1969–1976

217

issue educational texts. Second, school and public libraries should be required, whenever possible, to purchase books from Canadian agents or wholesalers. Finally, government grants in support of publication should be repayable through royalties. Macmillan’s status as a foreign-owned company prompted Kane to append supplementary material to his brief. He sought to counter prevailing prejudice against foreign-owned firms – perceived as lacking allegiance to Canada and having ready access to necessary capital – and to strengthen his position that Macmillan’s diverse publishing programs, which had the full support of its British owners, showed a deep and abiding commitment to Canadian writers and national culture. First, he included an appendix of letters in which prominent authors Donald Creighton, Joseph Schull, Hugh MacLennan, Robertson Davies, and Ramsay Cook testified to Macmillan’s policy of encouraging Canadian writers and affirmed their perception of the company as never ‘anything but Canadian in their operations.’33 Second, in a supplementary submission Kane explained that Macmillan’s Canadian publishing had always been underwritten by company profits, that a significant portion of Macmillan shares were owned by Canadian directors, and that members of foreign-owned companies had been central to the development of Canada’s book trade. Kane urged the Commission to show support for all publishing houses that undertook the risk of Canadian publishing. He also endorsed low interest government loans – if available to both Canadian- and foreign-owned publishing houses – that did not dictate editorial policy. Kane’s frustration with the status quo was made public in March 1971 in a Time article on the ‘perils of Canadian publishing’: ‘because 51% of our common stock is not held in Canada, we are now being categorized as the bad boys. The degree of interference from London amounts to attendance by one London shareholder at our annual meeting and London has absolutely no editorial influence.’34 The Commission did not heed Kane’s argument that Macmillan, as a foreign-owned subsidiary dedicated to original domestic publishing, merited the same economic and cultural advantages accorded Canadian-owned publishing companies. Its final report of 1973, Canadian Publishers and Canadian Publishing, recommended loan guarantee and interest subsidy programs for Canadian-owned companies only. Such a program of loan guarantees, which narrowly defined a Canadian book by the citizenship of its author, was soon implemented for Ontario book publishers and administered by the Ontario Development Corporation.35 Some members of the book trade

218

The Macmillan Company of Canada

were troubled by the ‘parochial and myopic character’ of the new program, which was driven by ‘national panic over foreign ownership.’36 Wallace Matheson, president of Prentice-Hall, for example, acknowledged that several foreign-owned companies had ‘pursued publishing programs far more extensive than many Canadian-owned firms.’37 The Commission’s favouring of Canadian- over foreign-owned firms was deeply disappointing to Kane, whose one solace was the certainty that he had argued cogently for Macmillan’s indisputable commitment to Canadian literary culture. Hugh Kane and the Diefenbaker Kane’s adroitness, evident in his elegant brief to the Ontario Royal Commission, served him well in the volatile world of book publishing where publishers, editors, literary agents, authors, and granting agencies often clashed. A solicitous publisher, Kane actively pursued interesting writers, both new and established, who might bring exciting work to Macmillan. His several attempts to build Macmillan’s list, which he initiated soon after joining the company, were significant. Kane’s acquisitive nature and keen interest in politics resulted in two landmark publications for Macmillan. In the early 1970s, he approached Joey Smallwood in the hope of encouraging the founding premier of Newfoundland to write his memoirs. In 1973, Macmillan successfully published I Chose Canada: The Memoirs of the Honourable Joseph R. ‘Joey’ Smallwood, an imposing volume of six hundred pages. Smallwood was an easy victory for Kane. A far greater challenge – and certainly among his greatest achievements at Macmillan – was securing a contract to publish former Prime Minister John George Diefenbaker’s controversial, voluminous, and best-selling memoirs. The protracted, at times sordid, history of the collaborative composition of the first two of three volumes of Diefenbaker’s memoirs is captured by Christina McCall Newman in a 1976 Saturday Night article hyperbolically titled ‘How John Diefenbaker Confounded His Collaborators, Terrorized His Publishers, and Finessed a Big Best-Seller,’ the source of several details cited below. Key aspects of that history pertain specifically to Kane’s personal connection to Diefenbaker and successful acquisition of Diefenbaker’s memoirs for Macmillan. When he joined the company in 1969, Kane felt ‘under personal pressure to bring in an important author to fatten Macmillan’s list.’38 By soliciting Diefenbaker’s memoirs – it took five years for Diefenbaker to commit to the project – Kane likely was seeking to consolidate his

The Final Reign 1969–1976

219

position as president of Macmillan. When he approached Diefenbaker in 1969, however, Kane could not have anticipated the difficulties that would ensue. To sway Diefenbaker, Kane visited him several times in Ottawa, both at his office and at his Rockcliffe home. At Kane’s suggestion, Gray also encouraged Diefenbaker to record his remembrances and Harold Macmillan himself wrote twice from London urging Diefenbaker to publish his memoirs with the Canadian branch. Although he was receptive to Kane’s overtures – Diefenbaker received a total of thirty-two offers from publishers who wanted to issue his memoirs – he would not commit himself to Macmillan by signing a contract. Through further discussions with Olive Diefenbaker, who admired Macmillan and understood ‘her husband’s absurdity while loving and respecting him,’39 Kane hoped to secure a signed contract. In 1972, as enticement and evidence of its commitment to the larger project of his memoirs, Macmillan issued Those Things We Treasure, a selection of Diefenbaker’s speeches edited by Burt Richardson. As Kane later admitted, had he not been anxious to publish Diefenbaker’s memoirs, he would not ‘have bothered’40 issuing the volume of speeches. Kane’s effort did not reap the anticipated result of a signed contract, but two years later he devised a scheme that finally brought Macmillan the coveted memoirs. Arguing that he would be unable to freely criticize the Canada Council for the Arts in the House of Commons, Diefenbaker had been reluctant to accept Council funding toward research and editorial assistance necessary to write his memoirs.41 In response, Kane approached John Archer, a friend of Diefenbaker who at the time was president of the University of Regina. Archer agreed to sponsor the project and administer the $49,100 Canada Council funds through the University of Regina. Historian John Munro, who recently had been engaged by the CBC to conduct television interviews with Diefenbaker, was hired as collaborator. Thus, on 19 November 1974, five years after Kane had broached the matter, Diefenbaker signed a publishing contract with Macmillan for his memoirs. As Kane admitted with characteristic humility, ‘For me the challenge provides the incentive. I … could not, have worked any harder … to bring in the Diefenbaker if I had been offered a $10,000. prize for doing so.’42 It was Diefenbaker himself who received the handsome prize: a royalty advance of $100,000, in 1974 ‘the largest such sum ever paid in Canada.’43 No doubt, the wily Diefenbaker had foreseen that indecision and delay would yield a significant advance. Originally, volume one of Diefenbaker’s memoirs was scheduled for

220

The Macmillan Company of Canada

publication on 18 September 1975, the former prime minister’s eightieth birthday. Unwilling to admit, however, that he did not want publication to coincide with his birthday, Diefenbaker tactically delayed reading the page proofs. Once again, Diefenbaker’s procrastination had its desired effect. Macmillan was forced to produce the volume in nineteen working days to meet its revised publication date of 20 October 1975. In 1975, however, Kane was director of trade and no longer president, having been displaced by George Gilmour of Maclean Hunter, which two years earlier had purchased Macmillan from the parent company in London. Kane took pride in Macmillan’s publication of volume one of Diefenbaker’s memoirs, but from a reduced position. Moreover, volumes two and three of the memoirs appeared in 1976 and 1977 respectively, after Kane had left Macmillan to head McClelland and Stewart’s direct-mail subsidiary, Natural Science of Canada. Kane refused to comment publicly on his experience as Diefenbaker’s publisher. Nevertheless, in 1976, his exasperation – contained for so long – was finally expressed as relief: ‘I’m not connected with Macmillan anymore, and I have the luxury of not giving a damn [about Diefenbaker’s memoirs].’44 Despite his open frustration, Kane must be credited with securing ‘the Diefenbaker’45 for Macmillan. Volume one was on the best-sellers lists for six months, sold 67,000 copies in that period, and earned the company profits it ‘hadn’t dared even contemplate.’46 That each of the three volumes became an unprecedented source of revenue and prestige for Macmillan was due to the vision and perseverance of Hugh Kane who, in 1969, determined to bring an important author to the company, evidence of the excitement and promise he felt as the Macmillan Company of Canada’s newly appointed fifth president. Hugh Kane and Dennis Lee Like his connection to Diefenbaker, Hugh Kane’s relationship with Dennis Lee began on a fractious note, although it later shifted to mutual regard. In November 1969, soon after joining Macmillan, Kane learned that Dennis Lee was having difficulty managing House of Anansi Press and began investigating the possibility of acquiring Anansi for Macmillan. Primarily, Kane was interested in securing the services of Lee, whose expertise as an editor was legendary. Kane admired Lee’s editorial judgment and ability to attract new writers. If Lee were to join Macmillan, Kane envisaged the infusion of new blood to the company’s

The Final Reign 1969–1976

221

roster of writers. Having spent many years at McClelland and Stewart, where new writers were welcomed and experimentation sometimes encouraged, Kane felt that Macmillan’s list lacked vitality. His aim in approaching Lee was to add renewed lustre to the Macmillan imprint. The self-conscious nationalism of Canada’s centenary gave rise to House of Anansi Press. In 1967 Dennis Lee and fellow writer Dave Godfrey had co-founded House of Anansi, a small, independent press located in the basement of Dave and Ellen Godfrey’s rented Victorian brick house at 671 Spadina Avenue, next door to a funeral chapel, in downtown Toronto.47 Enraged by the lack of publishing opportunities for Canadian writers, Godfrey envisaged the press as ‘an agent for change.’48 By issuing the work of emerging writers, he and Lee sought to foster ‘a sense of [cultural] identity that would develop “naturally,” or at least spontaneously, by Canadians telling their own stories to other Canadians.’49 In the post-centennial period, Anansi became an important publisher of first fiction and was instrumental in helping to define a Canadian literary identity. Known for its bohemian, if not chaotic, administration and respected for its avant-garde list, Anansi published prose by Dave Godfrey (Death Goes Better with Coca-Cola, 1967), Matt Cohen (Korsoniloff, 1969), Graeme Gibson (Five Legs, 1969), and Marian Engel (The Honeymoon Festival, 1970); poetry by Dennis Lee (Civil Elegies, 1968) and Michael Ondaatje (The Collected Works of Billy the Kid: Left Handed Poems, 1970); and criticism by Margaret Atwood (Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature, 1972). At the outset, Kane solicited a report on House of Anansi from his son, Sean. Sean Kane knew Shirley and Graeme Gibson; the Gibsons were affiliated with Anansi, Shirley as administrator and publicist and Graeme as author. After discussions with the Gibsons, Sean presented his father with a cogent assessment dated 24/25 November 1969 that described Anansi’s culture, its ownership and financial situation, employees, and authors. Sean described House of Anansi’s ‘philosophy’ as ‘intensely Canadian. Its nationalism is cultural rather than political’; moreover, those connected to Anansi believed there was ‘a revolution in writing … which they are in the best position of any to see and publish.’50 Anansi’s staff included publishers Dennis Lee and Dave Godfrey (neither of whom drew a salary from the press); administrator and publicist Shirley Gibson (who earned a weekly salary of $75.00), volunteer Ann Wall, a part-time secretary (whose weekly salary was $40.00); and Bruce Lewis, who looked after book production and was paid $40.00 per week. According to Shirley Gibson, Anansi’s

222

The Macmillan Company of Canada

finances stood at $11,000 in accounts payable and $12,000 in accounts receivable, a typical balance for the press. In 1969, Anansi authors included George Grant, Graeme Gibson, George Jonas, Margaret Atwood, and Russell Marois. More important, Sean Kane reported that Dennis Lee was not averse to the possibility of Anansi aligning with another Canadian publisher. Co-founder Dave Godfrey had decided to leave Anansi to establish New Press along with colleagues James Bacque and Roy MacSkimming. Tired of coping with the significant demands of Anansi and the financial insecurity attendant with running a small, independent press, Lee sought to affiliate with a larger, stable publishing house that would grant him the freedom ‘to operate in his own confused, creative way.’51 Sean further emphasized that any overture to Anansi must respect its house ‘spirit of insecurity, of making a success against Great Odds and Established Powers.’52 Sean Kane’s report confirmed the potential value to Macmillan of House of Anansi’s prestigious list of avant-garde fiction and poetry and its publisher/editor Dennis Lee. After discussions with Lee and his staff and careful consideration of Anansi’s financial situation, Hugh Kane and John Gray tendered a proposal that was doomed to fail. Lee was offered $8,000 per annum for his editorial services, along with the right to issue controversial books out of that salary; he was asked to serve on Macmillan’s editorial board; Shirley Gibson was offered $4,000 per annum for her editorial services; and a purchase price of one dollar was offered for Anansi’s authors’ contracts and reprint rights. Not surprisingly, Lee’s response was swift and searing. Insulted by a proposal which, in his view, entirely devalued Anansi’s assets, misunderstood the press’s culture, editorial practices, and commitment of its staff, Lee refused to be made ‘into a tame retainer,’53 declared his time wasted over several months, and attacked Kane for being disingenuous in their discussions. Lee concluded that ‘Macmillan needs Anansi more than Anansi needs Macmillan.’54 In a calm and reasoned letter, Kane affirmed his respect for Anansi and sought to assuage Lee’s hurt feelings: ‘I am sorry that you feel that I have wasted your time. I am even sorrier that we shall not be working together because I had been looking forward to that.’55 Kane admitted to having ‘had little confidence’56 in Macmillan’s proposal to Lee, but he had hoped to receive a counter-offer. What he had not anticipated was the ‘vehemence and fury’57 of Lee’s reply, which served effectively to end all negotiations and the prospect of

The Final Reign 1969–1976

223

an alliance between Macmillan and Anansi. Regrettably, Macmillan’s unsatisfactory bid was shaped by an unprofitable year in 1969 and uncertain prospects for 1970. Had the company been in a stronger financial position and willing to take the risk of acquiring Anansi – a press whose innovative culture and unregulated practices were profoundly different from the more conservative atmosphere and business approach of Macmillan – negotiations between Lee and Kane might have ended differently. Eventually, however, a remarkable turn of events led Dennis Lee to Macmillan, where he would serve as editorial consultant and develop a warm friendship with Hugh Kane. In 1972 Lee left House of Anansi Press to devote himself to writing. One year later, in October 1973, Kane wrote to principal W.M. Sinclair seeking permission for Lee to read a selection from his children’s poems to students at Toronto’s Deer Park School. The Deer Park School students later participated in a videotaping of Lee reading his verse in a north Toronto television studio. Kane, who was a neighbour to Lee, was the first person to read the manuscripts of what would become Alligator Pie and Nicholas Knock and Other People (which is dedicated to Hugh Kane), Lee’s renowned volumes of children’s poems. By 1973, at Kane’s insistence, Macmillan had contracted to publish both books. Kane recognized the potential for Lee’s poetry to capture the imaginations of children. Moreover, in 1974, also on Kane’s advice, Lee was hired as editorial advisor to Macmillan, with an annual retainer of $1,500, plus $100 per 1,000 copies of any book published on his recommendation. Lee served as editorial consultant until 1979 and supplemented his income by suggesting book projects and canvassing potential authors. No doubt, Kane rejoiced in this double coup of having secured Lee as author and editorial advisor for Macmillan. Among the prose writers Lee brought to Macmillan were Trevor Ferguson (High Water Chants, 1977), Jack Hodgins (Spit Delaney’s Island, 1976; The Invention of the World, 1977; The Resurrection of Joseph Bourne, or a Word or Two on those Port Annie Miracles, 1979; and The Barclay Family Theatre, 1981), Oonah McFee (Sandbars, 1977), and Ian McLachlan (The Seventh Hexagram, 1976). Kane took a significant risk in publishing Lee’s poetry, and an even greater risk in issuing two volumes in a single year. In promoting children’s verse, Kane broke new ground; as reviewer Caroline Carver noted in October 1974, poetry for children did ‘not prosper well in Canada.’58 Kane appreciated the Victorian nonsense verse tradition of

224

The Macmillan Company of Canada

Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear – whose poems he quoted freely and spontaneously – that informed Lee’s poetry, and felt certain that Alligator Pie was destined to ‘become a Canadian children’s classic of the stature of [A.A. Milne’s] When We Were Very Young.’59 Alligator Pie was published on 27 September 1974 and sold for $5.95; in January 1975 the price was increased to $6.95. Promotion of the book was at once successful and economical. Within fifteen months 137,000 copies had sold in Canada and 10,000 copies were sold to Houghton Mifflin for the American market.60 By its fifth printing in February 1976, Macmillan had issued a total of 67,765 copies of Alligator Pie, and by 1979, 100,000 copies had been sold. In 1974 Alligator Pie received the Canadian Association of Children’s Librarians’ Book of the Year for Children Award; two years later it was chosen for the Hans Christian Andersen Honour List. Kane’s prescience was proven by the unprecedented and enduring success of Lee’s poetry for children; as Lee himself acknowledged, the triumph of Alligator Pie and Nicholas Knock and Other People ‘vindicated the sizable risks’61 Kane took in issuing the two books. Lee shared his success with illustrator Frank Newfeld, ‘the first notable postwar book designer in Toronto.’62 In his position as vice-president of publishing at McClelland and Stewart, Newfeld worked closely with Hugh Kane. Newfeld respected Kane, who ‘was confident in both his opinion and position … [and] seldom voiced a criticism that lacked merit.’63 They developed ‘a trusting relationship, both combative and pleasurable, that lasted for over twenty years.’64 In sharp contrast, the connection between Frank Newfeld and Dennis Lee was generally ‘combative’ and rarely ‘pleasurable.’ Kane brought Lee and Newfeld together in a union that, from the start, was marked by friction and mistrust. In fact, negotiating the division of royalties between the poet and illustrator was a delicate process akin to the Camp David Accords.65 Lee believed he was entitled to a larger share of the royalties and asked for an 80/20 per cent split. Kane disagreed and proposed the following solution that satisfied both parties: a 70/30 per cent split for the first printing of 7,500 copies; a 75/25 per cent split thereafter; and a $4,000 design fee per book, payable to Newfeld. Newfeld, who had little taste for ‘all the haggling and the hassles,’66 agreed to design Alligator Pie and Nicholas Knock and Other People and provide thirty-four full-colour and forty-five single or two-colour illustrations for the two texts, as well as full-colour artwork for the two covers. Moreover, as a cost-saving measure, he undertook to pre-separate each illustration by completing four drawings, one for each colour. The illustrations were unlike anything Newfeld had done before and

The Final Reign 1969–1976

225

‘gave a rather pleasing result.’67 Lee, however, was less enthusiastic about Newfeld’s drawings. Ironically, the discord between Lee and Newfeld mounted with the incremental success of Alligator Pie and Nicholas Knock and Other People. As Lee’s proprietary attachment to his poems intensified, so did the tension between poet and illustrator. Newfeld admitted that he and Lee ‘never did work well together.’68 Newfeld believed their ‘philosophies regarding the role played by the illustration were miles apart. Dennis felt that the illustrator’s only function was to describe the poet’s invention – to translate it, exactly, into the visual realm. Whereas I argued that the role of the illustration … was to challenge the child to take the poet’s flight of fancy and use it as a springboard for his/her own invention.’69 A further disparity in royalty payments resulted from reproductions. Newfeld received 10 per cent of the fee for a poem reissued without an illustration, while Lee received 33 per cent of the fee for an illustration reproduced without a poem.70 Lee grew increasingly frustrated by the need to share royalties; Newfeld felt the division of royalties was inequitable. Although he agreed to illustrate Garbage Delight, which was issued by Macmillan in 1977 and received the Ruth Schwartz Award, and the Alligator Pie Calendars of 1979 and 1980, Newfeld declined the lucrative offer to illustrate Lee’s Jelly Belly, published by Macmillan in 1983. Despite the heady success he had achieved as illustrator of Alligator Pie, Nicholas Knock and Other People, and Garbage Delight, the years of strained relations had taken their toll and Newfeld finally severed his professional association with Lee and the Macmillan Company of Canada. Despite ongoing conflict between Dennis Lee and Frank Newfeld, the publication of Alligator Pie was one of the crowning achievements of Kane’s career. Editor Douglas Gibson credits Kane with initiating the rise of Canadian children’s publishing. For Gibson, Kane was a true pioneer who in 1974 took the unlikely chance of publishing Alligator Pie. Not only did his ‘hugely expensive gamble’ pay off, it ‘changed Canadian publishing history.’71 Lee’s own gratitude confirmed Kane’s impact on his literary career. In a letter to George Gilmour, dated 21 December 1974 following the purchase of Macmillan by Maclean Hunter, Lee lauded Kane’s ‘extraordinary gifts as a publisher. He has achieved many tactical feats of organisation and diplomacy … but the thing I’d single out most is his initial perception – that the manuscript I showed him [i.e., Alligator Pie] could and would become the sort of childhood institution we’re … watching it grow into. So I count myself lucky that Alligator Pie and Nicholas Knock came

226

The Macmillan Company of Canada

to Macmillan when they did … Macmillan has achieved the essentials of publishing the books with a really remarkable flair and effectiveness … I am extremely happy about that.’72 Despite their initial disagreement over Macmillan’s offer to acquire House of Anansi Press, Lee and Kane went on to develop a close and lasting connection. For Lee, Kane became a much-admired ‘mensch,’ while Kane’s opinion of Lee remained constant, even in the heat of their early altercation: ‘Apart from being one of our most gifted poets, Dennis [Lee] is also the best poetry and fiction editor in Canada.’73 The depth of their friendship was best reflected, however, in Kane’s playful admission to Lee in 1980: ‘With the exception of my beloved wife you are my principal source of comfort.’74 Maclean Hunter Acquires Macmillan Unfortunately, Kane’s tenure as president of the Macmillan Company of Canada was short-lived. As John Gray approached retirement and neither he nor Kane could identify an appropriate successor, either from within or outside Macmillan, the parent company’s concern for the future of its Canadian branch intensified. Kane had succeeded in achieving financial equilibrium for Macmillan, largely by carefully monitoring publishing decisions, raising book prices, and reducing overhead expenditures, but the London directors worried that a growing cultural nationalism, which favoured Canadian- over foreignowned publishing companies, would soon erode their Toronto-based business. Further, as a result of recent changes to the educational system in Ontario, Macmillan received far fewer contracts to publish textbooks, formerly the source of substantial revenue. In mid-May 1970, nearly one year into Kane’s term as president, managing director Frank Whitehead visited Toronto. In meetings with Gray and Kane, he emphasized the issue of succession, a matter of paramount concern to London. In his report on the visit, Whitehead assessed Kane’s appointment ‘as a limited success … clearly [J]ohn [M]organ [G]ray] remains fully in charge, and has delegated little to H[ugh] K[ane], but discusses matters with him sufficiently for … [Kane] to be well-informed.’75 Although Whitehead conceded that Kane had the ‘knowledge and authority to take over,’ he concluded that Kane had ‘less drive and … less ability than I had supposed.’76 Despite their best efforts, Gray and Kane were unable to resolve ‘the most important future management problem.’77 Together, they devel-

The Final Reign 1969–1976

227

oped a list of fifteen candidates – they even interviewed Ron Besse, who in 1980 would become Macmillan’s third and final owner – but no individual stood out as suitable. Between 30 May and 4 June 1971, Whitehead again visited Toronto, where he attended a hearing of the Ontario Royal Commission on Book Publishing and heard first-hand the expressed preference for Canadian-owned publishing companies over foreign-owned subsidiaries committed to original domestic publishing. Upon his return to Little Essex Street, Whitehead’s findings gave rise to increased concern for the Canadian branch. Troubled by the nationalist sensibility that informed the proceedings of the Royal Commission – they were convinced that heightened nationalism made it unlikely that the foreign-owned Toronto firm would ever again become profitable – and in need of capital to invest in branches in developing countries, including South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda, the London directors prepared seriously to invite Canadian investment in their Toronto branch or divest themselves of the Macmillan Company of Canada. At their request, Gray let it be known that the Toronto branch was seeking Canadian capital and might be available for purchase. McClelland and Stewart, where Hugh Kane had spent most of his publishing career, presented an offer to purchase Macmillan. Jack McClelland hoped to acquire Macmillan’s educational and trade lists, and together McClelland and Kane wanted desperately to prevent the sale of the company to another firm. They envisaged a merger of McClelland and Stewart and the Macmillan Company of Canada as one strong Canadian publishing company. But McClelland and Stewart was itself in precarious financial health and could not arrange the financing necessary to purchase Macmillan. Instead, it sought to finance the deal ‘by making a public offering of shares in the merged company,’78 a proposal that was unsatisfactory to Macmillan and Company. A second bid from the communications conglomerate Maclean Hunter Limited, home to Chatelaine, the Financial Post, and Maclean’s, was welcomed by the London office. On 19 October 1972 Maclean Hunter offered to purchase the Macmillan Company of Canada for $3,250,000. Twelve days later, the proposal was accepted by the parent company and the acquisition took effect on 30 March 1973. Although it published illustrated books, a number of school books, and held a 40 per cent interest in New Press, to members of the book trade Maclean Hunter’s interest in Macmillan seemed at odds with its corporate character. Soon after the takeover, however, Maclean Hunter announced its intention to remain true to Macmillan’s house identity as a publisher of consequen-

228

The Macmillan Company of Canada

tial books ‘whose sales might not necessarily be high’79 and its editorial practice of encouraging new authors. Maclean Hunter further claimed that Macmillan would reap the advantages of Canadian ownership and benefit from its financial stability and managerial expertise, its willingness to modernize operations, and its learning materials division.80 This lofty pronouncement reflected Maclean Hunter’s hope for its newest, prestigious acquisition. Publicly, Macmillan and Company justified its decision to sell the Canadian branch: ‘The eventual need to take in Canadian capital had been realized for some years, and a growing sense of national aspiration in Canada resulted in a Royal Commission on Book Publishing in Ontario, which contributed to the decision that the time had come to transfer this company to full Canadian control … there is some natural sadness at parting with a company that has [so long] been part of the Macmillan group.’81 Indeed, the sale was a sombre event, as John Gray revealed in a measured news release, cited in Quill and Quire in November 1972: ‘Though I am sorry to see this break in our long membership in one of the great publishing houses … I believe the change will ensure the future growth and stability of Macmillan Canada. We are becoming part of a truly Canadian company with a solid reputation in Canadian publishing fields and with great resources, including management skills, from which this company and its authors will now benefit.’82 It is telling that Gray, rather than Kane, announced the momentous sale of the Macmillan Company of Canada to Maclean Hunter. The circumstances seemed to call for Gray, whose historical affiliation with the company trumped Kane’s brief tenure as president. Gray was, however, personally indebted to Kane for having shared the burden of shepherding Macmillan through its difficult final years under the parent company. When Gray retired, he wrote openly to his colleague: ‘Let me just say that I admired and was grateful for the way you handled a tough role in a tough time; and how much you eased and sweetened my departure’83 from Macmillan. John Gray, whose confidence had been shaken in recent years, grieved the sale of Macmillan. He had joined the firm as a young man of vision and energy, had matured along with the company, and was largely responsible for its status as a landmark Canadian publishing house. But Gray’s future was not in question. He would remain a member of Macmillan’s board of directors, enter retirement, and finally have time to write his memoirs.

The Final Reign 1969–1976

229

Kane’s future was less certain. Following the sale of the company, he candidly admitted to Frank Whitehead that ‘the past four years … did not turn out exactly as we had hoped they would at the beginning.’84 Kane’s understatement belied his profound disappointment at this turn in his career. One year earlier, when Gray had stepped down as chief executive officer, Kane had assumed control of Macmillan, only to have his term as president foreshortened by the unanticipated sale of the company. When George Gilmour of Maclean Hunter – Gilmour had enthusiastically endorsed the purchase of the renowned publishing house as a prestige venture – assumed the presidency of Macmillan, Kane conceded that it was ‘impossible, to develop any clear picture of my future in the reorganized company.’85 That Gilmour had no experience as a book publisher, that Gilmour’s introductory letter to Macmillan staff declared it ‘a privilege to follow in the footsteps of … John Gray’86 and elided Kane’s contribution as the company’s most recent president, and that stress had exacerbated his duodenal ulcer gave Kane additional cause for concern. That spring, he underwent corrective surgery and returned to a new position at Macmillan under Maclean Hunter. Initially, Gilmour had not intended to retain Kane. Notwithstanding, Kane was made vice-chairman, pleased to be placed in charge of Macmillan’s trade division – he was appointed director of trade on 1 January 1975 – responsible primarily for publishing and marketing specific authors, including novelists Hugh MacLennan, Robertson Davies, W.O. Mitchell, Oonah McFee, and Pauline Gedge; memoirists John Diefenbaker, James Minifie, and Joey Smallwood; biographers Lovat Dickson and Joseph Schull; and diarist Charles Ritchie. Kane respected his new colleagues at Maclean Hunter; for the next three years, as with John Gray, he enjoyed a congenial working relationship with George Gilmour. Kane’s knowledge and vast experience helped ease Gilmour’s awkward transition from the scrappy milieu of magazine publishing to the more refined world of book publishing. Moreover, since Gilmour divided his time between Maclean Hunter and Macmillan, he relied heavily on Kane’s expertise. George Gilmour was born in 1918 in Glasgow, Scotland, and immigrated to Canada at an early age. He joined Maclean Hunter in 1939 as a copy writer and layout designer, and rose through the ranks of the company to become vice-president of its business publications division in 1963. During the Second World War, from 1941 to 1945, Gilmour served with the Canadian Navy.

230

The Macmillan Company of Canada

Together, Gilmour and Kane struggled to sustain Macmillan during a period of marked increases in the cost of labour and shortages of materials. In 1974, for example, a dearth of paper plagued Canadian publishers. In a brief to Industry, Trade and Commerce Minister Alastair Gillespie, the Independent Publishers’ Association reported that Canadian producers were exporting supply to the United States, where the price of paper had been frozen. To make a profit, American producers were selling paper to Europe and Japan and were purchasing further quantities from Canada. As a result, Canadian publishers were left scrambling for sufficient paper – the price of which rose precipitously – to support their own publishing programs. Such external pressures, combined with the constraints of his reduced position, contributed to Kane’s growing dissatisfaction at Macmillan. In 1983 Kane admitted that George Gilmour ‘did his best not to make it too obvious that I was no longer making the decisions, but the whole thing bothered me.’87 Despite career vagaries, Kane had enough vanity as he neared retirement age to assert, ‘with the exception of Jack McClelland, I am the best book publisher in Canada today.’88 For personal and economic reasons, Kane intended to continue working past the age of sixty-five. He was loath to abandon absorbing work and sought to secure his retirement years by earning further income. When McClelland invited him to rejoin his firm as president of the subsidiary Natural Science of Canada, Kane considered the proposal. In fact, he would have preferred to remain with Macmillan as director of trade, but Gilmour’s counter offer of $15,000 per year (plus a 1 per cent royalty on books edited by Kane), with a guaranteed salary for five years (from $25,000 in 1977 to $16,000 in 1981) did not match the annual salary of $35,000 that Kane was promised at McClelland and Stewart.89 Kane was impressed by McClelland’s offer, made neither out of charity nor obligation, he believed, but ‘to fill a key position’90 in the company. Although he was sorry to leave Macmillan, where he had worked for seven years under increasingly difficult but stimulating conditions, Kane resigned on 27 September 1976. After a brief holiday, he returned to the familiar surroundings of McClelland and Stewart. Despite significant disappointments – limited authority alongside John Gray, an inability to identify a successor and prevent the sale of the company – Kane confessed in 1983 that his happiest years in publishing were spent at Macmillan.91 He remained interested in the firm and continued to act on its behalf. In 1977, when he learned that Macmillan and Company was considering terminating its agency agreement with

The Final Reign 1969–1976

231

the Macmillan Company of Canada in favour of either W.J. Gage or Oxford University Press Canada, Kane wrote to Frank Whitehead: ‘I have still the happiest memories of my Macmillan association … and I should hate to see you make what I consider to be a serious mistake.’92 When George Gilmour received a copy of the letter to Whitehead, he wrote to thank Kane for his ‘spontaneous support’ and confirmed that London had yielded to Kane’s intervention and had renewed its agency agreement with Toronto.93 In January 1978, more than one year after Kane had rejoined McClelland and Stewart, Gilmour reciprocated by forwarding a commission payment of $2,625 in recognition of Kane’s past service to Macmillan. Kane also wrote eloquent letters to editors to correct errors of omission or commission with respect to Macmillan. The trade publication Quill and Quire was admonished in 1977, for instance, for not mentioning Alligator Pie illustrator Frank Newfeld in an article on Canadian book designers and the Globe and Mail was reprimanded in 1980 for referring incorrectly to Sir Harold Macmillan, who in 1963 had refused to accept an earldom. In the fall of 1982, at the age of seventy-one, Kane retired from publishing and moved to Stratford, Ontario, where he purchased a home for the first time. Since shares in McClelland and Stewart were worthless at the time, Jack McClelland agreed to pay Kane a monthly pension of $1,000, ‘in recognition of four decades of service’94 to the company. Disappointed financially, Kane nonetheless claimed to ‘have no regrets … I would much rather have been Donald Creighton’s and Hugh MacLennan’s friend than made a fortune. I can look back … with satisfaction and enjoyment [on my life in publishing].’95 That Kane recalled his connections with Creighton and MacLennan – two prominent authors with whom he worked at Macmillan – testified to the value he placed on his experience at the helm of the company. In their dedicatory inscriptions, Macmillan authors recorded their sense of gratitude to Kane, ‘a beloved and towering figure in the Canadian publishing world.’96 To Constance Beresford-Howe, for example, Kane was a ‘dynamo,’ and to Joey Smallwood he was ‘patient and understanding.’ James Gray prized Kane’s ‘sure and steady hand,’ Charles Ritchie, his ‘imaginative encouragement, support. And friendship.’ Oonah McFee’s Sandbars ‘was written for people such as you, an offering in return for the radiance they have given to my world,’ and Dennis Lee’s inscription in Garbage Delight recapitulated his appreciation for Kane’s ‘perspicacity … courage, and … filthy vicious sense of humour.’97

232

The Macmillan Company of Canada

Hugh Kane was the final president to serve the Macmillan Company of Canada while it remained under the aegis of the parent company in London. Unable to return the company to financial health, on 25 April 1980 Maclean Hunter sold Macmillan to a former rival, Gage Educational Publishing. At the time of sale, the Macmillan Company of Canada was ‘six months away from its seventy-fifth anniversary’98 as a largely independent Canadian publisher. Once he had had a chance to absorb the news of Macmillan’s sale to Gage, Dennis Lee wrote to Kane: ‘You may not realise to what extent Macmillan authors (and staff) view the time of your ascendancy there as a sort of golden age in little. That’s all bullshit, of course; we both know what a snake’s-nest of rotten publishing you really perpetrated. But somehow people have gotten this idiotic notion into their heads that you were a publisher of exemplary pluck and insight and knowhow, with a largeness of stature in your publishing horizons that was matched only by the integrity of your dealings with the people around you.’99 Ironic banter was typical of Lee and Kane, but in this instance Lee’s tongue-in-cheek humour belied a depth of feeling for his friend and ally. While selective memory may have coloured his rendering of Macmillan’s halcyon days, Lee’s intensely personal tribute to Kane – whose contribution to the company and its authors, first as president and later as director of trade, he applauded – was bold and authentic. As Lee confirmed, Hugh Kane’s tenure at Macmillan had a profound impact and a lasting influence. Following the inauspicious sale which signalled the decline of the Macmillan imprint, Kane’s Macmillan became known as the ‘old Macmillan,’ a nostalgic banner for the once great publishing house. Hugh Kane died at age seventy-three, on 27 October 1984, four years following the Gage purchase. That Dennis Lee delivered a ‘gentle and humorous’100 memorial tribute at Kane’s funeral was a fitting close to both their personal relationship and Kane’s full and vibrant life in publishing. On 29 April 1980, in the wake of the final sale of the company, Macmillan authors collectively wrote to Ron Besse, president of Gage Educational Publishing, acknowledging the achievement of Macmillan’s presidents: ‘During most of the last 75 years, under Hugh Eayrs, John Gray and Hugh Kane, the Macmillan company earned an enviable reputation for publishing trade books of high quality, which sell well and matter to Canada. As Macmillan authors, we’ve been proud to be associated with that reputation. We have also taken pride in the firm’s abil-

The Final Reign 1969–1976

233

ity to recognize younger authors of talent, and its willingness to grow with them. And we have been deeply impressed by the honesty and integrity which are synonymous with “Macmillan.” Finally, we have never felt that we would automatically get our way at Macmillan; but we have known that we are dealing with a publisher who understands the challenges and stresses of writing good books, and who knows how to talk our language in the process of publishing them well.’101 Morley Callaghan, Hugh MacLennan, Robertson Davies, W.O. Mitchell, Timothy Findley, Alice Munro, Jack Hodgins, and Dennis Lee were among the eminent Macmillan authors who wrote to Besse.102 As so many writers attested, Macmillan’s house identity as a publisher of ‘trade books of high quality, which sell well and matter to Canada’ was shaped by the vision and dedication of its skilled and vital leaders. Over the course of the twentieth century, Macmillan grew into a major Canadian publishing house, home to some of Canada’s most distinguished writers. That many of those writers would remain loyal to the Macmillan imprint, in spite of Gage’s acquisition of the company and considerable uncertainty about its future under Ron Besse, was due to the presence of editor Douglas Gibson, who had joined Macmillan under Hugh Kane. It was not coincidental that Gibson’s own publishing ethos, founded on encouragement and understanding, resembled that of Kane, whose achievement as president of Macmillan Gibson championed. Moreover, Gibson’s avowed commitment to Macmillan’s focus on literary excellence, which also recalled Kane’s practice, won him the devotion of Macmillan authors.

6 Editorial Coda 1974–1986: Douglas Maitland Gibson

Douglas Maitland Gibson: The Best Trade Editor in the Business George Gilmour’s reassuring pronouncement of 1973 that Maclean Hunter would respect Macmillan’s publishing program did not hold true. Maclean Hunter’s focus on business and trade magazines and its primary concern with profitability soon penetrated both the culture and the imprint of Macmillan. In fact, between 1973 and 1980, while it was owned by Maclean Hunter, the Macmillan imprint appeared on fewer literary titles in favour of commercial books. Fortunately, however, trade publishing was overseen by editor Douglas Gibson who was associated with the Macmillan Company of Canada for twelve years, from March 1974 to March 1986, and succeeded Hugh Kane as director of Macmillan’s trade division. A fortuitous encounter led Douglas Gibson to Macmillan. In June 1973, in his capacity as managing editor at Doubleday Canada, Gibson was a speaker at a Canadian Authors Association convention in Edmonton where Hugh Kane was a member of the audience. Kane was so impressed by Gibson’s intelligence, enthusiasm for publishing, and innovative ideas – Gibson’s presentation focused on the emerging genre of oral history – that he determined to lure the editor to Macmillan. Upon his return to Toronto, Kane immediately broached the matter with George Gilmour and his glowing report of Gibson’s performance convinced Gilmour that the thirty-one-year-old editor would, indeed, be an asset to Macmillan. Kane’s intention was to hire Gibson to replace Ramsay Derry, who had been a trade editor at Macmillan since 1968. In light of Derry’s superior editorial abilities – he had trained at the British firms of Wil-

Editorial Coda 1974–1986

235

liam Collins and Sons and Cambridge University Press – Kane’s desire to dismiss the editor was less than honourable. Kane was also cognizant of the close friendship between Ramsay Derry and Douglas Gibson, a complication he could not ignore. With Gilmour’s approval, however, Kane could proceed as planned. Derry was discharged in January 1974 and Gibson was offered the position of editorial director. Gibson had long admired Macmillan’s books – marked by assiduous editing and quality design – and respected the company’s pre-eminent role in fostering a national literature. He seized the chance to head the firm’s trade division and the opportunity to work with prominent Macmillan authors Morley Callaghan, Hugh MacLennan, Robertson Davies, and W.O. Mitchell. It was at Macmillan that Gibson refined his legendary editorial practice that determined the course of his illustrious career in publishing. Not surprisingly, the course of events led to a permanent severing of Gibson’s friendship with Derry, who soon joined Fitzhenry and Whiteside and later became a freelance editor. Douglas Maitland Gibson was born in 1943 and raised in Dunlop, Ayrshire, Scotland, a small village of fewer than one thousand people located twenty miles south of Glasgow. The Gibsons had lived in Dunlop for generations. Gibson attended Glasgow Academy and the University of St Andrews where he earned a master’s degree in 1966. While at St Andrews, he boxed for the Scottish universities’ team. A scholarship took him to Yale University where he received a second master’s degree in 1967. Following graduation, Gibson left the United States for Canada and accepted a temporary position in the registrar’s office of Hamilton’s McMaster University. Over the course of his career, Gibson worked for three publishing houses. In March 1968 he joined Doubleday Canada as an editorial trainee. Two years later he was promoted to managing editor and head of the firm’s editorial department. At Doubleday, Gibson edited numerous books, including Harry J. Boyle’s The Great Canadian Novel (1972) and Barry Broadfoot’s groundbreaking oral history, Ten Lost Years, 1929–1939: Memories of Canadians Who Survived the Depression (1973). In March 1974 Gibson left Doubleday to join the Macmillan Company of Canada. He was editorial director of Macmillan’s trade division for five years and was promoted to publisher of the division in November 1979. At Macmillan, Gibson worked closely with authors Morley Callaghan, Hugh MacLennan, Robertson Davies, W.O. Mitchell, Mavis Gallant, Alice Munro, and Jack Hodgins.

236

The Macmillan Company of Canada

In March 1986 Gibson accepted an offer from Avie Bennett to join McClelland and Stewart under his own editorial imprint, Douglas Gibson Books. Bennett had recently acquired McClelland and Stewart from Jack McClelland who recommended hiring Gibson. The first editor in Canada to issue trade books under a personal imprint, Gibson worked with many award-winning writers, several of whom followed him from Macmillan to McClelland and Stewart. Gibson’s roster of authors at McClelland and Stewart included fiction writers Mavis Gallant, Alice Munro, and Alistair MacLeod and non-fiction writers James Houston and Peter Gzowski. Gibson was appointed publisher of McClelland and Stewart in September 1988; he became president and publisher of the company in July 2000. Four years later, Gibson returned to managing his own imprint. In 2008, after more than twenty years with the company – and a total of forty years in publishing – Gibson retired from McClelland and Stewart. He remains publisher emeritus of Douglas Gibson Books and currently is working on his memoirs. Gibson taught the art of editing to members of the publishing community, including the Book Publishers Association and the Editors’ Association of Canada. He was a founding faculty advisor to the Banff Centre’s Publishing Workshop and co-director of the Banff Workshop from 1985 to 1989. From 1988 to 1993 he chaired the advisory board of the Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing at Simon Fraser University. Gibson was also a council member of the Historica Foundation of Canada. Over the course of his career, he has published articles in the Globe and Mail and the National Post, Books in Canada, Saturday Night, and Toronto Life, and has publicly expressed his views on publishing in numerous letters to editors. Between 1981 and 1984, Gibson contributed a weekly film review to the CBC radio program Sunday Morning. He is a gifted orator who has lectured widely on a variety of subjects. Gibson’s professional success can be attributed to ‘his savoir faire, his passion for good books, and his diplomatic and insightful skills as an editor,’1 as well as his congenial wit. In 1991 he received the Canadian Booksellers Association’s President’s Award in recognition of ‘the numerous important Canadian books and authors he has developed over the years.’ Doubly honoured in 2005, he was named Editor of the Year by Book Expo Canada and Canada’s Scot of the Year. Gibson was married to Sally Gibson, with whom he has two daughters, Meg and Katie. Currently, he lives in Toronto with his second wife, Jane Brenneman Gibson.

Editorial Coda 1974–1986

237

Gibson’s appealing presence was distinguished by ‘a fine Drambuiecolored beard; pale blue eyes that dance with humor and intelligence; a shy smile that lurks around the corners of his mouth and widens easily into an engaging and often self-mocking grin. He speaks slowly in a mellow burr, choosing words with that care for value educated Scottish gentlemen have accorded the language … Yet in the voice, as in the manner, there is more than a hint of stern moral conviction and determination.’2 In a profession where smoking and drinking were characteristic vices, Gibson was the rare bookman who eschewed both for health reasons. Hugh Kane took pride in having brought Douglas Gibson to Macmillan. He regarded Gibson, whose starting salary at Macmillan was $16,750, as ‘the best Trade Editor in the business; he has a good acquisitive sense; he has imagination and a constant stream of publishing ideas … his relations with authors are good and he can trade hard when necessary.’3 Although Gibson needed to deepen his knowledge of Canadian history, as well as the technical aspects of book production and design, Kane considered these minor weaknesses that could easily be strengthened and was hopeful that Gibson’s infectious enthusiasm would not be dampened by careful monitoring of Macmillan’s trade publishing program and the company’s fiscal restraint. Kane’s confidence in Gibson was not misplaced. Gibson’s understanding of the editorial function was at once intuitive and incisive and he was clear about his role in bringing forth an author’s book. His editorial interests ranged broadly across several genres, including fiction, oral history, biography, politics, and adventure. His view of a successful manuscript was in keeping with Macmillan’s valuing of serious trade works of lasting cultural significance. In a letter to Gregory Cook of the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia, Gibson laid out his editorial criteria. In fiction, he looked for ‘an author who combines literary excellence with the ability to tell a story that will interest and involve a wide number of readers. Setting (in time or place) is not important, nor is the general theme. What is important is that characters should be lively and life-like, and that the reader should care what is going to happen on the next page.’4 Non-fiction ought to be ‘authoritative – and, ideally, definitive – on … any subject, that has not already been widely covered by other authors, but is of keen interest to a wide number of potential readers. The style need not be extraordinarily impressive, but should certainly be clear, making the subject understandable and interesting to the intelligent layman.’5

238

The Macmillan Company of Canada

Gibson’s Editorial Ethos As editorial director, Gibson was responsible for Macmillan’s trade publishing program, a small, elite list of carefully produced, awardwinning books. To that end, he sought out potential authors, oversaw the production of all trade books, and served as liaison between authors, literary agents, illustrators, copy editors, book designers, typesetters, printers, and binders. Like his colleague Louise Dennys, founding director of Alfred A. Knopf Canada, Gibson recognized Canada as ‘a country of literary fiction and non-fiction’6 and deployed five strategies to attract serious writers to Macmillan. He drew first on Macmillan’s stable of authors; through regular contact, he encouraged them to work toward their next book; he proposed subjects for books and matched them with appropriate authors; he made himself known as an approachable editor; and assessed unsolicited manuscripts. In addition, he frequently contacted individuals directly and invited them to consider publishing with Macmillan. Among the many writers Gibson approached were journalist Christie Blatchford, politician Gérard Pelletier, and poet and novelist Michael Ondaatje. At Macmillan, Gibson’s role as editor was twofold: he saw a book through the production process – he edited the manuscript, designed the book and dust jacket, and wrote the cover copy – and handled negotiations with authors and their literary agents. Although he worked meticulously to ensure publication of a writer’s best work, he never forgot that a book belonged to its author rather than its editor. Gibson held himself to high standards. He made himself available for consultation at all reasonable times; his proposed editorial changes were offered as courteous suggestions; he did not mar the master copy of a manuscript with comments that could not be erased; he kept an author informed of the progress of his or her book, noting delays or changes to a book’s production schedule; he served as in-house representative of a writer and his or her book; and ascertained that Macmillan’s financial commitments to an author were met. Gibson had a deep respect ‘for the hard sweaty craft of writing, the business of polishing endlessly and searching for just the right word,’ and was convinced that author and editor were both on ‘the side of the manuscript.’7 He perceived the editor as a supportive and ‘helpful critic, outsider, commentator, reviewer’8 whose primary function was to raise questions about a manuscript. Whenever possible, he involved writers in the publishing process. As Robertson Davies once noted,

Editorial Coda 1974–1986

239

Gibson edited for ‘rigorous clarity’9 and his marginal comments were intended to elucidate a manuscript’s strengths and weaknesses. His editorial intervention offered authors ‘a second opinion’ and the ‘chance to fix something that perhaps they weren’t totally happy with.’10 Since he viewed the process as cooperative rather than adversarial, Gibson was not offended when authors did not heed his suggestions. Invariably, Gibson’s sense of humour won him allies among authors. Often, as Gibson understood, writers felt uncomfortable when removed from the sheltering privacy of their work spaces. His ‘Survival Guide for Authors,’ written with a gentle irony that belied many unpalatable truths, was conceived to demystify the public side of writing. To soften the transition from private writer to published author, Gibson offered cautionary advice. First, bookstores were notorious places for writers. Never ‘expect to see your book in a bookstore window’ and never ‘pose as a member of the public asking for a copy of your book.’11 Second, friends and acquaintances will be surprisingly insensitive. They will expect to be invited to a lavish launch and to receive a free copy of a new book; they will report on the lack of books in their local bookstores and the long waiting lists at their local libraries; and they will freely offer lists of misprints and recall in detail negative book reviews. Third, book reviewers and interviewers will be equally insensitive. Reviews in the print media ‘will appear either too early or too late’12 to promote book sales. They will prove neither ‘constructive’ nor ‘helpful’13 and will fall into six categories: a summary of the book’s dust jacket copy; a rare accurate summary of the book; an otherwise good review that totally misrepresents the book; a largely balanced review that ends on a negative note; a review that suggests the reviewer could have written a superior book; and a review written by an enemy of the author. Interviewers will not have read the author’s book and will focus instead on his or her personal life. Finally, autographing opportunities and readings will likely be poorly attended but nonetheless may help to publicize a writer’s work. Gibson’s most useful admonition, however, was that authors ought to roundly denounce their publisher for whatever goes awry with a book, and he was pleased to assume the role of blameworthy editor.14 Gibson’s Authors Notwithstanding his best editorial efforts, Gibson knew that luck played a large part in the success of any book. Hence, humility char-

240

The Macmillan Company of Canada

acterized his associations with authors. He sought to counter the myth of the adversarial editor who treats a book as commercial property and views ‘the author’s artistic aspirations with weary contempt.’15 From John Gray, whom he esteemed as a legendary publisher, Gibson inherited the expectation that one’s authors would become close friends, regular correspondents, and occasional visitors. Gibson also maintained relationships with several of Gray’s authors, including Hugh MacLennan, W.O. Mitchell, Morley Callaghan, and Robertson Davies. A compassionate and encouraging editor, he adapted to the differing expectations and needs of writers and was willing, when necessary, to challenge authors to meet a mutual standard of excellence. That Gibson developed personal and abiding connections with Hugh MacLennan and W.O. Mitchell, two authors who had been especially close to Gray, signalled the similarity – in temperament and editorial practice – between the two men. Like Gray, Gibson developed a friendship with MacLennan that lasted over twenty years. In the early 1970s, when he transferred his loyalty from Gray to Gibson, MacLennan could not have anticipated how much he would come to respect his new editor. Gibson was a great admirer of MacLennan’s work and it was his idea to issue a volume of the writer’s essays. Edited by Elspeth Cameron and published by Macmillan in 1978, The Other Side of Hugh MacLennan brought together a selection of MacLennan’s essays that reached a wide and appreciative audience. MacLennan’s last novel, Voices in Time, published by Macmillan in October 1980, benefited from Gibson’s generous spirit and editorial expertise. A close reading of the manuscript revealed several inconsistencies that required improvement. Gibson sought to prevent the condemnation of ‘nit-picking’16 reviewers and, in his usual precise way, attended to matters of chronology. Certain that the book’s futuristic setting would interest readers, he went ‘to some lengths to try to make sure that the dating is correct’ and produced two chronologies of the novel’s characters and future events.17 He asked MacLennan to correct errors in chronology and ‘the standard of technology represented in the book’s present’18 and to append an epilogue. Notwithstanding these suggestions, the work’s ‘colossal ambitions – and achievements’ left a strong impression on the editor: ‘This is such a thrilling piece of work in which even now, after four close readings, I continue to discover new delights and excitements.’19 MacLennan was deeply appreciative of Gibson’s approval and editorial advice; he revised his work accordingly and took satisfaction in his ‘bold’20 new fiction.

Editorial Coda 1974–1986

241

Like John Gray and Ellen Elliott before him, Gibson also developed a strong affection for W.O. Mitchell whose larger than life personality he found tremendously appealing. Gibson admitted to being ‘smitten’ by the author when he first came across a reference to his own village of Dunlop, Scotland, ‘a Mitchell family link,’21 in Who Has Seen the Wind. At Macmillan, Gibson edited four of Mitchell’s books: a new edition of Who Has Seen the Wind illustrated by William Kurelek (1976); the novels How I Spent My Summer Holidays (1981) and Since Daisy Creek (1984), the latter title chosen jointly by author and publisher; and a collection of plays, Dramatic W.O. Mitchell (1982). Working with Mitchell was never easy but it was stimulating, as Gibson recalled in a memorial tribute to the writer published in the Globe and Mail. Gibson enjoyed the extremes of Mitchell’s dynamic, often contradictory personality. Mitchell was at once egotistical and selfless; outspoken and gentle; he flouted convention, was wildly dramatic, and had a love of ‘superlatives.’22 Gibson also recollected the histrionics of lunching with Mitchell at Toronto’s Westbury Hotel to celebrate the signing of a contract for the illustrated edition of Who Has Seen the Wind. When the author’s boisterousness disturbed other diners, their complaints were quashed with the surreptitious passing of bills to the mâitre d’. Wresting a manuscript from the author, who preferred ‘Mitchell’s messy method’23 of composition, was no easier for Gibson than it had been for Gray. Other editors, less intuitive and capable, would have been exasperated or overwhelmed by Mitchell’s antics. Not Gibson. Over the years Gibson may have shaken his fist at the author, but Mitchell’s final editor, whose passion for narrative was the driving force of his career, relished the excitement of communing with so vital a figure ‘around whom stories clustered in such numbers.’24 To Gibson, Mitchell was both ‘mischief-maker’ and ‘stellar presence.’25 Their banter of ‘affectionate insults’26 and jokes belied the warmth and depth of their friendship. Since Gibson’s interactions with authors were collaborative and a source of marked satisfaction, he believed it was his ‘duty to defend one of my authors when he is attacked in a manner that I consider to be unfair’27 and was often protective. When Morley Callaghan’s 1977 novel, Close to the Sun Again, was unfavourably reviewed, for example, Gibson sought to counter the negative press. He wrote to the editor of the Ottawa Citizen to discredit Carleton University English professor Larry McDonald’s assessment of the work as ‘an elegant joke, a splendid parody of a serious review … [that] went so far in its shrill stupidity

242

The Macmillan Company of Canada

that nobody can take it seriously.’28 He also denounced Bernice Lever’s ‘casual dismissal’ of Callaghan’s novel in the literary journal Waves, and questioned the integrity of Queen’s Quarterly reviewer John Mills, who conceded publicly that he had ‘never been able to finish any of Morley Callaghan’s novels.’29 In defence of Close to the Sun Again, Gibson cited positive reviews by the Globe and Mail’s literary critic William French and Canada’s man of letters George Woodcock – Woodcock’s review of Callaghan’s novel appeared in Books in Canada – whose critical opinions carried significant weight. Gibson’s regard for Callaghan was felt in his private attempts to safeguard the elderly author. When Callaghan’s later novel, A Time for Judas (1983), did not meet sales expectations, Gibson did not report the financial details – ‘at 81 and in the aftermath of his wife’s death I feel it vitally important to shield him from this disappointing news.’30 He took every opportunity to share good news, however; in 1985 Gibson wrote to inform Callaghan that both the Literary Guild (Canada) and the Book of the Month Club had adopted Our Lady of the Snows: ‘It’s rare to find them both going for the same books, so it’s a very nice selling point … and … barometer of … reader reaction.’31 The crusty Callaghan respected Gibson for his sincerity and for being neither ‘a nuisance [n]or an albatross around my neck.’32 Gibson warmed to Robertson Davies as a kind and wise man with whom he ‘could discuss personal difficulties in total confidence.’33 Gibson was attuned to Davies’s private need for reassurance, despite the author’s grand show of confidence. When Davies had completed the manuscript of World of Wonders, for example, Gibson ‘race[d] up by cab, pick[ed] it up and … it was a point of pride with me that I would get back to him first thing in the morning with my comments. I had the sense that, like so many of our best writers, he was immensely unsure of what he had just completed, and genuinely uncertain as to whether he had wasted the last three years of his life. It was important to me to set his mind at rest.’34 Following publication in 1975, Gibson reported on the book’s sales and reception. Two years later, when Macmillan issued One Half of Robertson Davies: Provocative Pronouncements on a Wide Range of Topics, Gibson happily apprised Davies that the Book of the Month Club had requested 1,000 copies of the book and ‘reviews continue to run … between the respectful and the enthusiastic.’35 At times, Davies was bothered by Gibson’s ‘quibbles’ and ‘criticisms,’36 but he was generally a grateful author. As a sign of appreciation, he presented Gibson with two complimentary tickets to his play, Pon-

Editorial Coda 1974–1986

243

tiac and the Green Man, produced in 1977 at the University of Toronto’s MacMillan Theatre. Six months following the 1980 sale of Macmillan to Gage, when Davies questioned Macmillan’s continued commitment to serious trade publishing, Gibson wrote assuredly to Walter Reiman of Curtis Brown, Davies’s New York-based literary agent. He reaffirmed the pride he felt as Davies’s publisher, accepted Davies’s next novel ‘sight unseen,’ promised to maintain the editorial standards the author had come to expect, and confirmed Macmillan’s undisputed ‘reputation as the most selective literary publisher in Canada.’37 Throughout his editorial career, Gibson embraced short fiction and showed an unusual willingness to publish collections of short stories. While contemporary editors and publishers preferred the more marketable genre of long fiction, Gibson was the rare editor who embraced the short story. Rather than dissuade authors, he encouraged them to practise and perfect the art of short story writing, if they were so inclined. Gibson described his dual task as editor of a short story collection: to ensure that each story ‘is as successful a piece of writing as I can make it with my [probing] questions,’ and to envisage a cohesive volume of stories. In selecting and arranging stories in a collection – more ‘an art than a science’ – Gibson sought to achieve a natural flow and elegant balance which he articulated as ‘the arc of the stories.’38 It was not coincidental that Macmillan published the short stories of Jack Hodgins, Mavis Gallant, Alice Munro, and Guy Vanderhaeghe. In Gibson, Hodgins was fortunate in securing an editor who valued and respected the short story form. Spit Delaney’s Island, Hodgins’s first book, was issued by Macmillan in 1976, and The Barclay Family Theatre, his second volume of stories which features characters from the first collection, appeared in 1981. When Hodgins received the Governor General’s Literary Award for his 1979 novel, The Resurrection of Joseph Bourne, or a Word or Two on those Port Annie Miracles, author and editor were exultant. The success of Hodgins’s long fiction did not prevent Gibson, however, from encouraging the author to pursue other forms of writing, which later included travel prose and a guide to writing fiction. Gibson’s connection with Hodgins was personal as well as professional. Occasionally, during his western trips, Gibson stayed with Hodgins and his family at their home in Lantzville, British Columbia. Gibson’s concern for his authors’ social and professional alliances led to networking efforts on their behalf. In 1976, for example, soon after the publication of Spit Delaney’s Island and during one of his western

244

The Macmillan Company of Canada

visits, Gibson brought together Jack Hodgins and Alan Fry, another British Columbia author whose novels Gibson had published under the Doubleday imprint. He knew that Hodgins appreciated Fry’s work but was ‘shy about … announcing himself’ to his fellow writer without his editor as ‘intermediary.’39 That Hodgins’s work did not receive the wide readership or critical attention it deserved troubled Gibson. Gibson offered the writer staunch support, lauded Hodgins’s books, and invited him to undertake new writing projects. Among Gibson’s greatest editorial triumphs was securing short story writers Mavis Gallant and Alice Munro for Macmillan. Gibson developed enduring and distinctive relationships with Gallant and Munro, influenced as much by temperament as geography. In the late 1970s the Paris-based Canadian writer Mavis Gallant was convinced by Gibson to join Macmillan. In a letter to the author, Gibson lamented the fact that Gallant’s ‘wonderful short stories’ were not published in Canada and therefore were difficult to procure. Gibson’s bold declaration that Gallant ‘need[ed] a Canadian publisher and I would like to be that publisher’40 won the author’s trust. Immediately, she announced that she had a new book forthcoming and suggested that Gibson approach the New York–based literary agency Georges Borchardt to secure the Canadian rights to From the Fifteenth District. Gibson acted quickly, was granted the right to publish Gallant’s book in 1979, and worked diligently to ensure its success. He admitted later to having done ‘a good job’41 promoting the book as widely as possible. Determined to redeem Gallant’s status in Canada as an obscure writer, he distributed numerous advance copies of From the Fifteenth District to the national media, trumpeted its author as Canadian born, and enticed reviewers to discover the pleasures of Gallant’s stories. Gibson’s success was unprecedented. Although Jack McClelland bet Gibson $100 that Macmillan would not be able to sell 2,000 copies of Gallant’s book – McClelland and Gibson chatted at an industry event held at Toronto’s Harbour Castle Hilton Hotel on 26 October 1979 – by March 1980 Gibson could boast that 4,500 copies of Gallant’s From the Fifteenth District had been sold, ‘a far better figure than Random House of Canada has ever achieved even on her more saleable books.’42 Since Gallant’s American publisher was Random House, Macmillan’s triumphant sale of her latest book – a strong showing for a short story collection – was both ironic and embarrassing to Random House Canada. Gibson took note of the irony, congratulated himself on his foresight, perseverance, and victory, but never claimed his $100 winnings from Jack McClelland.

Editorial Coda 1974–1986

245

Editor and author would clash, however, when Gibson submitted From the Fifteenth District to the Governor General’s Literary Awards competition. Confident that Gallant would win the fiction award, Gibson raised the author’s hopes and suggested that she might have to travel overseas to attend the awards ceremony. When Jack Hodgins, another Macmillan author, received the award for The Resurrection of Joseph Bourne, Gibson’s jubilance masked his neglect of Gallant, who had never been notified that her book had not been named to the shortlist by the awards committee. Gibson’s belated letter of 3 December 1980, which announced the paperback issue of From the Fifteenth District, congratulated Gallant on reviewers’ ‘unanimous enthusiasm’ for her collection, and lamented the lack of a ‘perfect ending’43 with the Governor General’s Literary Award, sent the author into a mild rage. Since she and Gibson shared ‘a fair amount of Scottish blood,’44 Gallant determined to be frank with her editor. Gibson had ‘toss[ed] off’ the matter of the Governor General’s Literary Award ‘altogether too lightly,’ Gallant claimed: ‘You treated me shabbily … and you did not behave like a gent. You should have written – or even called me – when the short list was announced. I am not clairvoyante and had absolutely no way of knowing what was going on. It was up to you, the publisher, who had mentioned and promoted the idea to me in the first place, to keep me informed … Please reread your letters to me, and you will see how puzzling I found the long and unexplained silence … I certainly don’t propose to speak of this again – not to you or, still less, anyone else – but I think it is a good thing to clear off the ice, so to speak.’45 From our historical perspective, Gallant’s anger is suspect. When no information about the literary awards was forthcoming, Gallant, who declared herself forthright, might have written or telephoned Gibson directly. Instead, upon receipt of long-awaited news from her editor, she seized the opportunity to convey her disappointment in a brash letter. What this exchange revealed was more nuanced, in fact, than Gallant’s expressed ire. Despite her contrary claim, Gallant hoped to win the Governor General’s Literary Award and was piqued when it was given to another Macmillan author. She also felt wounded by her new editor’s oversight and sought to establish her position of authority in the author-editor dyad. In his response to Gallant, informed by natural composure and an editor’s insight into writers, Gibson aimed to assuage his guilt and mollify the author. He apologized to Gallant, admitted that he thought he had written to her about the Governor General’s Literary Awards, regretted his ‘shabby treatment,’ and thanked her for

246

The Macmillan Company of Canada

such ‘directness.’46 True to her word, Gallant did not raise the matter again. She put the slight behind her, determined to develop a mutually satisfying relationship with her Canadian editor. That Gibson became an attentive editor who maintained a regular and friendly correspondence which kept Gallant abreast of the progress of her books in Canada was, no doubt, the result of this early dispute. Gibson, who grasped Gallant’s writerly needs and went to great lengths to ‘keep the Mavis Gallant pot bubbling in Canada,’47 redeemed himself with the publication of Home Truths: Selected Canadian Stories. Home Truths originated with Gibson who observed in April 1981 that Gallant had ‘written a book without knowing it, one that we are very eager to publish.’48 Enthusiasm for Gallant’s Linnet Muir stories – Muir was a recurring character in Gallant’s fiction – led Gibson to request copies from her literary agent. Gibson had intended to gather the stories into a collection, but found that they amounted to fewer than 40,000 words. He required additional stories for an envisaged selection of Gallant’s Canadian fiction. To Gallant, Gibson’s invitation to publish a collection whose ‘main themes and characters are Canadian’ came as ‘a staggering coincidence.’49 Recently, she had been asked by a small Canadian publisher if she had uncollected stories for possible publication. Gallant had forwarded the query to her literary agent, informing him that the Linnet Muir stories were promised to Macmillan, but expressing a desire to see her Canadian stories issued in a single volume. Gallant’s excitement more than matched Gibson’s enthusiasm for the proposed book. She recommended the stories ‘Bonaventure’ and ‘Virus X’ – they were included in Home Truths – and encouraged him to consider other uncollected stories buried in her archives, which she had deposited in 1980 at the University of Toronto’s Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library. In May 1981, after ‘besieging the University of Toronto Library, scouring old bookstores, [and] going blind peering at microfilms of old New Yorkers,’50 Gibson could report that he had gathered enough stories for a collection. He proposed a volume in three sections – At Home, Canadians Abroad, and Linnet Muir – and proffered the title Home Truths. Gibson persuaded Gallant to write an introduction to the volume that would provide context and coherence. Publication was slated for late October 1981 to coincide with the author’s visit to her home country and her appointment as Officer of the Order of Canada. As Gallant undertook a national book tour to publicize Home Truths, Canadian readers and critics embraced the book. When it received the

Editorial Coda 1974–1986

247

Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction, the author was vindicated. No one was more pleased than Gibson, who was required to represent Gallant at the awards ceremony held in June 1982 at the Fort Garry Hotel in Winnipeg – Gallant had sprained her ankle and could not travel – where he accepted the award in her honour. Although the event was marred by an angry denunciation of Canadian writing and the Governor General’s Literary Awards by Quebec writer Denys Chabot, whose La province lunaire won the award for French fiction – Chabot donated part of his award to the Parti Québécois and its sovereign cause – Gibson enjoyed the ‘gala affair.’51 Moreover, that the first paragraph of his brief acceptance speech was delivered in French served as a graceful response to Chabot and succeeded in re-establishing ceremonial decorum. In a letter to Gibson three years later, Gallant acknowledged their joint accomplishment: ‘Home Truths was your idea, and your title. So, as much your book as mine.’52 The triumph of Home Truths marked a turning point in Gallant’s literary standing in Canada. As Gibson observed, ‘Thereafter anytime we brought out a new collection of stories by Mavis [Gallant], it was a huge success.’53 Macmillan went on to publish Canadian editions of Gallant’s previous books – The Pegnitz Junction (1982; first issued 1973), Green Water, Green Sky (1983; first issued 1959), A Fairly Good Time (1983; first issued 1970), and The Other Paris (1986; first issued 1956) – and first Canadian editions of Overhead in a Balloon (1985) and Paris Notebooks (1986). To overcome the difficulty of sustaining a connection with a writer who resided in France, Gibson wrote often, telephoned less frequently, and visited Gallant whenever he had the opportunity. At home, he became an advocate for Gallant and the tie between editor and author strengthened over time. In 1981, for example, in response to a Saturday Night article by Robert Fulford on the problems of the book trade in Canada, Gibson wrote a letter to the editor asserting that the sale of over 4,000 copies of From the Fifteenth District was significant in the national market. Soon after the Governor General’s Literary Awards ceremony in 1982, he encouraged Naim Kattan of the Canada Council for the Arts, which sponsored the awards, to send Gallant an official letter of congratulations since ‘it would mean a lot’54 to the author. In 1985 he wrote to British publisher John Murray inviting him to consider excerpts from the work of Mavis Gallant and Morley Callaghan for a proposed book on Paris. Gibson reported regularly on the reception and sales of Gallant’s books in Canada, detailing adoptions by the Book

248

The Macmillan Company of Canada

of the Month Club, for instance. That Gallant was both grateful and loyal to her devoted editor brought Gibson great satisfaction. Another of Gibson’s editorial coups was his successful luring of Alice Munro to Macmillan. The enduring relationship between editor and author is charted by Robert Thacker in his 2005 biography of Munro, published, rather ironically, as a Douglas Gibson Book by McClelland and Stewart. As Thacker shows, and extant correspondence confirms, Gibson was fundamental to Munro’s triumphant literary career. Gibson and Munro developed a strong bond founded on mutual respect, deep trust, and a common ‘Calvinist conscience.’55 They shared aesthetic sensibilities and a high regard for the craft of writing short fiction, an especially rigorous literary form. In 1974, after listening to an interview between Harry J. Boyle, whose work Gibson had published during his stint at Doubleday, and Alice Munro – the interview aired on CBC Radio’s Sunday Supplement on 18 August 1974 – Gibson wrote to the author asking for an opportunity to meet. His opening letter to Munro received a more tempered response than his introductory letter to Gallant. Munro, unlike Gallant, already had a Canadian publisher and Gibson – he may have known that she was dissatisfied with McGraw-Hill Ryerson – had to muster patience and perseverance to secure a first contract with Munro. In the fall of 1974 Gibson visited Munro in London, Ontario, where she was writer-in-residence at the University of Western Ontario. Gibson sought an early sign that Munro would accept Macmillan as her Canadian publisher. In January 1975 he offered to issue Munro’s next volume of stories, but she would not comply by signing an initial contract with Macmillan. Early in their association, Munro made clear her aversion to publishing deadlines; she disliked ‘that kind of pressure’56 and Gibson had to conform to her pattern of writing, revising, and reorganizing her collections just prior to publication. It would take time and great effort, but eventually he would succeed in wooing Munro. First, Gibson sought to secure Munro through a joint project with photographer Peter D’Angelo. In 1974 Munro had agreed to write the text to accompany D’Angelo’s photographs of Ontario’s Huron County and Gibson intended to publish the book under the title ‘Places at Home.’ After much effort, when she found that she could not match her prose to D’Angelo’s photographs – writer and photographer had contrasting visual sensibilities – Munro abandoned the project. Although she regretted her inability to supply the appropriate text, Gibson agreed that Munro ought to focus on her own stories. By the end of 1975 Mun-

Editorial Coda 1974–1986

249

ro informed Gibson that she was at work on a new book and in early February 1976 he followed up with a second contract offer which she again declined. Gibson was not rebuffed. His own meticulous editorial practice had prepared him to work with an author who required unrestricted time to develop a collection of stories. Although he was ‘always in favour of nailing things down as soon as everything falls into place,’57 he honoured Munro’s writerly practice. Between 1974 and 1978, when she finally signed her first contract with Macmillan, Gibson maintained regular contact with Munro. In April 1977, as further evidence of his commitment to the author, he agreed to publish her late father Robert Laidlaw’s The McGregors: A Novel of an Ontario Pioneer Family, issued by Macmillan in 1979. That decision brought criticism from Robert Stuart, vice-president of the trade division, who was concerned primarily with profitability and did not want Gibson to expend much time revising Laidlaw’s manuscript. Stuart further argued that Macmillan should attract Munro ‘by our ability to edit her work and sell and promote her books, not that of her father.’58 Notwithstanding Stuart’s apprehension, Gibson’s intuitive approach – patient, attentive, and solicitous – won the author’s trust and convinced her of his editorial integrity. Since Munro’s father had died on 2 August 1976, the author hoped to celebrate the publication of The McGregors with her stepmother who was ill with cancer. On 7 February 1978 Gibson wrote to reassure Munro that her father’s book would be issued as soon as possible; regrettably, her stepmother would not live to see the novel published the following year. In the same letter, Gibson admitted to ‘staying out’ of Munro’s ‘way for some time, since I don’t want to pester you with repeated offers of a contract,’ but he ventured a query nonetheless: ‘I wonder if you are now close to having a book-length collection and therefore to drawing up a contract with us. I can think of no author I would rather have on Macmillan’s list.’59 This time Munro was receptive. She did have a number of stories ‘on hand’ and intended to complete ‘a couple more.’60 Moreover, she suggested that Gibson contact her New Yorkbased literary agent, Virginia Barber, who already knew that Munro had chosen ‘Macmillan for my Canadian publisher.’61 Finally, Gibson’s patience and resolve were rewarded: Munro had signalled her intention to leave McGraw-Hill Ryerson and ally herself with Macmillan. On 28 April 1978, as he had longed to do, Gibson welcomed Munro to Macmillan: ‘I know you will be happy here, and promise that any disappointments that may be in the future will not be the result of lack

250

The Macmillan Company of Canada

of care.’62 From the outset, to counter the pressure she felt to produce a novel, Gibson encouraged Munro’s preference for the short story. Contrary to prevailing notions among trade publishers, he was convinced that short stories were marketable. In light of contemporary readers’ short ‘attention spans’63 and certain that Munro’s work would eventually attract the audience it merited, he vowed never to dissuade the author from writing short fiction. Munro took ‘comfort and reassurance’64 in her new editor’s approach to their professional relationship. Over the years, in fact, she was unwavering in her loyalty to her devoted editor. As Robert Thacker affirms, Munro ‘had taken her own time finding Gibson’65 and her confidence in him was unshakeable. Munro was a ‘self-editor’66 and most of her stories were copy edited by the New Yorker, where they first appeared in print. Hence, ‘no further [editorial] changes’67 were necessary. Instead, Gibson’s editorial role was to convince Munro to relinquish polishing her work, help arrange the stories in each collection, choose the art work for the cover of each book, and write the dust jacket copy. Early on, Gibson recognized and appreciated Munro’s drive for perfection, the hallmark of her craft which was also the cause of anxiety. Soon, to avoid disappointing Munro, Gibson would have to overcome one of the greatest challenges of his editorial career. Munro’s first book with Macmillan was Who Do You Think You Are? Gibson shared his excitement for the collection with his sales staff: ‘Make no mistake about it, this is a very, very big book – we’re lucky to have it, and we’re going to see it high on the best-seller list.’68 Production of the volume was complicated, however. Publication of the Canadian edition of Who Do You Think You Are? was scheduled to precede the American edition, which was issued by Alfred Knopf in 1979 under the title The Beggar Maid. As the Canadian edition went through production, Munro took the opportunity to revise the stories for the American edition. She altered individual stories and the overall organization of the volume, making significant changes that effectively produced ‘a new book.’69 When Gibson read the revised manuscript, he had to agree – much to his own consternation – that it was greatly improved. He had stopped production of the original version – it was already at the printers to meet the initial publication date of 18 November 1978 – and he and Munro, who was in ‘a frenzied state,’70 convinced Robert Stuart of the need to publish the revised book. That Munro was willing to cover the extra cost incurred showed an understanding of the publication process, her respect for Macmillan, and a desire to lessen her edi-

Editorial Coda 1974–1986

251

tor’s concern. In the end, the need to reset ninety-nine pages of text cost Macmillan ten days’ work; the cost to Munro of $1,864.08 was deducted from the second half of her royalty advance, payable upon publication of the collection.71 When Who Do You Think You Are? received the Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction, Gibson’s belief in Munro and his admiration for her excellent work was confirmed. Moreover, Gibson’s support of Munro’s artistic vision and deft handling of the production crisis laid the foundation for the professional relationship between editor and author, a connection that soon developed into a strong friendship. Gibson’s association with Munro also extended to her New York-based literary agent, Virginia Barber, and her American editor, Ann Close of Alfred A. Knopf, with whom he negotiated as friendly liaison. Ironically, despite his repeated assurances that he ‘would be proud and happy to go on publishing collections of your short stories till the end of time,’72 soon after the appearance of Who Do You Think You Are? Gibson offered a tentative suggestion. He wondered whether Munro might one day write a novel based on ‘a murder of a small-town girl with a youth accused of the murder and standing trial for it, and the passions that the chain of events provokes in the town,’73 a plot based on the Steven Truscott case. Presenting ideas for possible books was one of the editorial strategies Gibson used to encourage his authors and build his trade list. He tested this strategy on Munro – ‘my job is done now that I have put the idea before you’ – but he did not anticipate success – ‘whatever you decide to do with this idea is fine by me.’74 It is not surprising that no such novel was ever written by Munro, a prolific author whose own artistry shaped her distinctive fiction. Who Do You Think You Are? was followed in October 1982 by The Moons of Jupiter. Its production was less fraught than Who Do You Think You Are? largely due to the clear understanding that had developed between Gibson and Munro. Together, they arranged the stories in the collection; Knopf editor Ann Close agreed to use Macmillan’s sheets for the American edition of the book, published with a different cover; and Virginia Barber negotiated the contracts between Munro and her publishers. The Moons of Jupiter established Munro as a premier practitioner of the short story. Chosen by the New York Times as one of the ten best books of 1982, it signalled a rise in both her literary reputation and public profile. In the wake of its success, Gibson declared Munro ‘a consummate artist in the field of fiction’75 and took particular pleasure in having helped her achieve international recognition.

252

The Macmillan Company of Canada

Gibson’s editorial responsibilities included advocacy on Munro’s behalf. He tried, for example, to smooth over a tiff between Munro and Gallant. In 1982, Munro read in the Vancouver Sun that she had snubbed Gallant during that author’s recent Canadian tour. Munro believed that Gallant had reported the slight to the author of the newspaper article, but Gibson wrote to reassure her that the true source was ‘the strange sub-world of literary gossip in Canada where no-hopers and has-beens … delight in trading malicious stories about authors … whom they barely know.’76 Gibson sought to prevent a ‘feud’77 between the two short story writers who admired one another’s work. He also aimed to protect Munro’s privacy and guarded the time she needed to write by fielding the numerous requests she received to give readings and talks. Munro’s next book, The Progress of Love, which she submitted to Gibson, would not be issued under the Macmillan imprint, but the circumstances of its publication led the author to articulate her indebtedness to her editor. In her usual fashion, Munro took time shaping her stories into a collection and signed a contract for The Progress of Love on 2 December 1985. By February 1986, however, Gibson had left Macmillan for McClelland and Stewart where he would issue books under his own editorial imprint, Douglas Gibson Books. Gibson had become dissatisfied working under Gage – the company had acquired Macmillan in 1980 and had grown increasingly concerned with profitability. Moreover, the arrival in late 1985 of Linda McKnight as executive vicepresident and publisher of Macmillan – McKnight had been president and publisher of McClelland and Stewart from 1982 to 1985 – added to his discomfort. Munro’s desire to leave Macmillan and follow Gibson to McClelland and Stewart had legal ramifications that affected the author and both publishing houses. Understandably, Macmillan was loath to release Munro from her contract. She was a highly prized author whose work generated substantive income for her publisher. Further, The Progress of Love was about to go into production in Toronto and New York. Between February and April 1986 negotiations ensued between Macmillan and McClelland and Stewart via Munro’s agent Virginia Barber. Linda McKnight knew this was Macmillan’s last chance to profit from a Munro title, since the author had assigned her loyalty to Gibson and announced her intention to offer her subsequent books to McClelland and Stewart. Convinced that Gibson’s recent departure would not significantly impact sales, McKnight cleaved to her legal right to issue The Progress of Love.

Editorial Coda 1974–1986

253

To aid her cause, Munro wrote directly to McKnight on 7 March 1986. She described Gibson’s powerful influence on her development as a writer and her literary career. As a rare and moving testimony of a stellar author’s appreciation for the work of a superior editor, her letter warrants full reproduction here: Doug first talked to me about publishing with Macmillan in the midseventies. I was very discouraged at that time. Ryerson had done nothing to promote or even distribute my first book. McGraw-Hill Ryerson had published the second with expressed reluctance and the third without enthusiasm – merely, as I believe, to keep a Canadian fiction writer on their list. Every publisher I had met had assured me that I would have to grow up and write novels before I could be taken seriously as a writer. No one in Canada had shown the least interest in taking on a writer who was going to turn out book after book of short stories. The result of this was that I wasted so much time and effort trying to turn myself into a novelist, and had become so depressed that I was unable to write at all. Doug changed that. He was absolutely the first person in Canadian publishing who made me feel that there was no need to apologize for being a short story writer, and that a book of short stories could be published and promoted as major fiction. This was a fairly revolutionary notion, at the time. It was this support that enabled me to go on working, when I had been totally uncertain about my future. I came to Macmillan because of Doug, and his respect for my work changed me from a minor, ‘literary’ writer who sold poorly into a major writer who sold well. I hope that you will understand how I have felt, from that time on, that I owe him a great deal, and that I want him to have charge of any book I publish. I am not making a judgement against Macmillan – my relations with everyone in the house have always been good – but for Doug Gibson. I realize that I do not have a legal right to move this book, but I hope that my very strong feelings about publishing with Doug will influence you to let me go.78

Notwithstanding Munro’s honest and eloquent plea for the meaningful and productive relationship she shared with Gibson, McKnight stood her ground. Only a large financial settlement, negotiated through Virginia Barber as intermediary, would finally sever the legal tie binding Munro and Macmillan. Munro had a fortunate ally in her literary agent, for Barber’s loyalty

254

The Macmillan Company of Canada

to Munro matched the author’s faith in her editor. Munro’s emotional tie to Gibson and their artistic alliance drove Barber’s extensive negotiations with Macmillan. On 16 April 1986, after much discussion, Barber’s efforts finally achieved the desired result. Macmillan agreed to accept the return of the royalty advance it had paid Munro, a substantial payment upon publication of The Progress of Love, and a percentage of all paperback royalties. Macmillan also undertook to maintain confidentiality on the financial settlement and to publicly announce the transfer of Munro’s forthcoming book to McClelland and Stewart. The agreement was signed and a press release issued on 29 April 1986 which emphasized Munro’s ‘high regard for Macmillan’s capabilities’ and noted that the sale of her book had ‘nothing to do with Macmillan’s performance as her publisher.’79 Finally released from her contract with Macmillan, Munro followed Gibson to McClelland and Stewart where The Progress of Love became the first book to appear under the Douglas Gibson Books imprint.80 Gibson was proud of his association with Munro and deeply gratified that she had realized her desire to leave Macmillan. At McClelland and Stewart, Gibson edited and published nine of Munro’s books under his own editorial imprint.81 Over the years, as her work garnered many awards and her reputation continued to expand, author and editor developed a deep affection for one another. While Munro was glad and thankful that there was ‘someone like Doug[las Gibson] in Canada,’ to Gibson, Munro was an ‘immensely caring person.’82 Late in his career, Gibson expressed his ‘delight at being along for the ride, as Alice [Munro]’s reputation just spreads and spreads. It … gives me pure pleasure. It’s been a wonderful relationship.’83 Two writers with whom Gibson worked closely as publisher rather than editor were fiction writer Guy Vanderhaeghe and poet Don Coles. In his role as publisher, Gibson launched the career of Vanderhaeghe. A young and shy Vanderhaeghe debuted with Macmillan and Gibson’s ‘constant encouragement’84 and support helped develop his confidence as a writer. Although it took nearly a year for Macmillan to accept Vanderhaeghe’s first book of short stories, the delay was due to careful reading and serious consideration rather than lack of interest in the manuscript. In August 1981, when Macmillan made an offer to publish Man Descending, Vanderhaeghe expressed delight and surprise at the show of confidence in his work. He was anxious not to disappoint his new publisher and admitted that ‘it was part fantasy’ that had led him to submit his work to the same ‘company that publishes Gallant, Munro, Wright, Hodgins, and Davies.’85

Editorial Coda 1974–1986

255

Although Anne Holloway was Vanderhaeghe’s in-house editor, it was Douglas Gibson who wrote letters of reference in support of the writer’s applications to the Canada Council for the Arts. In a letter to the arts council of 15 September 1981, Gibson expressed admiration for Vanderhaeghe’s writerly skill and dedication to his craft and ranked him as ‘a leader among his generation of Canadian writers.’86 When he learned that his application had been successful, Vanderhaeghe wrote to thank his supportive publisher. His humorous letter belied the anxiety of a new author whose first book was scheduled for publication on 30 April 1982: ‘The Canada Council, the nice advance notices, the offers for script writing, readings, etc. have managed to lower my spirits. Any more good news and I’ll be ready for a lobotomy … I know that the gods just build you up to crush you to powder beneath their heels. I have taken to looking left, right, left and right again before crossing the streets. Also straight up once to make sure a Mack truck isn’t falling out of the sky.’87 Gibson also advised Vanderhaeghe on matters of literary etiquette. He assured the author, for example, that it was appropriate to thank writers Robert Kroetsch, Alice Munro, Jack Hodgins, Richard Wright, and critic Malcolm Ross for having read the galley proofs of Man Descending and for their dust jacket blurbs. Gibson’s cautionary counsel about the hazards of post-publication, delivered in the form of his ‘Survival Guide,’ was met with Vanderhaeghe’s usual wit, a quality he shared with his publisher. To Vanderhaeghe, ‘an unrepentant and confirmed pessimist,’ Gibson’s tips were ‘not necessary’: ‘Like all authors I know that such [negative] things will not happen to me because my publisher loves my book like no other book he has ever published. He sleeps with it, his conversation is studded with references to it, and if any of these things should happen in any bookstores he will punish their owners by never, ever sending them another book published by his company.’88 Gibson’s decision to issue a collection of stories by a novice writer was not misplaced. His faith in Vanderhaeghe’s ‘astounding talent’ and ‘capacity for hard, grinding work’89 was amply rewarded when Man Descending received the Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction and Britain’s Faber Prize, and more so as Vanderhaeghe’s success and their relationship continued to build over the course of their respective careers as award-winning author and distinguished publisher/editor. Gibson’s connection with Don Coles was marked by concern over Macmillan’s reduced poetry list. By the late 1960s the publication of poetry had become ‘an empty act of defiance’90 for Macmillan. After decades as an historic and successful publisher of landmark poetry

256

The Macmillan Company of Canada

– E.J. Pratt’s verse was issued under Hugh Eayrs, Gwendolyn MacEwen’s under John Gray, and Dennis Lee’s under Hugh Kane – Macmillan had decided to suspend its poetry publishing program. Financial constraints had become altogether pressing and led to the monumental decision, with the result that in 1979 Don Coles remained the sole poet on Macmillan’s list. Don Coles published three books with Macmillan: Sometimes All Over (1975), Anniversaries (1979), and The Prinzhorn Collection (1982). Although he was pleased to be a Macmillan author, the association did not reap sufficient rewards for either poet or publisher. Macmillan’s poor marketing of its lone poet produced weak sales, despite the fact that Coles’s reputation was on the rise. When Coles sought permission to offer his selected poems to another publisher – McClelland and Stewart issued Landslides: Selected Poems 1975–85 in 1986 – a reluctant Gibson had to concede that Macmillan did not ‘have the ability to sell poetry as well as our competitors.’91 The sad irony of releasing ‘our last poet’ was not lost on Gibson, who understood the historical significance of ‘in effect declaring that we don’t publish poetry.’92 Coles would benefit by the move to McClelland and Stewart – his work garnered increased attention and his literary career gained new momentum – but the cost to Macmillan was greater than the loss of its single poet, for its imprint would never again grace a book of poetry. The demise of poetry at Macmillan, which Gibson found so discouraging, was symptomatic of a broad cultural shift within the company. Gage’s increasing concern with the economic viability of Macmillan affected its trade publishing program. Financial imperatives drove the decision to issue fewer trade books and only those that were certain to be remunerative. In early 1986, when it had become clear that his position at Macmillan was no longer tenable, Gibson welcomed the fortuitous offer from Avie Bennett to join McClelland and Stewart. Gibson’s departure had a catalytic effect on his authors and Macmillan. When John Gray declared in 1968 that it ‘is not uncommon for editors, deliberately or otherwise, to establish such close bonds with their authors that if they move to another house, their authors move with them,’93 he could not have anticipated the wholesale defection of Macmillan authors that followed Gibson’s leave-taking. Although Alice Munro was the first to associate with Gibson at McClelland and Stewart, she soon was joined by Hugh MacLennan, W.O. Mitchell, Robertson Davies, Jack Hodgins, Mavis Gallant, and Guy Vanderhaeghe. These writers, no longer assured of Macmillan’s sustained commitment

Editorial Coda 1974–1986

257

to high literary and editorial standards, chose to ally themselves with an editor who shared their artistic vision. Ironically, since Gibson represented the ‘old’ Macmillan and upheld its measure of editorial excellence, the flight of so many prominent authors actually affirmed the value of Macmillan’s publishing ethos. By moving en masse to McClelland and Stewart, Gibson’s authors endorsed a literary aesthetic that had grown suspect under the regime of Gage. Gage Acquires Macmillan Within five years of its purchase of Macmillan, Maclean Hunter was dissatisfied with the performance of its prestige acquisition. In October 1978 Quill and Quire reported that it was ‘no secret that Macmillan of Canada hasn’t measured up to Maclean-Hunter’s other subsidiaries in return on investment, and M[aclean]-H[unter]’s efforts to sell the publishing house are common knowledge.’94 The following year, in an attempt to trim expenses, Macmillan issued fewer trade books, but the financial profile of the company continued to disappoint its profit-driven owner. Tired of supporting the imprint, Maclean Hunter sought to divest itself of Macmillan. Early in 1980 Donald Campbell, chairman of Maclean Hunter, telephoned Ron Besse, president of Gage Educational Publishing. Almost a decade earlier, Besse had been interviewed by John Gray and Hugh Kane for the position of president of Macmillan. Now, as majority owner of Gage – Gage had recently been repatriated after seven years under the ownership of American educational publisher Scott, Foresman – Besse was courted as a potential purchaser of Macmillan. A deal was struck quickly between Ron Besse, who saw opportunity in Macmillan’s trade list, and Cameron Fellman, president of Maclean Hunter. On 25 April 1980 Gage Educational Publishing acquired Macmillan’s assets; the transfer of ownership took effect on 31 July 1980. As Roy MacSkimming explains, Besse chose the best of Macmillan’s back list and no money was exchanged. Instead, Maclean Hunter ‘financed the deal, worth a reported $3 million, by taking Gage shares, which Besse would buy back out of earnings.’95 Eventually, Macmillan was subsumed under Besse’s holding company, the Canada Publishing Corporation, which also included Gage, the Toronto music publisher Gordon V. Thompson, the American business publisher Forkner, and several other media firms.96 The second sale of Macmillan elicited a vigorous response from mem-

258

The Macmillan Company of Canada

bers of the book trade and Macmillan authors. The concerns echoed those first expressed when Macmillan and Company had sold its Toronto branch to Maclean Hunter. In 1972, however, the new ownership of Macmillan, heralded by some as a nationalist coup, was interpreted as potentially invigorating – a chance for a Canadian-owned Macmillan to continue its tradition of distinguished publishing. Conversely, the 1980 purchase of Macmillan by Gage was both shocking and troubling to many insiders who regarded Macmillan’s ‘ailing’ condition as ‘a national disgrace’ and responded as if ‘Besse had engineered another foreign takeover.’97 The situation was exacerbated by Besse’s immediate departure for Spain where he had a speaking engagement. For two weeks he was overseas and unavailable to the press, but Besse could escape neither the media flurry nor the trade’s reaction to the news that Gage now owned Macmillan. The Canada Council for the Arts, the Association of Canadian Publishers, and the Writers’ Union of Canada took action in response to the sale. The Canada Council withheld a $17,000 grant to Macmillan until Besse clarified his intentions with regard to his newly acquired imprint. The Association of Canadian Publishers worried that the current joint ownership of Macmillan and New American Library Canada was under threat by the American-owned New American Library Canada. Malcolm Lester, the Association’s president, articulated the publishers’ collective dismay over their inability to prevent ‘the loss of numerous jobs and a good deal of [Macmillan’s] publishing capacity, and the unilateral cancellation of the distribution agreements between Macmillan and Lester & Orpen Dennys, Press Porcepic, Simon & Pierre and P[ublishers] M[arketing] A[ssociation].’98 The Association of Canadian Publishers blamed Maclean Hunter for having ‘had one objective: to unload Macmillan as quickly as possible and to obtain the best possible deal for themselves without insisting on any conditions which would require the continuation … of the Macmillan imprint.’99 It further denounced Maclean Hunter for having accepted, one month prior to the sale, over $300,000 from the federal government’s Book Publishing Development Program to support publication of Macmillan titles. The Writers’ Union of Canada issued a public statement expressing deep concern ‘that the great tradition of Macmillan trade publishing may in fact dwindle or disappear. If this were to happen, it would be a disaster of the first magnitude for Canadian readers and writers.’100 Both the Association of Canadian Publishers and the Writers’ Union of Canada called for an inquiry into the sale.

Editorial Coda 1974–1986

259

As a result of the public outcry, communications minister Francis Fox invited Ron Besse to Ottawa where they discussed Gage’s acquisition of Macmillan. At Fox’s urging, Besse agreed to purchase the remainder of Macmillan’s list for one cent per copy. His plans for the Macmillan imprint and its trade program, however, were influenced less by Fox than by Macmillan authors themselves. In a collective letter to Besse, dated 29 April 1980, twenty authors declared their allegiance to Douglas Gibson, who ‘best summed up’ the ‘stature and integrity of Macmillan’s trade programme.’101 Impelled by ‘a degree of urgency,’ they hoped Besse’s ‘plans for Macmillan will continue the tradition of [distinction] … and one test of that will be whether Mr Gibson chooses to be part of them.’102 To his authors, Gibson had become the consecrating publisher who personified ‘the Macmillan style of high quality publishing’103 – the firm’s long established house identity. Besse and Gibson held private meetings to outline the future of Macmillan and Gibson’s association with the imprint. During Besse’s sojourn in Spain, Gibson had been pursuing other prospects and had decided to leave Macmillan if his conditions of employment were not met. Assured that his authors would secede with him to another publishing company, he was in a strong position to negotiate with Besse. Although he appointed Arnold Gosewich president of Macmillan – Gosewich had been employed in the record industry – Besse proffered his commitment to the imprint and promised Gibson the autonomy he had enjoyed as publisher of Macmillan under Maclean Hunter. Besse retained thirty of Macmillan’s ninety employees, the majority of whom worked under Gibson, and determined to remove the Macmillan offices from Bond Street’s historic St Martin’s House to a new downtown location at 146 Front Street West, separate from Gage’s suburban headquarters in Agincourt, Ontario. Since Macmillan’s appeal lay in its trade list, Besse, the astute entrepreneur, lost no time in formulating a response to the collective authors’ letter. He sought to retain those writers who brought profit as well as prestige to his newest asset and sensed that mass defection would ensue if he did not offer immediate reassurance that the Macmillan tradition would prevail under Gage. On 1 May 1980 he wrote to Dennis Lee, the primary signatory of the collective letter. Besse’s missive answered five key points of concern to Macmillan authors: Macmillan would become the Canadian trade book division of Gage and no longer an independent imprint; Douglas Gibson would remain publisher of Macmillan; under Gage, Macmillan would continue to issue a minimum of twenty

260

The Macmillan Company of Canada

new titles per year; its close relationships with authors would be protected and supported; and subsidiary rights would still be pursued.104 On 2 May 1980 Besse and Gibson held a press conference attended by representatives from the Writers’ Union of Canada. Besse reiterated the points enumerated in his private letter to Lee and succeeded in allaying the immediate concerns generated by his swift acquisition of Macmillan and hasty departure for Spain. Following the media conference, the Writers’ Union of Canada issued a public statement. Although a ‘final assessment’ of the acquisition of Macmillan by Gage lay in the future, the Union congratulated Besse ‘on his firm undertakings to date,’ was heartened ‘by Doug[las] Gibson’s conclusion that these are bona fide undertakings,’ and recommended that writers give the new Macmillan ‘every opportunity to make its assurances good.’105 In the current ‘era of deregulation and privatization,’ as MacSkimming points out, it seems ‘extraordinary that the collectivity’ of Gibson, his authors, and their supporters ‘believed it had a right to call Besse to account.’106 In the wake of the transfer of Macmillan to Gage, Gibson was preoccupied ‘with the politics of publishing.’107 Publicly, he allied himself with Besse and expressed delight at ‘the way things have turned out … we will be small enough to retain the personal touch, but large enough to benefit from the economy of scale that goes with an operation of Gage’s size.’108 Gibson acknowledged that he was ‘putting his reputation on the line,’ but confirmed that he had ‘been given the [necessary] authority’109 to ensure Macmillan’s continued success. Privately, however, he was less certain of his position under Gage. Gibson regarded himself as ‘the link between the “old” Macmillan and the new’ and, while he held regular meetings with his trade staff to keep them informed of developments, he did not ‘help Besse handle the take-over’ of the imprint. Gibson, who relished his work with authors and their manuscripts, sought to protect Macmillan’s ‘important cultural publishing programme’110 under the proprietorship of Gage. Six months after the acquisition, Gibson could report that he was ‘entirely satisfied with how the arrangement is working. My role as Publisher is what it implies. All of the old Macmillan staff who came with me have fitted smoothly into the new team.’111 Under Gage, Macmillan enjoyed a number of ‘very good publishing years.’112 In 1982, for example, Macmillan issued Carol Shields’s novel A Fairly Conventional Woman. The following year, Gibson boasted of Macmillan’s ‘vaults bursting with lucre thanks to people like Alice Munro and Christina McCall’113 whose Grits: An Intimate Portrait of the Liberal Party appeared

Editorial Coda 1974–1986

261

in 1982. In 1984 he affirmed that the Canada Council for the Arts continued to support Macmillan’s publishing program and proudly proclaimed that several trade books of 1983 had become best-sellers – including Ken Dryden’s The Game: A Thoughtful and Provocative Look at a Life in Hockey, Dennis Lee’s Jelly Belly, Rod McQueen’s The Moneyspinners: An Intimate Portrait of the Men Who Run Canada’s Banks, and Charles Ritchie’s Storm Signals: More Undiplomatic Diaries, 1962–1971.114 Macmillan’s educational titles were also profitable to Gage. They were stripped of their provenance, however, since Besse boldly substituted the Gage imprint on all reissues. Not surprisingly, Gladys Neale was especially vexed by such deliberate erasure of Macmillan’s historic connection with educational publishing.115 Gradually, Gibson conceded that he had ‘won the battle but lost the war’116 with Besse. Besse, who did not forget that Gibson had once ‘stood up to him’117 and had been prepared to decamp along with his loyal authors, would neither increase Gibson’s responsibilities nor reward his editorial efforts. Instead, Besse expanded Arnold Gosewich’s authority as president and in 1985 hired Linda McKnight into the senior position of executive vice-president and publisher. A powerful force in publishing, McKnight began her career as an editor at Copp Clark. She joined McClelland and Stewart in 1969 as educational editor, and rose through the ranks of managing editor and director of publishing before becoming president and publisher. Also in 1985, in the spirit of fiscal prudence, Gibson was asked to dramatically curtail his travel and entertainment expenses. Besse further narrowed Macmillan’s list and issued fewer literary titles. He had discerned that, with few exceptions, serious fiction – even that of renowned author Robertson Davies, for example – was not sufficiently profitable. Gibson could see the future and the prospect was grim. Just as he was taking stock of his career, however, he was invited by Avie Bennett, chairman of McClelland and Stewart, to join the company. The timing of Bennett’s offer was propitious. Gibson’s ‘12 good years at Macmillan’118 laid the foundation for his new editorial role at McClelland and Stewart. He licensed his services for a minimum of five years to McClelland and Stewart and the company agreed to underwrite the editing and publishing of no more than ten books annually under the imprint Douglas Gibson Books, the first such venture in Canada. Gibson did not urge authors to join him, but he did announce that his shingle was ‘out to whomever passes by.’119 Writers decided independently to follow their editor and reassign their

262

The Macmillan Company of Canada

loyalty to McClelland and Stewart. Although Macmillan went on to issue a number of significant books – including novels by Constance Beresford-Howe (Prospero’s Daughter, 1988) and Neil Bissoondath (A Casual Brutality, 1988); short stories by Diane Schoemperlen (The Man of My Dreams, 1990); and memoirs by Robin Skelton (The Memoirs of a Literary Blockhead, 1988) and Marsh Jeanneret (God and Mammon: Universities as Publishers, 1989) – Gibson’s departure served to effectively strip Macmillan of its once highly coveted cadre of illustrious authors. In fact, the transfer of Gibson to McClelland and Stewart had several benefits. While McClelland and Stewart acquired a master editor and his stable of award-winning authors – for many years, in fact, McClelland and Stewart enjoyed ‘the best of Macmillan’s list’ – Gibson’s pioneering work under his own editorial imprint was personally satisfying and gave rise to other such imprints in Canada.120 That Gibson was the heart of Macmillan and latterly the source of much of its prestige was confirmed by the rapid dissolution of the imprint. As Besse continued to dilute Macmillan’s publishing program, the imprint all but disappeared. In 1998 he subsumed Macmillan under a new company, CDG Books Canada, and in June 2002 he finally auctioned its back list to John Wiley and Sons Canada. Ironically, the demise of Macmillan went unnoticed by the same constituents who had lobbied first in 1972 and again in 1980 to save the company when it twice changed hands. By 2002, however, the old Macmillan – the historic premier publisher of seminal Canadian books – no longer existed. It had been reduced to a commodity imprint, devoid of cultural value or influence. Little wonder that no one decried – let alone remarked on – Macmillan’s passing. On 2 May 1980, following the final sale to Gage, Gibson publicly affirmed his continued association with Macmillan. His statement to the press also traced his history with the company: ‘I came to Macmillan as Editorial Director early in 1974. I had the privilege of working under Hugh Kane – very much a man in the old Macmillan tradition – and two years ago I had the pleasure of working with John Gray … on his splendid book of memoirs Fun Tomorrow. Both of these experiences made me very conscious of what I can only describe in that vague catch-all phrase as the Macmillan tradition.’121 In fact, Gibson’s lineage went much further back in the company, for the Macmillan ‘tradition’ he invoked was shaped equally by Frank Wise, Hugh Eayrs, Ellen Elliott, Kildare Dobbs, Gladys Neale and other editors and readers who

Editorial Coda 1974–1986

263

transformed a branch-plant operation into one of Canada’s most formidable publishing houses of the twentieth century. What Gibson sought to articulate in his ‘vague catch-all phrase’ was the notion of Macmillan’s house identity. In 1980 Macmillan was still a major institution that had influenced Canadian culture in ways both tangible and intangible. Over the course of the twentieth century, its presidents and editors had been instrumental in conceiving and advancing a modern literary culture for Canada. They helped shape Canada’s publishing industry – by working within the paradigm of weak copyright protection and undertaking original publishing when most companies served as agencies – and its literary heritage – by issuing books by and for Canadians. They advanced indigenous authorship through their constant encouragement of Canadian authors and their offer of financial support. Ideologically, the books they published – across numerous genres and disciplines – defined a modern literary aesthetic for Canada – one that valued serious over ephemeral writing – that developed under Hugh Eayrs and matured under John Gray. As Bruce Whiteman affirms, alongside Ryerson Press and McClelland and Stewart, only Macmillan ‘contributed as much to the development of Canadian publishing, and of these three publishers Macmillan was, in theory … the least independent to pursue the encouragement of native writing. In practice, however, the company made an enormous contribution to the literary culture of Canada through its determination to bring important books into print, even when the financial returns were small or non-existent.’122 Douglas Gibson, the last of Macmillan’s great editors, honoured the culture of the house he served from 1974 to 1986. Macmillan’s house identity informed Gibson’s professional and genial way with authors, his commitment to literary excellence, and the high aesthetic values that governed his editorial practice. Moreover, Gibson brought Macmillan’s publishing ethos to McClelland and Stewart where it touched his own imprint, Douglas Gibson Books. In the end, notwithstanding the company’s gradual demise and the eventual disappearance of its imprint, Macmillan’s legacy endured in Gibson’s lasting relationships with writers and the landmark books he edited – many by authors with former ties to the venerable Macmillan Company of Canada.

This page intentionally left blank

Notes

Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

Qtd in Gross 2. James, Introduction 1. Brewer 323. James, ‘Letters from America’ 178. James, Introduction 3, 2. See ‘English Publishers and Canada’ 505. See Friskney’s two-part study, ‘Beyond the Shadow of William Briggs,’ and MacLaren’s Dominion and Agency. Parker, Beginnings 256. Parker, Beginnings 236. Parker, ‘Distributors, Agents, and Publishers: Part I’ 11. Whiteman, ‘The Archive’ vii; Gray, ‘Book Publishing’ 58. Parker, ‘Trade and Regional Publishing in Central Canada’ 168. Gray, ‘Canadian Books’ 31. Gray, ‘Canadian Books,’ 31. McCleery 161, 179; Darnton 68. McCleery 161. McCleery 163. McCleery 163. McCleery 163. Sutherland xvii; Gerson, ‘Canadian’ 6. Gerson, ‘Canadian’ 7. Templeton 28. Nash, ‘Reading the Nation’ 367–8. Andrews and Ball 2.

266

Notes to pages 12–26

25 Gould 728. 26 Gould 728. 27 ‘The Archive and Everyday Life,’ John Douglas Taylor Conference, Department of English and Cultural Studies, McMaster University, 7–8 May 2010. http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~english/taylor_10/The%20 Archive%20and%20Everyday%20Life.html. 28 Qtd in Gould 728. 29 Fredeman 189. 30 Darnton 75, 76. 31 Fredeman 190. 32 John Gray to Margaret Stobie, 28 September 1970, MCC fonds. 33 Sutherland xvii. 34 Shep 260; Burton 2. 1 The Rise of Macmillan 1905–1921: Frank Wise 1 George Brett Sr to Frank Wise, 26 October [1905], Brett letterbook 99, Macmillan Company Records, NYPL. 2 Tebbel 152. 3 Targ 210–11. 4 Targ 210–11. 5 Latham 82, 78. 6 George Brett Sr to Frank Wise, 22 September 1920, MCC fonds. 7 James, ‘Letters’ 179. 8 George Brett Sr to Frank Wise, 25 February 1915, MCC fonds. 9 Frederick Macmillan to Frank Wise, 11 October 1910, box 6, file 16, MCC fonds. 10 Parker, ‘Agency System’ 164. 11 Hamelin 118. 12 Hamelin 117. 13 Parker, ‘Canadian Author’ 34–5. 14 MacLaren, ‘“Against All Invasion”’ 141–2. 15 MacLaren 141–2. 16 McKillop, Spinster 119. 17 ‘Items of Interest,’ Bookseller and Stationer 22 (April 1906): 40. 18 ‘Items of Interest’ 40. 19 Bourdieu 76–7. 20 Hamelin 135. 21 Parker, ‘Distributors’ 53. 22 Parker, ‘History’ 29.

Notes to pages 27–36

267

23 See Wise,‘Cloth or Paper’ 25; ‘Canadian Point of View’; ‘The Book Market in Canada 109–11; and ‘Relation of the Publisher to Literature in Canada’ 139–46. 24 Hamelin 133. 25 McKillop, Spinster 116; ‘Macmillan Company’s Manager,’ Canadian Bookseller January 1906: 5. 26 Frank Wise to George Brett Sr, 11 February 1909, MCC fonds. 27 Frank Wise to George Brett Sr, 11 February 1909, MCC fonds. 28 Bourdieu 75. 29 Towheed 4; Nowell-Smith 313–14. 30 ‘English Publishers and Canada.’ 31 See Spadoni, ‘Stephen Leacock.’ 32 Bourdieu 77. 33 Frank Wise to G.J. Heath, 6 February 1906, Vol. 11, Macmillan Archive, BL; Frank Wise to G.J. Heath, 11 May 1910, Vol. 11, Macmillan Archive, BL. 34 Wise, ‘Canadian.’ 35 Parker, ‘Distributors’ 58. 36 Frank Wise to George Brett Sr, 17 August 1909, MCC fonds. 37 Frank Wise to G.J. Heath, 6 February 1906, Vol. 11, Macmillan Archive, BL. 38 Frank Wise to George Brett Sr, 9 May 1910, MCC fonds. 39 Parker, ‘Distributors’ 38. 40 Towheed 2. 41 Towheed 3. 42 Towheed 4. 43 Squire, [Obituary of Sir Frederick Macmillan]. 44 Wise, ‘Book’ 110–11. 45 Whiteman, ‘Early’ 70. 46 Wise, ‘Book,’ 111. 47 Kijinski 207. 48 Kijinski 207. 49 Howsam 5. 50 Howsam 22. 51 Whiteman, ‘Early’ 71. 52 George Brett Sr to Frank Wise, 7 December 1906, MCC fonds. 53 McKillop, ‘Mystery’ 79. 54 Whiteman, ‘Early’ 72. 55 Gibson, ‘Macmillan of Bond Street’ 68. 56 Whiteman, ‘Early’ 72. 57 Cowan with Michon 326. 58 Finkelstein 20.

268 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75

76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90

Notes to pages 36–47 Cowan with Michon 326. ‘Macmillan-Morang Merger’; Whiteman, ‘Early’ 72. Frank Wise to George Brett Sr, 10 January 1912, MCC fonds. Frank Wise to Frederick Macmillan, 1 April 1919, MCC fonds. Gray, Fun 167. Gray, Fun 167; McKillop, Spinster 113. McKillop, Spinster 132. Frank Wise to Frederick Macmillan, 27 January 1912, MCC fonds. Frank Wise to George Brett Sr, 10 January 1912, MCC fonds. Frank Wise to George Brett Sr, 13 May 1919, MCC fonds. Frank Wise to Frederick Macmillan, 3 June 1912, MCC fonds; Parker, ‘Distributors’ 58. McKillop, Spinster 114. Frank Wise to John Sneath, 28 May 1914, MCC fonds. John Cameron Saul to Frank Wise, 3 December 1913, MCC fonds. John Cameron Saul to Frank Wise, 2 December 1913, MCC fonds. Frank Wise to John Cameron Saul, 10 November 1913, MCC fonds. John Cameron Saul to Frank Wise, 2 December 1913, MCC fonds. In another instance, Saul was involved in a lawsuit concerning a charge of plagiarism brought by would-be author Florence Deeks against Macmillan author H.G. Wells. Saul’s part in that case extended over many years and was more suspect than his rallying of educational and political forces against Gage. Despite his claims to the contrary, his professional conduct as editor was not beyond reproach. For a full discussion of Saul’s role in the Deeks-Wells case, see McKillop, Spinster. Frank Wise to Frederick Macmillan, 25 June 1917, MCC fonds. Frank Wise to Frederick Macmillan, 1 April 1919, MCC fonds. ‘Macmillan-Morang Merger’ 25. Spiers 9. Box 1, file 2, MCC fonds. Whiteman, ‘Early’ 77. Hamelin 136. Hamelin 136; Wise, ‘Relation’ 142. Hamelin 144. ‘A Page about Books’ 31. M.O.H. 16. ‘The Bookshelf,’ rev. of Sir Isaac Brock 9. ‘Jehosaphat, What a Jump!’ 6. Wise, Empire 6; ‘Some Canadian Books of the Month’ 53. ‘Canada and Empire’ 4.

Notes to pages 47–58 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124

269

‘The New Imperialism’ 4. ‘Books on the Present War’ 22–4. ‘Flag and Fleet Again’ 4. Hamelin 163. Rev. of Canadian National Economy 6. ‘The Canadian Railway Problem’ 13. Hamelin 169; ‘The Bookshelf,’ rev. of Wake Up, Canada! 8. Goosequill 5. ‘The Bookshelf,’ rev. of As Others See Us 8. Browne iii. Browne 18. Frank Wise to F.E. Osborne, 22 September 1914, MCC fonds. Qtd in Bray 20. Parker, ‘Distributors’ 39, 28. Frank Wise to George Brett Sr, 4 October 1915, MCC fonds. Parker, ‘Distributors’ 31. MacLaren, ‘“Against”’ 143. Frank Wise to G.J. Heath, 9 June 1906, Macmillan Archive, BL. Frank Wise to Frederick Macmillan, 5 September 1908, Add Mss 54796, Macmillan Archive, BL. Frederick Macmillan to Frank Wise, 28 October 1920, Add Mss 54825, Macmillan Archive, BL. G.J. Heath to Frank Wise, 16 December 1910, Macmillan Archive, BL. Frank Wise to G.J. Heath, 18 February 1911, Add Mss 54796, Macmillan Archive, BL. Frank Wise to G.J. Heath, 18 February 1911, Add Mss 54796, Macmillan Archive, BL. Frank Wise to G.J. Heath, 18 February 1911, Add Mss 54796, Macmillan Archive, BL. Frank Wise to George Brett Sr, 28 January 1914, MCC fonds. Frank Wise to George Brett Sr, 2 April 1914, MCC fonds. A.H. Jarvis to Frederick Macmillan, n.d., MCC fonds. C.L. Nelles to Frederick Macmillan, n.d., MCC fonds. C.L. Nelles to Frederick Macmillan, n.d., MCC fonds. Frank Wise to Frederick Macmillan, 8 April 1914, MCC fonds. Frederick Macmillan to Frank Wise, 5 May 1914, MCC fonds. Frederick Macmillan to Frank Wise, 12 December 1916, Macmillan Archive, BL. See McKillop, ‘Mystery’ and McKillop, Spinster. ‘Labour Bureau to Help Immigrants’ 20.

270

Notes to pages 58–66

125 Frank Wise to George E. Foster, 3 June 1915, box 3, file 4, MCC fonds. 126 Frank Wise to Frederick Macmillan, 22 October 1917, box 6, file 22, MCC fonds. 127 Frederick Macmillan to Frank Wise, 9 December 1920, M652, private letterbook 1916, no. 1, Macmillan Archive, BL. 128 Frederick Macmillan to George Brett Sr, 17 November 1919, M652, private letterbook 1916, no. 1, Macmillan Archive, BL. 129 George Brett Sr to Frederick Macmillan, 26 November 1919, Add Mss 54824, Macmillan Archive, BL. 130 May Mercer to George Brett Sr, 19 May 1920. Mercer’s letter is enclosed with George Brett Sr’s letter to Frederick Macmillan, 28 May 1920, Add Mss 54824, Macmillan Archive, BL. 131 George Brett Sr to Frederick Macmillan, 18 May 1920, Macmillan Archive, BL. 132 George Brett Sr to Frederick Macmillan, 9 December 1920, Add Mss 54825, Macmillan Archive, BL. 133 Frederick Macmillan to George Brett Sr, 4 January 1921, Macmillan Archive, BL. 134 ‘Frank Wise Leaving Book Trade’ 57. 135 Frederick Macmillan to Walter C. Scott, 18 December 1922, MCC fonds. 136 Frederick Macmillan to Frank Wise, 11 January 1933, MCC fonds. 137 Ellen Elliott to Lovat Dickson, 4 November 1943, MCC fonds. 138 Frank Wise to John Gray, 16 May 1951, MCC fonds. 139 Rubens, ‘Hobbies Make Life and People – Interesting.’ 140 McCleery 161. 141 McCleery 161. 142 John Gray to George Gilmour, 17 April 1973, MCC fonds. 143 MacLaren, ‘“Against”’ 159. 144 Eaves 77. 145 Wise, ‘Cloth’ 25. 146 Frank Wise to G.J. Heath, 11 February 1911, vol. 11, Macmillan Archive, BL. 2 The Triumphant Second Reign 1921–1940: Hugh Smithurst Eayrs 1 2 3 4 5 6

Whiteman, ‘Early’ 70. Young 119. McKillop, Spinster 156; Young 119. George Eayrs, John Wesley 15–16. George Eayrs, John Wesley 15–16. I am deeply grateful to James Eayrs for elucidating the depth of Eayrs’s Methodist upbringing.

Notes to pages 67–74

271

7 Hillmer, ‘Eayrs, James George.’ 8 James Eayrs, e-mail to author, 31 January 2010. 9 See also Hugh Eayrs’s short story, ‘The Way of a Widow,’ Canadian Magazine 46 (November 1915): 30–6; and representative articles, ‘Sir Oliver Lodge, Scientist, Seer and Imperialist,’ Maclean’s Magazine 29 (December 1915): 39–40; ‘Winston Spencer Churchill,’ Canadian Magazine 46 (February 1916): 321–8; ‘The New Governor-General,’ Canadian Magazine 48 (February 1917): 303–12; and ‘Canadian Publishers and War Propaganda,’ Canadian Bookman ns 1.1 (January 1919): 47–8. 10 Hugh Eayrs, ‘Publishing’ 4. 11 Hugh Eayrs to Ernest Hodder-Williams, 10 February 1921, MCC fonds. 12 Pitt, E.J. Pratt 288. 13 Hugh Eayrs to Ernest Hodder-Williams, 10 February 1921, MCC fonds. 14 Gray, Fun 126. 15 McKillop, Spinster 184. 16 McKillop, Spinster 185. 17 Pitt, Truant 289. 18 Gray, Fun 240. 19 Gray, Fun 126. 20 Gray, Fun 132–3. 21 Gray, Fun 139. 22 Gray, Fun 139. 23 Gray, Fun 138. 24 Irene H. Lewis to John Gray, 27 June 1946, MCC fonds. 25 Gray, Fun 137. 26 Gray, Fun 137. 27 Dawson [John Morgan Gray] 13. 28 Qtd in Madison 264. 29 Hugh Eayrs to George Brett Sr, 28 January 1921, MCC fonds. 30 Hugh Eayrs to George Brett Sr, 28 January 1921, MCC fonds. 31 Frederick Macmillan to Frank Wise, 11 January 1933, MCC fonds. 32 Hugh Eayrs to George Brett Sr, 15 October 1921, MCC fonds. 33 Hugh Eayrs to Frederick Macmillan, 12 May 1921, MCC fonds. 34 George Brett Sr to Hugh Eayrs, 24 May 1921, MCC fonds. 35 Hugh Eayrs to George Brett Sr, 27 May 1921, MCC fonds. 36 A member of the staff to George Brett Sr, [May 1922], Macmillan Company Records, NYPL. 37 George Brett Sr to Frederick Macmillan, 16 May 1922, Macmillan Company Records, NYPL. 38 Frederick Macmillan to Hugh Eayrs, 27 April 1921, MCC fonds. 39 Frederick Macmillan to Hugh Eayrs, 17 August 1921, Macmillan Archive, BL.

272 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59

60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68

Notes to pages 74–81 Frederick Macmillan to Hugh Eayrs, 10 April 1921, Macmillan Archive, BL. Frederick Macmillan to Hugh Eayrs, 21 September 1921, MCC fonds. Bennett A. Cerf to Ellen Elliott, 8 May 1944, MCC fonds. Frederick Macmillan to Hugh Eayrs, 7 February 1922, MCC fonds. Bennett A. Cerf to Ellen Elliott, 8 May 1944, MCC fonds. Hugh Eayrs to Daniel Macmillan, 17 November 1922, MCC fonds. ‘Among Authors and Bookmen’ 325. Hugh Eayrs, ‘Publishing’ 4. Hugh Eayrs, A Canadian Publishing House 18–19. Hugh Eayrs, ‘Renaissance in Canadian Life’ 263. Parker, ‘Canadian ’ 36. Parker, ‘Canadian’ 36, 45. ‘Publishers Are Getting Over the Fear’ 27. Parker, ‘Evolution’ 31–2. Gerson and Michon [3]. Whiteman, ‘Canadian Issues’ 76–7. Edwardson 31. Edwardson 31. Whiteman, ‘Archive’ vi. Dawson [John Morgan Gray] 13. In 1918, John McClelland of the rival Canadian firm McClelland and Stewart had issued a similar statement: ‘We are specializing as far as possible on the works of Canadian writers, and prefer to give place to a Canadian book every time. We are always on the lookout for good Canadian material, and furthermore we go out of our way to place editions of Canadian books in both the American and English markets. We have yet to lose a dollar on any Canadian book that we have ever published, and … we can safely say that during the past two or three years we have published at least as many books by Canadian writers as any other publishing house in Canada’ (qtd in Gibbon 338). ‘New Head of Macmillans in Canada’ 49. See Whiteman, ‘The Publication of Maria Chapdelaine in English’ 52–9. Dawson [John Morgan Gray] 13. Frederick Macmillan to Hugh Eayrs, 21 September 1921, Macmillan Archive, BL. Whiteman, ‘Publication’ 55. Whiteman, ‘Publication’ 55–6. Whiteman, ‘Publication’ 57. Frederick Macmillan to Hugh Eayrs, 18 October 1921, Macmillan Archive, BL. Hugh Eayrs to Harold Latham, 22 September 1921, Macmillan Company Records, NYPL.

Notes to pages 81–6

273

69 Hugh Eayrs to George Brett Sr, 16 September 1921, MCC fonds. 70 George Brett Sr to Hugh Eayrs, 30 September 1921, Macmillan Company Records, NYPL. 71 ‘New Head’ 49. 72 The defendants named in the lawsuit were the Macmillan Company of Canada and Macmillan and Company of London, accused of making Deeks’s manuscript available to Wells; George Newnes Limited of London, publisher of the serialized form of Wells’s Outline of History; Cassell and Company of London, publisher of the British edition of Outline of History; the Macmillan Company of New York, publisher of the North American edition; and author H.G. Wells himself. 73 Cited in McKillop, Spinster 322. 74 Hugh Eayrs to Frederick Macmillan, 14 February 1929, MCC fonds. 75 McKillop’s 2001 study unearths the complete story of the Deeks-Wells case. The summary provided here derives from McKillop’s evocative rendering of the internecine connections between Frank Wise, John Cameron Saul, Hugh Eayrs, Frederick Macmillan, and George Brett that characterize the case. 76 Dawson [John Morgan Gray] 13. 77 Hugh Eayrs, Barometer 23. 78 Whiteman, ‘Archive’ 60. 79 Hugh Eayrs, Barometer 11. 80 See Nurse, ‘“The Best Field”’ 5–30. 81 Hugh Eayrs, It Isn’t Good Enough 11. Comprehensive author-publisher studies lie outside the broad scope of this work. The Macmillan Company of Canada fonds remains an invaluable resource for further analysis of author-publisher relations. 82 Spadoni, ‘The Dutch Piracy of Gone with the Wind’ 134. 83 Hugh Eayrs, ‘Bookman Profiles’ 17, 18. 84 Hugh Eayrs to Mazo de la Roche, 26 February 1937, MCC fonds. 85 Hugh Eayrs to Mazo de la Roche, 26 February 1937, MCC fonds. 86 Hugh Eayrs, ‘Bookman Profiles’ 20. 87 Mazo de la Roche to Hugh Eayrs, 3 May 1937, MCC fonds. 88 Joan Givner’s biography of de la Roche is an exception. See Givner, Mazo de la Roche: The Hidden Life. 89 See Mazo de la Roche, Explorers of the Dawn (New York: Knopf, 1922; London: Cassell, 1924); Possession (New York, London, Toronto: Macmillan, 1923); Low Life: A Comedy in One Act (Toronto: Macmillan, 1925); Delight (New York, Toronto: Macmillan, 1926): and Come True (Toronto: Macmillan, 1927).

274

Notes to pages 86–97

90 See Mazo de la Roche, ‘Buried Treasure,’ Atlantic Monthly 116 (August 1915): 192–204; and ‘Explorers of the Dawn,’ Atlantic Monthly 124 (October 1919): 532–40. 91 Mazo de la Roche to Daniel Macmillan, 20 May 1927, Macmillan Archive, BL. 92 Hugh Eayrs, ‘Bookman Profiles’ 18. 93 Weeks 46. 94 Edward Weeks to Hugh Eayrs, 11 January 1929, Weeks Papers, UTA. 95 Edward Weeks to Mazo de la Roche, 16 August 1929, Weeks Papers, UTA. 96 Givner 129. 97 Qtd in Frederick Philip Grove to Catherine Grove, 16 March 1928, 2028a B001. F003. I15, Frederick Philip Grove Papers, Queen’s University. 98 Lovat Dickson, note, n.d., Lovat Dickson fonds, LAC. 99 Mazo de la Roche to Edward Weeks, 23 September [1929], Weeks Papers, UTA. 100 For an examination of the publication of Jalna, see Panofsky, ‘“Go My Own Way?” 101 Mazo de la Roche to Edward Weeks, 30 January 1930, Weeks Papers, UTA. 102 Mazo de la Roche to Edward Weeks, 24 June 1930, Weeks Papers, UTA. 103 Alfred McIntyre to Edward Weeks, 9 July 1930, Weeks Papers, UTA. 104 Edward Weeks to Mazo de la Roche, 17 July 1930, Weeks Papers, UTA. 105 Mazo de la Roche to Edward Weeks, 22 July 1930, Weeks Papers, UTA. 106 Edward Weeks to Mazo de la Roche, 29 July 1930, Weeks Papers, UTA. 107 Edward Weeks to Mazo de la Roche, 29 July 1930, Weeks Papers, UTA. 108 Mazo de la Roche to Alfred McIntyre, 25 August 1930, Weeks Papers, UTA. 109 Edward Weeks to Mazo de la Roche, 2 March 1951, Weeks Papers, UTA. 110 Hugh Eayrs to Edward Weeks, 30 January 1931, Weeks Papers, UTA. 111 Hugh Eayrs to Edward Weeks, 12 April 1937, Weeks Papers, UTA. 112 Hugh Eayrs to Edward Weeks, 5 September 1933, Weeks Papers, UTA. 113 See Atlantic Monthly March 1934. 114 Mazo de la Roche to Edward Weeks, 15 March 1934, Weeks Papers, UTA. 115 Edward Weeks to Mazo de la Roche, 27 August 1934, Weeks Papers, UTA. 116 Alfred McIntyre to Mazo de la Roche, 6 September 1934, Weeks Papers, UTA. 117 Mazo de la Roche to Alfred McIntyre, 18 September 1934, Weeks Papers, UTA. 118 Edward Weeks to Mazo de la Roche, 3 October 1934, Weeks Papers, UTA. 119 Edward Weeks to Mazo de la Roche, 10 November 1934, Weeks Papers, UTA.

Notes to pages 97–106

275

120 Mazo de la Roche to Edward Weeks, 13 November 1934, Weeks Papers, UTA. 121 Edward Weeks to Mazo de la Roche, 24 May 1935, Weeks Papers, UTA. 122 Edward Weeks to Mazo de la Roche, 24 January 1935, Weeks Papers, UTA. 123 Edward Weeks to Hugh Eayrs, 30 March 1937, Weeks Papers, UTA. 124 Edward Weeks to Mazo de la Roche, 30 March 1937, Weeks Papers, UTA. 125 Qtd in [Deacon], ‘Hugh Eayrs, in Memoriam.’ 126 Hugh Eayrs to Grey Owl, 7 March 1936, MCC fonds. 127 Hugh Eayrs to Lovat Dickson, 21 August 1934, MCC fonds. 128 Smith, From the Land of Shadows 115. 129 Hugh Eayrs to Grey Owl, 28 May 1935, MCC fonds. 130 Hugh Eayrs to Grey Owl, 28 May 1935, MCC fonds. 131 Hugh Eayrs to Grey Owl, 7 March 1936, MCC fonds. 132 Hugh Eayrs to Grey Owl, 6 May 1936, MCC fonds. 133 Hugh Eayrs to Grey Owl, 4 May 1939, MCC fonds. 134 Grey Owl’s story is told by Smith in From the Land of Shadows. 135 Hugh Eayrs, Preface, A Book of Grey Owl xxi. 136 Qtd in Spadoni, ‘Stephen Leacock’ 58. 137 Qtd in Spadoni, ‘Stephen Leacock’ 69. 138 Margaret Stobie, interview with Ellen McKanday [formerly Ellen Elliott], 18 August 1970, Mss 13, box 2, folder 13, tape transcript 10: A & B. Margaret Stobie fonds, Archives and Special Collections, University of Manitoba. 139 Qtd in MacSkimming 45. 140 Pitt, Truant 288. 141 Qtd in Pitt, Truant 302. 142 Pitt, E.J. Pratt 172. 143 Qtd in Pitt, E.J. Pratt 155. David G. Pitt describes the relationship between E.J. Pratt and his publisher, as well as the gestation and delayed publication of New Provinces: Poems of Several Authors. See Pitt, E.J. Pratt: The Truant Years 1882–1927, and E.J. Pratt: The Master Years 1927–1964. 144 E.J. Pratt to Hugh Eayrs, 18 November 1936, MCC fonds. 145 Kuropatwa 603; Mathews 37. See also Mason 143–61. 146 Pitt, Master 191. 147 Hugh Eayrs to E.J. Pratt, 15 July 1932, MCC fonds. 148 Whiteman, ‘Archive’ x. 149 Hugh Eayrs to E.J. Pratt, 15 July 1932, MCC fonds. 150 John Morgan Gray, [‘Profile of the Macmillan Company of Canada’], 29 August 1967, ts, MCC fonds, pp. 2–3.

276 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162

163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173

174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183

Notes to pages 106–14 Lorne Pierce to Hugh Eayrs, 25 March 1932, MCC fonds. Hugh Eayrs to Daniel Macmillan, 27 September 1932, MCC fonds. Lorne Pierce to P.H. Sheffield, 14 November 1930, MCC fonds. Hugh Eayrs to Daniel Macmillan, 14 October 1931, MCC fonds. Campbell 35. Hugh Eayrs to Frances Ormond, 15 January 1932, MCC fonds. Campbell 136. Hugh Eayrs to Lorne Pierce, 20 May 1932, MCC fonds. Ellen Elliott to John Gray, 18 June 1946, MCC fonds. Hugh Eayrs to Lorne Pierce, 19 July 1933, MCC fonds. Campbell 142. John Webster Grant, Report of the Book Editor to the Board of Publication, April 1961, file 17, box 45, Lorne and Edith Pierce Collection, Queen’s University Archives. Campbell 142. Hugh Eayrs to Daniel Macmillan, 28 May 1934, box L212, Macmillan Archive, BL. Young 125. Hugh Eayrs, Barometer 13. Hugh Eayrs, Barometer 13; italics in the original. The summary provided here derives from Young 117–33. Hugh Eayrs to Harold Latham, 7 February 1938, MCC fonds. Spadoni, ‘Dutch’ 141. Spadoni, ‘Dutch’ 142. ‘Publisher Opposes Best Seller Ideas’ 19. ‘Publisher’ 19. The Canadian publication and Dutch piracy of Margaret Mitchell’s novel is described in full by Spadoni, ‘Dutch.’ Hugh Eayrs, Prefatory Remarks to Accompany the Notes on the Annual Report of the Macmillan Company of Canada Limited, for the Year Ending March 31st, 1936,’ box 45, file 11, MCC fonds. Hugh Eayrs, Barometer 23. Hugh Eayrs, Barometer 24. Hugh Eayrs, Barometer 12. Spadoni, ‘Dutch’ 134. Gray, Fun 232; [Deacon], ‘Hugh’ 10. Whiteman, ‘Archive’ vi. Hugh Eayrs to Lovat Dickson, 29 July 1936, MCC fonds. Hugh Eayrs to Lovat Dickson, 6 May 1937, MCC fonds. Hugh Eayrs to George Brett Jr, 13 December 1938, MCC fonds. Hugh Eayrs to George Brett Jr, 13 December 1938, MCC fonds.

Notes to pages 114–19 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216

277

Hugh Eayrs to George Brett Jr, 13 December 1938, MCC fonds. George Brett Jr to Hugh Eayrs, 15 December 1938, MCC fonds. George Brett Jr to Hugh Eayrs, 15 December 1938, MCC fonds. Hugh Eayrs to George Brett Jr, 20 December 1938, MCC fonds. Gray, Fun 234. Daniel Macmillan to Hugh Eayrs, 20 December 1938, private letterbook 1939, no. 3, Macmillan Archive, BL. Daniel Macmillan to George Brett Jr, 20 December 1938, M652, private letterbook 1926, no. 2, Macmillan Archive, BL. Daniel Macmillan to George Brett Jr, 20 December 1938, M652, private letterbook 1926, no. 2, Macmillan Archive, BL. Hugh Eayrs to Daniel Macmillan, 8 February 1939, letter folder Canada 1939, Macmillan Archive, BL. Hugh Eayrs to Daniel Macmillan, 8 February 1939, letter folder Canada 1939, Macmillan Archive, BL. Hugh Eayrs to Daniel Macmillan, 8 February 1939, letter folder Canada 1939, Macmillan Archive, BL. Gray, Fun 237. Hugh Eayrs to John Dettmer, 15 January 1940, MCC fonds. Pitt, Master 248. Gray, Fun 241. Ellen Elliott to Daniel and Harold Macmillan, 6 May 1940, MCC fonds. Ellen Elliott to Daniel and Harold Macmillan, 6 May 1940, MCC fonds. Robert Huckvale to Harold Macmillan, 6 May 1940, MCC fonds. Gray, Fun 239–40. Gray, Fun 239–40. Gray, Fun 241. Gray, Fun 241. Pitt, Master 248. Qtd in Pitt, Master 248. Qtd in Pitt, Master 248. Cited in [Deacon], ‘Hugh’ 10. Cited in [Deacon], ‘Hugh’ 10. Cited in [Deacon], ‘Hugh’ 10. ‘Worthy Career of Hugh Eayrs Ends Suddenly’; ‘The Late Hugh S. Eayrs’; ‘H. Eayrs Dies, Publisher’; [Obituary of Hugh Eayrs]. McLeod, ‘A Tribute to Mr. Eayrs’ 27. Tyrrell 26. Tyrrell 26. ‘Hugh S. Eayrs Passes Suddenly’ 25.

278 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227

228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244

Notes to pages 119–26 ‘Hugh S. Eayrs, Publisher, Dies after Seizure’ 1. [Deacon], ‘Hugh’ 10. [Deacon], ‘Hugh’ 10. [Deacon], ‘Hugh’ 10. Daniel Macmillan to Mazo de la Roche, 17 May 1940, private letterbook 1939, no. 3, Macmillan Archive, BL. George Brett Jr to Daniel Macmillan, 30 April 1940, Macmillan Archive, BL. George Brett Jr to Daniel Macmillan, 30 April 1940, Macmillan Archive, BL. Daniel Macmillan to George Brett Jr, 17 May 1940, private letterbook 1939, no. 3, Macmillan Archive, BL. George Brett Jr to Daniel Macmillan, 11 July 1940, New York-London folder, July–September 1940, Macmillan Company Records, NYPL. George Brett Jr to Daniel Macmillan, 14 August 1940, Macmillan Archive, BL. Hugh Eayrs to Grey Owl, 4 May 1936, MCC fonds; George Brett Jr to Daniel Macmillan, 12 September 1940, New York-London folder, July– September 1940, Macmillan Company Records, NYPL. Hugh Eayrs to Ellen Elliott, [late July] 1936, box 14, file 2, MCC fonds. Hugh Eayrs to John Y. Bews, 31 March 1924, MCC fonds. Ellen Elliott to Hugh Eayrs, 30 August 1938, box 14, file 3, MCC fonds. Ellen Elliott to Hugh Eayrs, 13 July 1938, 14, file 3, MCC fonds. Ellen Elliott to Hugh Eayrs, 19 July 1938, box 14, file 3, MCC fonds. Stobie, interview with Ellen McKanday, transcript p. 5. Ellen Elliott to Hugh Eayrs, 19 July 1938, box 14, file 3, MCC fonds. Stobie, interview with Ellen McKanday, transcript p. 3. Hugh Eayrs, ‘Lines – With Profound Apologies to Edgar Allan Poe,’ box 47, file 6, MCC fonds. Hugh Eayrs, ‘Lines.’ Hugh Eayrs to Lorne Pierce, 14 January 1936, MCC fonds; ‘Portrait of a Talent Scout.’ Ellen Elliott to Hugh Eayrs, 6 January 1938, box 14, file 2, MCC fonds. ‘Portrait’ 32. Ellen Elliott to Lovat Dickson, 4 November 1943, MCC fonds. Robert Huckvale to Daniel Macmillan, 10 July 1942, MCC fonds. Robert Huckvale to Daniel Macmillan, 10 July 1942, MCC fonds. [Hugh Eayrs], ‘A Great Canadian Publishing House,’ October 1938, MCC fonds.

3 Interregnum 1940–1946: Ellen Elliott 1 Robert Huckvale to Daniel Macmillan, 6 May 1940, letter folder Canada 1940, Macmillan Archive, BL.

Notes to pages 126–32

279

2 Robert Huckvale to Daniel Macmillan, 6 May 1940, letter folder Canada 1940, Macmillan Archive, BL. 3 Robert Huckvale to Daniel Macmillan, 6 May 1940, letter folder Canada 1940, Macmillan Archive, BL. 4 George Brett Jr to Daniel Macmillan, 14 August 1940, Macmillan Archive, BL. 5 George Brett Jr to Daniel Macmillan, 14 August 1940, Macmillan Archive, BL. 6 George Brett Jr to Daniel Macmillan, 14 August 1940, Macmillan Archive, BL. 7 George Brett Jr to Daniel Macmillan, 14 August 1940, Macmillan Archive, BL. 8 George Brett Jr to Daniel Macmillan, 12 September 1940, New YorkLondon folder, July–September 1940, Macmillan Company Records, NYPL. 9 George Brett Jr to Daniel Macmillan, 12 September 1940, New YorkLondon folder, July–September 1940, Macmillan Company Records, NYPL. 10 Gray, Fun 332. 11 Gray, Fun 347. 12 Gray, Fun 332. 13 Gray, Fun 214. 14 Daniel Macmillan to Ellen Elliott, 17 May 1940, private letterbook 1939, no. 3, Macmillan Archive, BL. 15 Ellen Elliott to Daniel Macmillan, 6 May 1940, MCC fonds. 16 Gray, Fun 344. 17 Elliott 26. 18 ‘Portrait’ 32. 19 ‘Portrait’ 32. 20 Ellen Elliott to Marguerite Lovat Dickson, 11 November 1940, MCC fonds. 21 Ellen Elliott to Margaret Hamilton Bach, 4 January 1957, Mss 14, box 5, folder 13, Hamilton Family fonds, University of Manitoba. 22 Ellen Elliott to Julian Gifford Cross, 7 March 1942, box 105, files 1–2, MCC fonds. 23 Pitt, Master 8–9. 24 William Lyon Mackenzie King, 22 March 1946, William Lyon Mackenzie King fonds (diaries), LAC. 25 William Lyon Mackenzie King, 16 December 1941, William Lyon Mackenzie fonds (diaries), LAC; Pitt, Master 49. 26 MacSkimming 52. 27 Ellen Elliott to Lovat Dickson, 4 November 1943, MCC fonds. 28 ‘Portrait’ 32. 29 ‘Portrait’ 33. 30 Ellen Elliott to Daniel Macmillan, 3 August 1942, MCC fonds. 31 Elliott 2. 32 Elliott 25. 33 Ellen Elliott to John Gray, 27 March 1945, MCC fonds.

280 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68

Notes to pages 132–8 Ellen Elliott to Lovat Dickson, 21 February 1944, MCC fonds. Ellen Elliott to Lovat Dickson, 16 March 1944, box 21, file 13, MCC fonds. Lovat Dickson to Ellen Elliott, 3 March 1944, MCC fonds. Parker, ‘Growing Pains’ 378. Elliott 9. Parker, ‘Growing Pains’ 372. Parker, ‘Publishing Industry’ 910; Ellen Elliott to P.K. Page, 17 October 1944, MCC fonds. ‘Miss F. Steinhoff Heads Press Club’ 11. Ellen Elliott to Lovat Dickson, 11 January 1944, MCC fonds. Eric F. Gaskell to Ellen Elliott, 9 July 1942, MCC fonds. Ellen Elliott to Lillian Hamilton, 14 April 1947, MCC fonds. Elliott 2. Spiers 19. Ellen Elliott to Graham Towers, 25 February 1941, MCC fonds. Ellen Elliott to A.J. Putnam, 15 October 1941, MCC fonds. Hugh Eayrs to Harold Macmillan, 22 March 1937, box L213, Macmillan Archive, BL; Ellen Elliott to Lawrence Burpee, 2 March 1942, MCC fonds. Elliott 23, 25. Ellen Elliott to Lillian Hamilton, 25 April 1940, box 105, files 1–2, MCC fonds. ‘Portrait’ 32. ‘Portrait’ 33. Ellen Elliott to Frederick Philip Grove, 17 July 1944, box 103, file 9, MCC fonds; Stobie, interview with Ellen McKanday, transcript p. 2. Stobie, interview with Ellen McKanday, transcript p. 5. Stobie 184. Lovat Dickson to John Gray, 15 July 1946, MCC fonds; Daniel Macmillan to John Gray, 27 September 1946, MCC fonds. Gray, Fun 344. Ellen Elliott, RR, Stories by Grey Owl, 31 July 1931, MCC fonds. Hugh Eayrs to Lovat Dickson, 16 April 1937, MCC fonds. Ellen Elliott to Grey Owl, 21 May 1937, MCC fonds. Ellen Elliott to Grey Owl, 21 May 1937, MCC fonds. Pitt, Master 250. Pitt, Master 250. Ellen Elliott to E.J. Pratt, 3 April 1945, MCC fonds. Frederick Philip Grove, RR, Who Has Seen the Wind by W.O. Mitchell, 12 February 1946, MCC fonds. Ellen Elliott to W.O. Mitchell, 4 March 1946, MCC fonds. Ellen Elliott to Mitchell, 14 February 1947, MCC fonds.

Notes to pages 139–45

281

69 Ellen Elliott to Lovat Dickson, 21 January 1946, box 21, file 15, MCC fonds. 70 Mona Gould to Ellen Elliott, [November 1943], box 97, file 12, MCC fonds. 71 Mona Gould, remembrance, n.d., Mona Gould Papers, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UT. 72 Ellen Elliott to Mona Gould, 1 March 1946, MCC fonds. 73 Mona Gould to Robert Graves, [April 1943], MCC fonds. 74 Ellen Elliott to A.J. Putnam, 20 May 1942, MCC fonds. 75 A.J. Putnam to Ellen Elliott, 6 July 1942, MCC fonds. 76 Ellen Elliott to A.J. Putnam, 20 May 1942, MCC fonds. 77 Ellen Elliott to P.K. Page, 30 August 1943, MCC fonds. 78 P.K. Page to Ellen Elliott, 8 September 1943, MCC fonds; P.K. Page, telephone interview, 3 May 2006. 79 P.K. Page to Ellen Elliott, [17 October 1944], MCC fonds. 80 Daniel Macmillan to Robert Huckvale, 14 August 1944, MCC fonds. 81 ‘English Books in Canada’ 42–3. 82 Gray, Fun 344. 83 Gray, Fun 344. 84 Ellen Elliott to John Gray, 16 March 1944, MCC fonds. 85 Ellen Elliott to Lovat Dickson, 5 April 1946, box 21, file 15, MCC fonds. 86 Ellen Elliott to Mona Gould, 18 May 1946, Mona Gould Papers, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UT. 87 Ellen Elliott to Elizabeth Harrison, 10 July 1946, MCC fonds; Ellen Elliott to Catherine Grove, 30 November 1946, box 103, file 8, MCC fonds. 88 Ellen Elliott to A.J. Putnam, 4 December 1946, MCC fonds; Ellen Elliott to Lillian Hamilton, 14 April 1947, MCC fonds. 89 Hugh Eayrs to John Gray, 19 March 1936, MCC fonds. 90 George Brett Jr to Daniel Macmillan, 24 December 1947, box L213, Macmillan Archive, BL. 91 Ellen Elliott to Daniel Macmillan, [June 1946], MCC fonds. 92 Ellen Elliott to Daniel Macmillan, [June 1946], MCC fonds. 93 Daniel and Harold Macmillan to George Brett Jr, 7 May 1946, private letterbook 1939, no. 3, Macmillan Archive, BL. 94 Daniel Macmillan to John Gray, 13 June 1946, private letterbook 1939, no. 3, Macmillan Archive, BL. 95 John Gray to Daniel Macmillan, 21 June 1946, letter folder Canada 1946, Macmillan Archive, BL. 96 John Gray to Daniel Macmillan, 21 June 1946, letter folder Canada 1946, Macmillan Archive, BL. 97 Ellen Elliott to Daniel Macmillan, 28 May 1947, letter folder Canada 1947, Macmillan Archive, BL.

282

Notes to pages 146–52

98 Ellen Elliott to Daniel Macmillan, 28 May 1947, letter folder Canada 1947, Macmillan Archive, BL. 99 Ellen Elliott to Daniel Macmillan, 4 June 1947, letter folder Canada 1947, Macmillan Archive, BL. 100 Daniel Macmillan to Ellen Elliott, 4 July 1947, private letterbook 1939, no. 3, Macmillan Archive, BL. 101 Daniel Macmillan to John Gray, 4 July 1947, private letterbook 1939, no. 3, Macmillan Archive, BL. 102 [Deacon], ‘Macmillan Editor Leaves Publishing’ 10. 103 ‘Ellen Elliott Retires’ 32. 104 [Deacon], ‘Macmillan’ 10. 105 Ellen Elliott to John Gray, 6 July 1947, MCC fonds. 106 Lawrence Burpee to Ellen Elliott, 27 February 1942, MCC fonds. 107 ‘Ellen McKanday’ 57. 108 [Deacon], ‘Macmillan’ 10. 4 The Resplendent Reign 1946–1969: John Morgan Gray 1 Whiteman, ‘Archive’ v. 2 Frank Rasky, ‘[John] Gray Profile,’ [1947], ts, John Morgan Gray fonds, LAC. 3 Rasky 9. 4 John Anthony Morgan Gray, personal interview, 16 March 2010. 5 ‘John Morgan Gray.’ 6 Rasky 4. 7 Rasky 3. 8 Gray, Fun 139. 9 Lovat Dickson, ‘Gray, John Morgan’ 492. 10 Dickson, ‘Gray, John Morgan’ 492. 11 Dickson, ‘Gray, John Morgan’ 492. 12 Gray, Fun 336. 13 Gray, Fun 336. 14 Gray, Fun 337. 15 Gray, Fun 338. 16 Marsh Jeanneret to John Gray, 10 June 1946, MCC fonds. 17 B.K. Sandwell to John Gray, 7 June 1946, MCC fonds. 18 [Deacon], ‘Macmillan Changes Heads’ 8. 19 John Gray to Irene H. Lewis, 3 July 1946, MCC fonds. 20 Patten and Finkelstein 148. 21 Rasky 8.

Notes to pages 152–9 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

45 46 47 48 49

283

Rasky 8. Rasky 8–9. [Deacon], ‘Macmillan Changes Heads’ 8. Dickson, ‘Gray, John Morgan’ 492–3. Gray, ‘Books Too Dear?’ 46. Broten and Birdsall 23. New, A History of Canadian Literature 181. John Gray to Daniel Macmillan, 6 June 1946, box L213, Macmillan Archive, BL. Daniel Macmillan to John Gray, 12 June 1946, private letterbook 1939, no. 3, Macmillan Archive, BL. John Gray, Annual Report to Shareholders, September 1947, box L212, Macmillan Archive, BL; Gray, ‘The Greatest Canadian Biography Never Written’ 38. Broten and Birdsall 23. John Gray, Annual Report to Shareholders, September 1947, box L212, Macmillan Archive, BL. Gray, [‘Profile’] 4. Daniel Macmillan to John Gray, 3 June 1949, private letterbook 1939, no. 3, Macmillan Archive, BL. John Gray, Policy Memorandum, 3 April 1970, MCC fonds. John Gray to Daniel Macmillan, 15 January 1953, box L213, Macmillan Archive, BL. MacSkimming 61. John Gray to Daniel Macmillan, 19 June 1950, box L213, Macmillan Archive, BL. MacSkimming 24. John Gray to Daniel Macmillan, 19 June 1950, box L213, Macmillan Archive, BL. Daniel Macmillan to John Gray, 4 July 1950, MCC fonds. John Gray to Daniel Macmillan, 7 July 1950, MCC fonds. John Gray to Colin Henderson, 18 January 1954, MCC fonds; Daniel Macmillan to John Gray, 7 September 1954, private letterbook 1949, no.4, Macmillan Archive, BL. Parker, ‘The Sale of Ryerson Press’ 12. John Gray to Francis Hardy, 18 November 1954, MCC fonds. John Gray to Francis Hardy, 30 November 1954, MCC fonds. William Arthur Deacon to John Gray, 13 December 1948, MCC fonds; John Gray to William Arthur Deacon, 21 December 1948, MCC fonds. Lovat Dickson to John Gray, 19 December 1962, MCC fonds.

284

Notes to pages 159–65

50 R.C. Rowland Clark to John Gray, 11 July 1963, letterbook 6 January 1963 to 6 April 1964, Macmillan Archive, BL. 51 Tebbel 362. 52 George Brett Jr to John Gray, 29 January 1947, MCC fonds. 53 John Gray to George Brett Jr, 14 March 1947, MCC fonds. 54 Lovat Dickson to John Archibald, 5 April 1957, private letterbook 1949, no. 4, Macmillan Archive, BL. 55 George Brett Jr to John Gray, 1 April 1947, MCC fonds. 56 George Brett Jr to Daniel Macmillan, 21 November 1951, box L213, Macmillan Archive, BL. 57 James, ‘Letters’ 186. 58 James, ‘Letters’ 186. For nearly a decade, St Martin’s Press suffered under uncertain leadership. In December 1963, Frank Upjohn was seconded to St Martin’s as managing director while continuing as vice-president of the Macmillan Company of Canada. The following year, Upjohn was appointed president and chief executive officer of St Martin’s Press. 59 George Brett Jr to John Gray, 21 April 1954, MCC fonds. 60 George Brett Jr to John Gray, 21 April 1954, MCC fonds. 61 John Gray to George Brett Jr, 8 September 1955, letter folder Canada 1955, Macmillan Archive, BL. 62 Gray, [‘Profile’] 5. 63 Qtd in ‘Changes at Macmillan’s’ 13. 64 Qtd in ‘Changes at Macmillan’s’ 13. 65 John Gray to William Arthur Deacon, 3 February 1956, MCC fonds. 66 John Gray to George Brett Jr, 29 January 1959, MCC fonds. 67 Mumby 286. 68 Fritschner 45. 69 Fritschner 45, 46. 70 Fritschner 94. 71 Fritschner 50, 53, 83. 72 Fritschner 48. 73 Fritschner 48. 74 Fritschner 48. 75 Patten and Finkelstein 147. 76 Qtd in Halpenny 14–15. 77 John Gray to Kildare Dobbs, 21 May 1953, MCC fonds. 78 Dobbs, Running 129. 79 Duthie Books expanded to ten stores and was in business for fifty-three years. Competition from large bookstores forced the closure of the last of its Vancouver stores in February 2010.

Notes to pages 165–72 80 81 82 83 84 85

86

87

88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107

285

Kildare Dobbs to John Gray, 6 September 1957, MCC fonds. Dobbs, Running 133. Dobbs, Running 130. Dobbs, Running 132. Kildare Dobbs, RR, Poems by Rogers, 18 February 1954, MCC fonds. Kildare Dobbs, RR, The Death of Animals by Al Purdy, 31 October 1956, MCC fonds; Kildare Dobbs, RR, Canadian Poems edited by Louis Dudek and Irving Layton, 29 August 1955, MCC fonds. Kildare Dobbs, RR, Poems by A. Black, 4 February 1954, MCC fonds; Kildare Dobbs, RR, The Cruising Auk by George Johnston, 5 October 1954, MCC fonds. Kildare Dobbs, RR, 10 May 1954, MCC fonds; Kildare Dobbs, RR, Historical Legends and Folklore of Newfoundland by L.E.F. English, 19 March 1954, MCC fonds. Kildare Dobbs, RR, So Young and Beautiful by Percy Janes, 27 March 1957, MCC fonds. Dobbs, RR, English. Dobbs, Running 130. Dobbs, Running 136. Marshall Ayres Best to John Gray, 2 September 1955, MCC fonds. Gray, ‘Canadian Books’ 35. Kildare Dobbs to Adele Wiseman, 17 October 1955, MCC fonds. Kildare Dobbs to Adele Wiseman, 20 October 1955, MCC fonds. Kildare Dobbs to Adele Wiseman, 2 May 1957, MCC fonds. Kildare Dobbs to Adele Wiseman, 14 May 1957, MCC fonds. Kildare Dobbs to John Gray, 2 October 1961, MCC fonds. Patten and Finkelstein 171. Patten and Finkelstein 158. Vivian Holland, RR, ms by A. Allen, 23 May 1950, MCC fonds. Fritschner 53. Vivian Holland, RR, Stories of Mr Pennyfeather by Mrs Robert Stewart, 31 May 1951, MCC fonds. Vivian Holland, RR, Ace of Diamonds by D.G. Turner, 31 August 1957, MCC fonds. Vivian Holland, RR, Fork in the Road by F.S. Gilbertson, 23 October 1954, MCC fonds. Vivian Holland, RR, Passion Flower by M. and A.C. MacNeish, 28 November 1950, MCC fonds. Vivian Holland, RR, Canadian Keepsake by William Stephenson, 22 February 1952, MCC fonds.

286

Notes to pages 172–7

108 Vivan Holland, RR, 23 October 1950 and 20 July 1950, MCC fonds. 109 Vivian Holland, RR, The Bite of the Silver Bee by Kenneth Orvis, 15 June 1953, MCC fonds; Vivian Holland, RR, Phantom in the Wilderness by Farley Mowat, 8 April 1954, MCC fonds. 110 Vivian Holland, RR, 15 June 1955, MCC fonds; Vivian Holland, RR, 19 March 1953, MCC fonds. 111 Vivian Holland, RR, Max by Charles Herrick, 10 June 1953, MCC fonds. 112 Fritschner 63. 113 Elizabeth Sturges, RR, Three Squares and a Rhomboid, 3 November 1955, MCC fonds. 114 Elizabeth Sturges, RR, 30 September 1957, MCC fonds. 115 Elizabeth Sturges, RR, Counterpoint to Calypso by E.B. Osler, 13 February 1957, MCC fonds. 116 Elizabeth Sturges, RR, 10 May 1957, MCC fonds; Elizabeth Sturges, RR, The Affair by Herbert Turner, 19 April 1956, MCC fonds; Elizabeth Sturges, RR, 20 September 1957, MCC fonds. 117 Elizabeth Sturges, RR, 14 March 1956, MCC fonds; Elizabeth Sturges, RR, 21 February 1956, MCC fonds. 118 Elizabeth Sturges, RR, In Search of Highways by P. von Weymarn, 3 August 1956, MCC fonds. 119 Elizabeth Sturges, RR, All Together with Annabelle by Elizabeth Sargent, 3 April 1957, MCC fonds. 120 Elizabeth Sturges, RR, Which Reminds Me by H. Napier Moore, 14 February 1956, MCC fonds. 121 Elizabeth Sturges, RR, 11 February 1957, MCC fonds. 122 Horne 183. 123 Fritschner 85. 124 Fritschner 94. 125 Fritschner 94. 126 Sullivan 178. 127 Sullivan 178, 278. 128 Gwendolyn MacEwen, RR, Frozen Branches of Day by Ted Plantos, August 1966, MCC fonds. 129 Gwendolyn MacEwen, RR, Spindrift and Morning Light by Paul O’Neill, May 1966, MCC fonds. 130 Gwendolyn MacEwen, RR, No Curtains on My Window by P. Lager, September 1967, MCC fonds. 131 Gwendolyn MacEwen, RR, Each Offshore Wind by Richard E. DuWors, April 1966, MCC fonds; Gwendolyn MacEwen, RR, Poetry by James A. Couper, February 1967, MCC fonds.

Notes to pages 177–9

287

132 Gwendolyn MacEwen, RR, Afterimages by Peter Miller, January 1966, MCC fonds. 133 Gwendolyn MacEwen, RR, Artificial Flowers by B. Mowatt, April 1966, MCC fonds. 134 Gwendolyn MacEwen, RR, Poems by David McFadden, May 1966, MCC fonds. 135 MacEwen, RR, McFadden. 136 Gwendolyn MacEwen, RR, Of Silent Leaves by Abbot J. Anderson, August 1966, MCC fonds. 137 Gwendolyn MacEwen, RR, Songs for the Bible Belt by Joan Finnigan, June 1966, MCC fonds. 138 Gwendolyn MacEwen, RR, Statement by Louella Booth, February 1967, MCC fonds; MacEwen, RR, Couper. 139 Gwendolyn MacEwen, RR, No Casual Trespass by Padraig O’Broin, n.d., MCC fonds. 140 Gwendolyn MacEwen, RR, The Singing Stone by Jane Johnson, March 1967, MCC fonds. 141 MacEwen, RR, McFadden; MacEwen, RR, Plantos; Gwendolyn MacEwen, RR, From My Mind’s Time by Peter Stevens, February 1967, MCC fonds. 142 MacEwen, RR, Stevens; MacEwen, RR, Plantos; Gwendolyn MacEwen, RR, Brain Stains: Poems by Marshall Laub, March 1967, MCC fonds. 143 Gwendolyn MacEwen, RR, A Story and 11 Poems by Michael Desjardins, January 1967, MCC fonds. 144 Gwendolyn MacEwen, RR, Double Star and Other Verses by Lionel G. Harrison, April 1967, MCC fonds. 145 MacEwen, RR, Desjardins. 146 Gwendolyn MacEwen, RR, Poems Old and New by Lillian S. Auty, January 1966, MCC fonds. 147 Gwendolyn MacEwen, RR, Marine Climate by Hugh Ector, April 1966, MCC fonds. 148 MacEwen, RR, Miller. 149 Gwendolyn MacEwen, RR, Spring Harvest by Robert Swerdlow, September 1966, MCC fonds. 150 MacEwen, RR, Miller. 151 MacEwen, RR, Laub. 152 Gwendolyn MacEwen, RR, Skinny Dip by Harry Howith, January 1966, MCC fonds. 153 Gwendolyn MacEwen, RR, Poems by Alan Pearson, December 1966, MCC fonds. 154 MacEwen, RR, Pearson; Gwendolyn MacEwen, RR, untitled ms by

288

155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165

166 167 168 169

170 171 172 173

174 175 176 177 178 179

Notes to pages 179–84 Cormac Gerrard Cappon, September 1967, MCC fonds; MacEwen, RR, Pearson. MacEwen, RR, Plantos; MacEwen, RR, O’Broin. MacEwen, RR, Harrison. Gwendolyn MacEwen, RR, Intrada: Poems by Deborah Eibel, August 1967, MCC fonds. Gwendolyn MacEwen, RR, untitled ms by R.M. Smith, April 1967, MCC fonds. Gwendolyn MacEwen, RR, The Selected Poems of Duncan Campbell Scott, February 1966, MCC fonds. MacEwen, RR, Scott. Gwendolyn MacEwen, RR, 36 Poems by Florence McNeil, October 1969, MCC fonds. MacEwen, RR, McNeil. Gwendolyn MacEwen, RR, Four Plays by Norman Williams, September 1966, MCC fonds. Gwendolyn MacEwen, RR, The End of the Week by John Bruce, January 1966, MCC fonds. Gwendolyn MacEwen, RR, The Land Apart by Barbara Milne, July 1966, MCC fonds; Gwendolyn MacEwen, RR, Surprise Sandwich by Red Lane, June 1966, MCC fonds. MacSkimming 52. Michael Byron Davis, personal interview, 25 January 2008. MacSkimming 300. Roy MacSkimming, personal interview with Gladys Neale, 23 September 1998, box 3, file 12, Roy MacSkimming fonds, William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections, McMaster University, transcript p. 4. MacSkimming, personal interview with Gladys Neale, transcript p. 5. MacSkimming, personal interview with Gladys Neale, transcript p. 4. MacSkimming 52. Gladys Neale, ‘My Personal View of Educational Publishing,’ Atlantic Publishers Association Conference, St John’s, Newfoundland, 24–25 November 1977, ts, MCC fonds, p. 2. John Gray to Gladys Neale, 8 November 1949, MCC fonds. MacSkimming 52. Gladys Neale, RR, 16 March 1950, MCC fonds. Gladys Neale, RR, The Golden Trail by Pierre Berton, 17 May 1954, MCC fonds. Neale, RR, Berton. Gladys Neale, RR, Lost in the Barren Lands by Farley Mowat (later published as Lost in the Barrens), 10 November 1954, MCC fonds.

Notes to pages 184–9

289

180 Gladys Neale, RR, The Griffin Laughed by Michael A. Hicks, 28 June 1949, MCC fonds. 181 Gladys Neale, RR, Almost a Fairy Tale by Anton Mohr, 9 January 1951, MCC fonds; Gladys Neale, RR, Prairie Folk by Elizabeth K. Hubbard, 13 March 1951, MCC fonds. 182 Gladys Neale, RR, 16 March 1950, MCC fonds. 183 Gladys Neale, RR, Canada’s Literary Pioneers by Edwin C. Guillet, 15 November 1948, MCC fonds. 184 John Gray to Daniel Macmillan, 5 September 1947, MCC fonds. 185 MacSkimming, personal interview with Gladys Neale, transcript p. 9. 186 Gray, Fun 338. 187 MacSkimming, personal interview with Gladys Neale, transcript p. 13. 189 John W. Irwin, personal interview, 17 January 2008. 190 Parker, ‘Growing Pains’ 397. 191 Gray, ‘Book Publishing’ 63, 56. 192 Gray, ‘Book Publishing’ 65. 193 Dobbs, ‘Macmillan Was Canadian’ 34. 194 Gray, ‘Canadian’ 31. 195 Gray, Fun 221. 196 Mazo de la Roche to John Gray, 8 May 1954, MCC fonds. 197 John Anthony Gray, personal interview, 16 March 2010. 198 Gray, ‘Author and Publisher’ 3. 199 John Morgan Gray, ‘A Publisher Surveys the Canadian Literary Scene,’ 1 December 1949, ts, MCC fonds, p. 1. 200 Gray, ‘Canadian’ 36. 201 John Gray to R.C. Rowland Clark, 14 March 1958, box L213, Macmillan Archive, BL. 202 Rasky 2. 203 Gray, ‘Canadian’ 34–5; John Morgan Gray, ‘An Evening with Ethel Wilson,’ 10 November 1961, ts, MCC fonds, p. 6. 204 Gray, ‘Author and Publisher’ i, 15. 205 Gray, ‘Evening’ 6. 206 David Stouck 125. 207 David Stouck 126. 208 David Stouck 186. 209 David Stouck 278. 210 Gray, ‘Evening’ 8. 211 Qtd in John Gray to W.O. Mitchell, 9 September 1947, MCC fonds; John Gray to W.O. Mitchell, 9 September 1947, MCC fonds. 212 John Gray to W.O. Mitchell, 19 November 1947, MCC fonds. 213 W.O. Mitchell to John Gray, 15 March 1947, MCC fonds.

290 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241

242

Notes to pages 189–94 John Gray to W.O. Mitchell, 3 May 1960, MCC fonds. John Gray to Adele Wiseman, 7 November 1956, MCC fonds. John Gray to Henry Allen Moe, 17 December 1956, MCC fonds. Kildare Dobbs, personal interview, 8 November 1999. Kildare Dobbs, personal interview, 8 November 1999. Gray, ‘Canadian’ 26. John Gray to Robertson Davies, 5 May 1958, MCC fonds. John Gray to Robertson Davies, 3 December 1968, MCC fonds. Promotional card for Robertson Davies’s Fifth Business, MCC fonds. Robertson Davies to John Gray, 15 April 1971, MCC fonds. John Gray to Hugh MacLennan, 19 November 1954, MCC fonds. Elspeth Cameron, Hugh MacLennan 237. Hugh MacLennan to John Gray, 28 July 1946, MCC fonds. Elspeth Cameron, Hugh MacLennan 253. John Gray to Hugh MacLennan, 29 July 1946, MCC fonds; Hugh MacLennan to John Gray, 1 May 1950, MCC fonds. [Deacon], ‘The Fly Leaf’ 16. [Deacon], ‘The Fly Leaf’ 16. William Arthur Deacon to John Gray, 24 December 1960, MCC fonds. Gray, ‘Author and Publisher’ 16. John Gray to Hugh MacLennan, 8 November 1960, MCC fonds. Gray, ‘Author and Publisher’ i. John Gray to Hugh MacLennan, 29 December 1961, MCC fonds. Hugh MacLennan to John Gray, 27 December 1961, MCC fonds. Gray, ‘Author and Publisher’ 10. John Gray to Hugh MacLennan, 25 August 1967, Hugh MacLennan fonds, University of Calgary. Hugh MacLennan to John Gray, 15 April 1971, MCC fonds. John Gray to Hugh MacLennan, 18 May 1983, MCC fonds. Several biographical works treat Gray’s connection to authors Ethel Wilson, W.O. Mitchell, Adele Wiseman, Robertson Davies, and Hugh MacLennan. See David Stouck, Ethel Wilson; Barbara and Ormond Mitchell, W.O.: The Life of W.O. Mitchell. Beginnings to Who Has Seen the Wind, 1914–1947 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1999), and Mitchell: The Life of W.O. Mitchell. The Years of Fame, 1948–1998 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2005); Ruth Panofsky, The Force of Vocation: The Literary Career of Adele Wiseman (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2006); Judith Skelton Grant, Robertson Davies: Man of Myth (Toronto: Viking Press, 1994); and Elspeth Cameron, Hugh MacLennan. Gray, ‘Author and Publisher’ 20; Struthers 352.

Notes to pages 195–202

291

243 John Gray to Daniel Macmillan, 25 October 1948, MCC fonds. 244 William Arthur Deacon to John Gray, 26 January 1956, MCC fonds. 245 Gray, [‘Profile’] 5; Qtd. in Wallace A. Matheson to John Hobday, 17 July 1972, MCC fonds. 246 Qtd in Wallace A. Matheson to John Hobday, 17 July 1972, MCC fonds. 247 Ramsay Cook to John Gray, 16 April 1971, MCC fonds. 248 Dobbs, ‘A Dismaying Situation’ 32. 249 Harold Macmillan to John Gray, 27 January 1966, box L213, Macmillan Archive, BL. 250 John Gray to A.W. Trueman, 12 December 1957, MCC fonds. 251 Mordecai Richler, ‘Going Home Again,’ New York Times Book Review 1 September 1974: 12. 252 Mordecai Richler to John Gray, 30 June 1967, MCC fonds.; John Gray to Mordecai Richler, 14 July 1967, MCC fonds. 253 Mordecai Richler to John Gray, 25 August 1967, MCC fonds. 254 John Gray to Mordecai Richler, 14 September 1967, MCC fonds. 255 Mordecai Richler to John Gray, 27 March 1969, MCC fonds. 256 John Morgan Gray, ‘Publishing: An Art? A Business? Or a Guessing Game?’ [1972], ts, John Morgan Gray fonds, LAC, pp. 4–5. 257 Slopen 15. 258 Qtd in Wallace A. Matheson to John Hobday, 17 July 1972, MCC fonds; Slopen 15. 259 Spiers 4, 3. 260 John Gray to Daniel Macmillan, 10 July 1952, MCC fonds. 261 Dobbs, ‘Canadian History’ n. pag. 262 Qtd in Dobbs, ‘Canadian History’ n. pag. 263 ‘Great Stories of Canada’ 11. 264 Dobbs, ‘Canadian History’ n. pag. 265 Dobbs, ‘Canadian History’ n. pag. 266 Dinka, ‘Tender Trappings’ 14–15. 267 See King. 268 John Gray to Colin McDougall, 27 September 1967, MCC fonds. 269 Hugh Kane to George Gilmour, 11 April 1973, MCC fonds. 270 Howsam 22. 271 Howsam 11. 272 John Gray, vol. 5, file ‘Diary 1958,’ John Morgan Gray fonds, LAC. 273 Frank Whitehead to Hugh Kane, [August 1970], MCC fonds; John Gray to Harold Macmillan, 10 September 1970, box L213, Macmillan Archive, BL. 274 Hugh Kane to George Gilmour, 25 April 1973, Hugh Kane Papers, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UT.

292 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286

287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301

Notes to pages 203–10 Whiteman, ‘Archive’ viii. Parker, ‘Sale’ 31. Parker, ‘Sale’ 30. See Parker, ‘Sale.’ Gray, ‘Speech to Canadian Book Publishers’ Council,’ 7 December [1970], ts, John Morgan Gray fonds, LAC, pp. 2–3. King 230. Gray, ‘Trade Publishing’ 12. Agenda, Directors’ Meeting, Maclean Hunter Limited, 10 November 1972, MCC fonds. Dobbs, ‘Macmillan’ 34. ‘Maclean-Hunter Buys Macmillan’ 1; Whiteman, et al., Bibliography xiii. Slopen 15; John Gray to Hugh Kane, 7 May 1973, MCC fonds. Harold Macmillan to John Gray, 22 April 1971, Hugh Kane Papers, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UT; Frank Whitehead to John Gray, 16 April 1971, Hugh Kane Papers, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UT. Harold Macmillan to John Gray, 5 April 1973, box L213, Macmillan Archive, BL. John Gray to Harold Macmillan, 16 April 1973, MCC fonds. Alan Maclean to John Gray, 28 June 1973, MCC fonds. Hugh MacLennan to John Gray, 11 November 1972, vol. 2, file ‘Correspondence 1972,’ John Morgan Gray fonds, LAC. Dobbs, ‘Publisher’s Retirement’ 56. Jack McClelland to John Gray, 20 July 1972, John Morgan Gray fonds, LAC. Lovat Dickson to John Gray, 5 April 1973, MCC fonds. Douglas Gibson to John Gray, 18 October 1977, John Morgan Gray fonds, LAC. Parker, ‘Bookman’ 93. Parker, ‘Bookman’ 93. ‘John Gray 1907–1978’ 2. Dickson, ‘“John Morgan Gray, 1907–1978”’ 226. I.M. Owen, ‘A Proposal for a Study of Book-Publishing in English Canada since 1945,’ 28 January 1980, John Morgan Gray fonds, LAC. Whiteman, ‘Archive’ x. Whiteman, et al., Bibliography xii–xiii.

5 The Final Reign 1969–1976: Hugh Pyper Kane 1 Hamish Cameron, ‘Hugh Kane’ 46. 2 Hamish Cameron, ‘Hugh Kane’ 46.

Notes to pages 210–16 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

31 32

293

Newman 34; Wilson 17. MacSkimming 124. Gibson, ‘Macmillan of Bond Street’ 107. Hamish Cameron, ‘Hugh Kane’ 46. Wilson 17. Hamish Cameron, ‘Hugh Kane’ 47. Hugh Kane to Floyd Chalmers, 22 July 1975, MCC fonds. [Hugh Kane], ‘Address, Awards Dinner, Edmonton, Alberta, June 8, 1973,’ ts, Hugh Kane Papers, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UT, p. 8. Ramsay Derry, personal interview, 13 April 2010. Hugh Kane to Lovat Dickson, 9 July 1974, MCC fonds. [Hugh Kane], ‘The State of English Language Publishing in Canada, Trent University, January 24–25, 1975,’ ts, Hugh Kane Papers, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UT, p. 1. Purdie B3. Hamish Cameron, ‘Hugh Kane’ 46. Hugh Kane to John Gray, 9 March [1969], MCC fonds. Hugh Kane to John Gray, 9 March [1969], MCC fonds. Sean Kane, personal interview, 2 June 2008. Hugh Kane to George Gilmour, 20 August 1976, MCC fonds. Jack McClelland to Hugh Kane, [April or May 1969], Hugh Kane Papers, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UT. Jack McClelland to Staff, 15 May 1969, box 3, file 3, Hugh Kane Papers, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UT. Hamish Cameron, ‘Hugh Kane’ 47. John Gray to Staff, 23 May 1969, box 3, Hugh Kane Papers, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UT. Hugh Kane to George Gilmour, 25 April 1973, MCC fonds; Sean Kane, personal interview, 2 June 2008. Hugh Kane to George Gilmour, 25 April 1973, MCC fonds. [Kane], ‘The State’ 8. Frank Whitehead to John Gray, 16 April 1971, Hugh Kane Papers, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UT. ‘Ernst and Ernst Report’ 1. Lowman 4. [Hugh Kane], ‘A Brief to the Royal Commission on Book Publishing from the Macmillan Company of Canada Limited,’ Hugh Kane Papers, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UT, p. [ii]. [Kane], ‘Brief’ [i]. [Kane], ‘Brief’ 3–4.

294 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67

Notes to pages 217–25 Ramsay Cook to John Gray, 16 April 1971, MCC fonds. ‘The Perils of Canadian Publishing,’ Time 1 March 1971: 8B. Parker, ‘Sale’ 48. Saunders, ‘Book Publishers’ 21. Saunders, ‘Book Publishers’ 21. Newman 34. Hugh Kane to Robert Stuart, 27 September 1976, MCC fonds. Newman 34. Newman 34. Hugh Kane to George Gilmour, 20 August 1976, MCC fonds. Newman 34. Newman 37. Hugh Kane to George Gilmour, 20 August 1976, MCC fonds. Newman 36. MacSkimming 178. MacSkimming 176. Cain 112–13. [Sean Kane], ‘Re: The House of Anansi,’ 24–5 November 1969, ts, MCC fonds, p. 4. [Sean Kane], ‘Re: The House’ 3. [Sean Kane], ‘Re: The House’ 3. Dennis Lee to John Gray and Hugh Kane, 21 March 1970, MCC fonds. Dennis Lee to John Gray and Hugh Kane, 21 March 1970, MCC fonds. Hugh Kane to Dennis Lee, 23 March 1970, MCC fonds. Hugh Kane to Dennis Lee, 23 March 1970, MCC fonds. Hugh Kane to Dennis Lee, 23 March 1970, MCC fonds. Caroline Carver, rev. of Alligator Pie and Nicholas Knock and Other People, by Dennis Lee, CKFM, 6 October 1974, transcript, MCC fonds. Sean Kane, personal interview, 2 June 2008; Hugh Kane to W.M. Sinclair, 26 October 1973, MCC fonds. Hugh Kane to Frank Whitehead, 30 May 1977, Hugh Kane Papers, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UT. Qtd in McGrath. Bowering 1199. Newfeld 218. Newfeld 321. Sean Kane, personal interview, 2 June 2008. Newfeld 279. Newfeld 280.

Notes to pages 225–31 68 69 70 71 72 73

74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97

295

Newfeld 283. Newfeld 283. Newfeld 284. Douglas Gibson, personal interview, 19 February 2010. Dennis Lee to George Gilmour, 21 December 1974, box 3, file 57, Hugh Kane Papers, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UT. Dennis Lee to Hugh Kane, 3 March 1976, box 3, file 26, Hugh Kane Papers, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UT ; Hugh Kane to Robert Stuart, 27 September 1976, MCC fonds. Hugh Kane to Dennis Lee, 28 May 1980, Hugh Kane Papers, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UT. Frank Whitehead, report on MCC following visit of 11–15 May 1970, box L213, Macmillan Archive, BL. Frank Whitehead, report on MCC following visit of 11–15 May 1970, box L213, Macmillan Archive, BL. Frank Whitehead to John Gray, 16 April 1971, Hugh Kane Papers, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UT. MacSkimming 65. Saunders, ‘Conglomerate’ 19. Saunders, ‘Conglomerate’ 19. ‘Sold – The Macmillan Company of Canada’ 3. ‘Maclean-Hunter Buys Macmillan’ 1. John Gray to Hugh Kane, 7 May 1973, MCC fonds. Hugh Kane to Frank Whitehead, 3 April 1973, MCC fonds. Hugh Kane to George Gilmour, 19 November 1972, MCC fonds. George Gilmour to Staff, 16 April 1973, MCC fonds. Hamish Cameron, ‘Hugh Kane’ 47. Hugh Kane to George Gilmour, 20 August 1976, MCC fonds. George Gilmour to Hugh Kane, 31 August 1976, MCC fonds. Hugh Kane to George Gilmour, 7 September 1976, MCC fonds. Hamish Cameron, ‘Hugh Kane’ 47. Hugh Kane to Frank Whitehead, 30 May 1977, Hugh Kane Papers, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UT. George Gilmour to Hugh Kane, 6 July 1977, Hugh Kane Papers, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UT. MacSkimming 160. Hamish Cameron, ‘Hugh Kane’ 47. Turcon. Sean Kane, ‘List of Hugh Kane’s Books,’ e-mail to author, June 2009.

296

Notes to pages 232–41

98 Whiteman, ‘Archive’ viii. 99 Dennis Lee to Hugh Kane, 21 May 1980, Hugh Kane Papers, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UT. 100 Wilson 17. 101 Barbara Amiel, et al. to Ron Besse, 29 April 1980, Hugh Kane Papers, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UT. 102 The other authors were Allan Anderson, Harry Boyle, Doris Anderson, Betty Tomlinson, Val Clery, William Kilbourn, George Jonas, Richard Wright, Barbara Amiel, Myrna Kostash, Philip Marchand, and Katherine Govier (Barbara Amiel, et al. to Ron Besse, 29 April 1980, Hugh Kane Papers, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UT). 6 Editorial Coda 1974–1986: Douglas Maitland Gibson 1 2 3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

Chong, ‘Douglas Gibson Books.’ Marshall 8–9. [Hugh Kane], ‘Trade Division,’ ts, 1 June 1975, MCC fonds, p. 3. Douglas Gibson to Gregory Cook, 13 September 1978, MCC fonds. Douglas Gibson to Gregory Cook, 13 September 1978, MCC fonds. Louise Dennys, ‘Publishing and Women in Movement,’ Canadian Women Writers Conference: Connecting Texts and Generations, University of Alberta, 30 September 2010. Marshall 11; Evain 23. Evain 23. Qtd in Evain 22. Evain 23. Douglas Gibson, ‘A Survival Guide for Authors,’ May 1979, box 408, file 9, ts, MCC fonds. Gibson, ‘A Survival Guide.’ Gibson, ‘A Survival Guide.’ Gibson, ‘A Survival Guide.’ [Douglas Gibson], ‘Editor and Author,’ ts, MCC fonds, p. [1]. Qtd in Elspeth Cameron 355. Qtd in Elspeth Cameron 355. Qtd in Elspeth Cameron 355. Qtd in Elspeth Cameron 355. Hugh MacLennan qtd in Elspeth Cameron 355. Gibson, ‘Requiem’ C8. Gibson, ‘Requiem’ C8. Gibson, ‘Requiem’ C8.

Notes to pages 241–50 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62

297

Gibson, ‘Requiem’ C8. Gibson, ‘Requiem’ C8. Gibson, ‘Requiem’ C8. Douglas Gibson to John Mills, 6 June 1978, MCC fonds. Douglas Gibson to the Ottawa Citizen, 2 November 1977, MCC fonds. Douglas Gibson to Waves, 24 February 1978, MCC fonds; Douglas Gibson to Queen’s Quarterly, 23 May 1978, MCC fonds. Douglas Gibson to Don Congdon, 28 March 1984, MCC fonds. Douglas Gibson to Morley Callaghan, 26 February 1985, MCC fonds. Marshall 9. Evain 27. Ross 223. Douglas Gibson to Robertson Davies, 7 November 1977, MCC fonds. Ross 335. Douglas Gibson to Walter Reiman, 13 January 1981, MCC fonds. Evain 40, 41. Douglas Gibson to Alan Fry, 28 October 1976, MCC fonds. Evain 35–6. Evain 36. Joe Fox to Gerry Hollingsworth, 5 March 1980, MCC fonds. Douglas Gibson to Mavis Gallant, 3 December 1980, MCC fonds. Mavis Gallant to Douglas Gibson, 12 December 1980, MCC fonds. Mavis Gallant to Douglas Gibson, 12 December 1980, MCC fonds. Douglas Gibson to Mavis Gallant, 17 December 1980, MCC fonds. Douglas Gibson to Mavis Gallant, 14 April 1981, MCC fonds. Douglas Gibson to Mavis Gallant, 14 April 1981, MCC fonds. Evain 36; Mavis Gallant to Douglas Gibson, 25 April 1981, MCC fonds. Douglas Gibson to Mavis Gallant, 27 May 1981, MCC fonds. Douglas Gibson to Mavis Gallant, 9 June 1982, MCC fonds. Mavis Gallant to Douglas Gibson, 23 May 1985, MCC fonds. Evain 37. Douglas Gibson to Naim Kattan, 23 June 1982, MCC fonds. Douglas Gibson to Alice Munro, 28 April 1978, MCC fonds. Evain 33. Douglas Gibson to Alice Munro, 21 April 1977, MCC fonds. Robert Stuart to Douglas Gibson, 23 February 1978, MCC fonds. Douglas Gibson to Alice Munro, 7 February 1978, MCC fonds. Alice Munro to Douglas Gibson, 22 February 1978, MCC fonds. Alice Munro to Douglas Gibson, 22 February 1978, MCC fonds. Douglas Gibson to Alice Munro, 28 April 1978, MCC fonds.

298 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81

82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95

Notes to pages 250–7 Evain 28. Evain 28. Thacker 383. Evain 31. Evain 31. Douglas Gibson, Memo to Sales Staff, [1978], MCC fonds. Thacker 349. Thacker 348. See Thacker 344–52 for a full account of the production of Who Do You Think You Are? / The Beggar Maid in Canada and the United States. Douglas Gibson to Alice Munro, 31 August 1979, MCC fonds. Douglas Gibson to Alice Munro, 31 August 1979, MCC fonds. Douglas Gibson to Alice Munro, 31 August 1979, MCC fonds. Douglas Gibson to Roger De C. Nantel, 21 December 1982, MCC fonds. Douglas Gibson to Alice Munro, 15 January 1982, MCC fonds. Douglas Gibson to Alice Munro, 15 January 1982, MCC fonds. Alice Munro to Linda McKnight, 7 March 1986, MCC fonds. Linda McKnight to Avi Bennett, 25 April 1986, MCC fonds. Robert Thacker recounts in full the transfer of The Progress of Love from Macmillan to McClelland and Stewart. See Thacker 416–23. They included The Progress of Love (1986), Friend of My Youth (1990), Open Secrets (1994), Selected Stories (1996), The Love of a Good Woman (1998), Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (2001), Runaway (2004), The View from Castle Rock (2006), and Too Much Happiness (2009). Adachi F1; Evain 32. Evain 33. Evain 46. Guy Vanderhaeghe to Anne Holloway, 6 September 1981, MCC fonds. Douglas Gibson to the Canada Council for the Arts, 15 September 1981, MCC fonds. Guy Vanderhaeghe to Douglas Gibson, 9 March 1982, MCC fonds. Guy Vanderhaeghe to Douglas Gibson, 15 April 1982, MCC fonds. Douglas Gibson to the Canada Council for the Arts, 4 October 1982, MCC fonds. Gray, ‘Canadian’ 27. Douglas Gibson, Memo, 18 February 1985, MCC fonds. Douglas Gibson, Memo, 18 February 1985, MCC fonds. Gray, ‘Author and Publisher’ 22. ‘Macmillan Tightens Belt’ 1. MacSkimming 317.

Notes to pages 257–63 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120

121 122

299

Parker, ‘Sale’ 39. ‘Troubling Macmillan Sale’; MacSkimming 318. Lester 2. Lester 2. French, ‘Many Questions’ 15. Barbara Amiel, et al. to Ron Besse, 29 April 1980, Hugh Kane Papers, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UT. Barbara Amiel, et al. to Ron Besse, 29 April 1980, Hugh Kane Papers, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UT. Douglas Gibson, ‘Statement from Doug Gibson, Trade Publisher,’ 2 May 1980, ts, MCC fonds. Ron Besse to Dennis Lee, 1 May 1980, Dennis Lee Papers, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UT. Dennis Lee, ‘Acquisition of Macmillan by Gage,’ 8 May 1980, ts, Dennis Lee Papers, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UT. MacSkimming 320. Douglas Gibson, ‘Address to the Canadian Oral History Association, Montreal,’ June 1980, ts, MCC fonds, p. 1. Gibson, ‘Statement.’ Gibson, ‘Statement’; French, ‘Gage Calms Macmillan Fears’ E2. Evain 67, 68. Douglas Gibson to Walter Reiman, 13 January 1981, MCC fonds. Evain 68. Douglas Gibson to Robertson Davies, 7 July 1983, MCC fonds. Douglas Gibson to Fred Wooding, 22 May 1984, MCC fonds. MacSkimming 321. Douglas Gibson, personal interview, 19 February 2010. Douglas Gibson, personal interview, 19 February 2010. Evain 69. ‘Douglas Gibson Imprint at M&S’ 20. Evain 69; Other editorial imprints include Phyllis Bruce Books of HarperCollins Canada (established in 1992) and Patrick Crean Editions of Key Porter Books (1998–2000). Gibson, ‘Statement.’ Whiteman et al., Bibliography xiv.

This page intentionally left blank

Select Bibliography

1 Archival Sources British Library Macmillan Archive Library and Archives Canada / Bibliothèque et Archives Canada (LAC / BAC) Lovat Dickson fonds John Morgan Gray fonds William Lyon Mackenzie King fonds (diaries) McMaster University Library, William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections Macmillan Company of Canada fonds Roy MacSkimming fonds New York Public Library, Manuscripts and Archives Division Macmillan Company Records Queen’s University Archives Frederick Philip Grove fonds Lorne and Edith Pierce Collection Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto Mazo de la Roche Papers Mona Gould Papers Hugh Kane Papers Dennis Lee Papers

302

Select Bibliography

University of Calgary Library and Cultural Resources, Special Collections Hugh MacLennan fonds University of Manitoba, Archives and Special Collections Hamilton Family fonds Margaret Stobie fonds University of Reading, Special Collections Records of Macmillan and Company Ltd University of Texas at Austin, Harry Ransom Center Edward Weeks Papers York University, Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections Adele Wiseman fonds 2 Interviews Davis, Michael Byron. Personal interview. 25 January 2008. Derry, Ramsay. Personal interview. 13 April 2010. Dobbs, Kildare. Personal interview. 8 November 1999; 6 February 2008. Duff, Virgil. Personal interview. 10 January 2008. Eayrs, James. Personal interview. 9 May 2006. Gibson, Douglas. Personal interview. 19 February 2010. Gray, John Anthony Morgan. Personal interview. 16 March 2010. Holland, Vivian. Personal interview. 5 August 2010. Irwin, John W. Personal interview. 17 January 2008. Kane, Sean. Personal interview. 2 June 2008. MacSkimming, Roy. Personal interview with Gladys Neale. 23 September 1998. Box 3, file 12, transcript. Roy MacSkimming fonds. William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections, McMaster University. Page, P.K. Telephone interview. 3 May 2006. Stobie, Margaret. Personal interview with Ellen McKanday [formerly Ellen Elliott]. 18 August 1970. Mss 13, box 2, folder 13, tape transcript 10: A & B. Margaret Stobie fonds. Archives and Special Collections, University of Manitoba. 3 Unpublished Sources ‘The Archive and Everyday Life.’ John Douglas Taylor Conference. Depart-

Select Bibliography

303

ment of English and Cultural Studies, McMaster University. 7–8 May 2010. http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~english/taylor_10/The%20 Archive%20and%20Everyday%20Life.html. Carver, Caroline. Rev. of Alligator Pie and Nicholas Knock and Other People, by Dennis Lee. CKFM, 6 October 1974. Transcript. MCC fonds. Dennys, Louise. ‘Publishing and Women in Movement.’ Canadian Women Writers Conference: Connecting Texts and Generations. University of Alberta. 30 September 2010. Eayrs, Hugh. ‘A Great Canadian Publishing House.’ October 1938. MCC fonds. – ‘Lines – With Profound Apologies to Edgar Allan Poe.’ Box 47, file 6, MCC fonds. – ‘Prefatory Remarks to Accompany the Notes on the Annual Report of the Macmillan Company of Canada Limited, for the Year Ending March 31st, 1936.’ Box 45, file 11, MCC fonds. Eayrs, James. E-mail to author. 31 January 2010. Gerson, Carole. ‘The Canadian Publishers’ Records Database and Canadian Book History.’ Bibliographical Society of Canada 2004 Annual Conference. McMaster University. 28 June 2004. Gibson, Douglas. ‘Address to the Canadian Oral History Association, Montreal.’ June 1980. Ts. MCC fonds. – ‘Editor and Author.’ Ts. MCC fonds. – ‘Statement from Doug Gibson, Trade Publisher.’ 2 May 1980. Ts. MCC fonds. – ‘A Survival Guide for Authors.’ May 1979. Box 408, file 9. Ts. MCC fonds. Grant, John Webster. Report of the Book Editor to the Board of Publication. April 1961. Box 45, file 17, Lorne and Edith Pierce Collection, Queen’s University Archives. Gray, John Morgan. ‘An Evening with Ethel Wilson.’ 10 November 1961. Ts. MCC fonds. – [‘Profile of the Macmillan Company of Canada’]. 29 August 1967. Ts. MCC fonds. – ‘A Publisher Surveys the Canadian Literary Scene.’ 1 December 1949. Ts. MCC fonds. – ‘Publishing: An Art? A Business? Or a Guessing Game?’ [1972]. Ts. John Morgan Gray fonds. LAC. – ‘Speech to Canadian Book Publishers’ Council.’ 7 December [1970]. Ts. John Morgan Gray fonds. LAC. [Kane, Hugh]. ‘Address, Awards Dinner, Edmonton, Alberta, June 8, 1973.’ Ts. Hugh Kane Papers. Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UT. – ‘A Brief to the Royal Commission on Book Publishing from the Macmil-

304

Select Bibliography

lan Company of Canada Limited.’ Hugh Kane Papers. Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UT. – ‘The State of English Language Publishing in Canada, Trent University, January 24–25, 1975.’ Ts. Hugh Kane Papers. Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UT. – ‘A Supplementary Brief to the Royal Commission on Book Publishing from the Macmillan Company of Canada.’ Hugh Kane Papers. Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UT. – ‘Trade Division.’ Ts. 1 June 1975. MCC fonds. Kane, Sean. ‘List of Hugh Kane’s Books.’ E-mail to author. June 2009. – ‘Re: The House of Anansi.’ 24–5 November 1969. Ts. MCC fonds. Lee, Dennis. ‘Acquisition of Macmillan by Gage.’ Ts. 8 May 1980. Ts. Dennis Lee Papers. Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UT. Neale, Gladys. ‘My Personal View of Educational Publishing.’ Atlantic Publishers Association Conference. St John’s, Newfoundland. 24–5 November 1977. Ts. MCC fonds. Owen, I.M. ‘A Proposal for a Study of Book-Publishing in English Canada since 1945.’ 28 January 1980. John Morgan Gray fonds. LAC. Rasky, Frank. ‘[John] Gray Profile.’ [1947]. Ts. John Morgan Gray fonds. LAC. 4 Published Sources Adachi, Ken. ‘Munro Follows Publisher Gibson from Macmillan.’ Toronto Star 30 April 1986: F1. ‘Among Authors and Bookmen.’ Canadian Bookman 4.12 (December 1922): 325. Andrews, Jennifer, and John Clement Ball. ‘Introduction: Beyond the Margins.’ Studies in Canadian Literature 25.1 (2000): 1–11. ‘Books on the Present War.’ Rev. of Why the Empire Is at War: The Causes and the Issues, by Edward Cook. Bookseller and Stationer and Office Equipment Journal 30.11 (November 1914): 22–4. ‘The Bookshelf.’ Rev. of As Others See Us: Being the Diary of a Canadian Debutante, by Goosequill [W.H.P. Jarvis]. Saturday Night 29 December 1915: 8–9. ‘The Bookshelf.’ Rev. of Sir Isaac Brock, by Hugh S. Eayrs. Saturday Night 21 September 1918: 8–9. ‘The Bookshelf.’ Rev. of Wake Up, Canada! Reflections on Vital National Issues, by C.W. Peterson. Saturday Night 19 July 1919: 8–9. Bourdieu, Pierre. The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature. Ed. Randal Johnson. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993. Bowering, George. ‘Watson, Sheila Martin.’ Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada. Ed. William H. New. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002. 1197–9.

Select Bibliography

305

Bray, R. Matthew. ‘A Conflict of Nationalisms: The Win the War and National Unity Convention, 1917.’ Journal of Canadian Studies 15 (1980–1): 18–30. Brewer, John. ‘Authors, Publishers and the Making of Literary Culture.’ The Book History Reader. 2nd ed. Ed. David Finkelstein and Alistair McCleery. New York/London: Routledge, 2006. 318–26. Broten, Delores, and Peter Birdsall. Paper Phoenix: A History of Book Publishing in English Canada. Victoria: CANLIT, 1980. Browne, T.A. The Belgian Mother and Ballads of Battle Time. Toronto: Macmillan, 1917. Burton, Antoinette. Introduction. Archive Stories: Facts, Fictions and the Writing of History. Ed. Burton. Durham: Duke University Press, 2005. 1–24. Cain, Stephen. ‘Tracing the Web: House of Anansi’s Spiderline Editions.’ Studies in Canadian Literature 25.1 (2000): 111–30. Cameron, Elspeth. Hugh MacLennan: A Writer’s Life. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981. Cameron, Hamish. ‘Hugh Kane: Portrait of a Publisher Who Saw the Industry Come of Age.’ Quill and Quire March 1983: 46–7. Campbell, Sandra. ‘Nationalism, Morality, and Gender: Lorne Pierce and the Canadian Literary Canon, 1920–60.’ Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada 32.2 (fall 1994): 135–60. ‘Canada and Empire Reorganization.’ Rev. of The Problem of the Commonwealth, by Lionel Curtis. Globe 27 June 1916: 4. ‘The Canadian Railway Problem.’ Rev. of The Canadian Railway Problem, by E.B. Biggar. Saturday Night 11 August 1917: 13–15. ‘Changes at Macmillan’s: Toronto Ceases to Represent New York.’ Quill and Quire 22.2 (February 1956): 13. Chong, Justina. ‘Douglas Gibson Books and Alice Munro, with Editorial Audio Recordings by Douglas Gibson.’ Historical Perspectives on Canadian Publishing. McMaster University Library. http://hpcanpub.mcmaster.ca. Clark, Penney. ‘The Rise and Fall of Textbook Publishing in English Canada.’ History of the Book in Canada. Volume 3, 1918–1980. Ed. Carole Gerson and Jacques Michon. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007. 226–32. Copyright Act 1842 (UK), 5 & 6 Vict., c. 45. International Copyright Act of 1891 (US), c. 565. Copyright Amendment Act, 1900 (Canada), 63 & 64 Vict., c. 25. Cowan, Ann, with Jacques Michon. ‘Editors and Editing.’ Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada. Ed. W.H. New. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002. 326–30. Darnton, Robert. ‘What Is the History of Books?’ Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 111.3 (summer 1982): 65–85.

306

Select Bibliography

Dawson, Morton [John Morgan Gray]. ‘The Educationists Are Not All in the Schools! Hugh Eayrs – A Biographical Sketch.’ School Progress December 1936: 13–15. [Deacon, William Arthur]. ‘Hugh Eayrs, in Memoriam.’ Globe and Mail 4 May 1940: 10. – ‘The Fly Leaf: MacLennan Launching Lunch.’ Globe and Mail 21 February 1959: 16. – ‘Macmillan Changes Heads.’ Globe and Mail 8 June 1946: 8. – ‘Macmillan Editor Leaves Publishing.’ Globe and Mail 28 June 1947: 10. Dickson, Lovat. ‘Gray, John Morgan.’ The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature. 2nd ed. Ed. Eugene Benson and William Toye. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1997. 492–3. – ‘“John Morgan Gray, 1907–1978”: A Remembrance.’ Ontario History 29 November 1979: 225–6. – Wilderness Man: The Strange Story of Grey Owl. Toronto: Macmillan, 1973. – ed. The Green Leaf: A Tribute to Grey Owl. London: Lovat Dickson, 1938. Dinka, Nicholas. ‘The Tender Trappings of Success.’ Quill and Quire (September 2004): 14–15+. Dobbs, Kildare. ‘Canadian History Is Exciting.’ MacLaren Advertiser [1960]: n. pag. – ‘A Dismaying Situation and Its Curious Features.’ Toronto Daily Star 11 June 1971: 32. – ‘Macmillan Was Canadian Long before It Was Canadian-Owned.’ Toronto Daily Star 24 November 1972: 34. – ‘Publisher’s Retirement Leaves an Uneasy Feeling.’ Toronto Star 9 May 1973: 56. – Running the Rapids: A Writer’s Life. Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2005. ‘Douglas Gibson Imprint at M&S.’ Quill and Quire April 1986: 20. Eaves, Morris. ‘What Is the “History of Publishing?”’ Publishing History 2 (1977): 57–77. Eayrs, George. John Wesley: Christian Philosopher and Church Founder. London: Epworth Press, 1926. Eayrs, Hugh. The Barometer Points to Change. Toronto: Macmillan, 1938. – ‘Bookman Profiles: Mazo de la Roche.’ Canadian Bookman 10.4 (October– November 1938): 17–22. – A Canadian Publishing House. Toronto: Macmillan, 1923. – It Isn’t Good Enough. Toronto: Macmillan, 1939. – Preface. A Book of Grey Owl: Pages from the Writings of Wa-Sha-Quon-Asin. Toronto: Macmillan, 1938. ix–xxi. – ‘Publishing Books in Canada.’ Twentieth Century 1.8 (15 March 1933): 3–8.

Select Bibliography

307

– ‘Renaissance in Canadian Life.’ Canadian Bookman n.s. 4.10 (October 1922): 263. Edwardson, Ryan. Canadian Content: Culture and the Quest for Nationhood. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008. ‘Ellen Elliott Retires.’ Quill and Quire 13 (July 1947): 32. ‘Ellen McKanday, 72: Publishing Executive.’ Toronto Star 26 March 1973: 57. Elliott, Ellen. Publishing in Wartime. Toronto: Macmillan, [1941]. ‘English Books in Canada.’ Quill and Quire 12 (April 1946): 42–3. ‘English Publishers and Canada.’ Bookseller and Stationer 21 (November 1905): 505. ‘Ernst and Ernst Report. Findings: A Summary.’ Quill and Quire 15 January 1971: 1. Evain, Christine. Douglas Gibson Unedited. Brussels: P.I.E. Peter Lang, 2007. Finkelstein, David. The House of Blackwood: Author-Publisher Relations in the Victorian Era. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002. ‘Flag and Fleet Again.’ Globe 28 February 1921: 4. Foreign Reprints Act 1847 (UK), 10 & 11 Vict., c. 95. ‘Frank Wise Leaving Book Trade.’ Bookseller and Stationer 37 (February 1921): 57. Fredeman, William E. ‘The Bibliographical Significance of a Publisher’s Archive: The Macmillan Papers.’ Studies in Bibliography 23 (1970): 183–91. French, William. ‘Gage Calms Macmillan Fears.’ Globe and Mail 3 May 1980: E2. – ‘Many Questions Unanswered Following Macmillan “Merger.”’ Globe and Mail 24 April 1980: 15. Friskney, Janet B. ‘Beyond the Shadow of William Briggs, Part I: Setting the Stage and Introducing the Players.’ Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada 33.2 (fall 1995): 121–63. – ‘Beyond the Shadow of William Briggs, Part II: Canadian-Authored Titles and the Commitment to Canadian Writing.’ Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada 35.2 (fall 1997): 161–207. – New Canadian Library: The Ross-McClelland Years, 1952–1987. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007. Fritschner, Linda Marie. ‘Publishers’ Readers, Publishers, and Their Authors.’ Publishing History 7 (1980): 45–100. Gerson, Carole, and Jacques Michon. Editor’s Introduction. History of the Book in Canada. Volume 3, 1918–1980. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007. [3]–9. Gibbon, J.M. ‘Where Is Canadian Literature?’ Canadian Magazine 50.4 (February 1918): 333–40.

308

Select Bibliography

Gibson, Douglas. ‘Macmillan of Bond Street.’ Toronto Life May 1981: 68–9, 104–9. – ‘Requiem for a Master Storyteller.’ Globe and Mail 28 February 1998: C8. Givner, Joan. Mazo de la Roche: The Hidden Life. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1989. Goosequill [W.H.P. Jarvis]. As Others See Us: Being the Diary of a Canadian Debutante. Toronto: Macmillan, 1915. Gould, Warwick. ‘Selling the Macmillan Archive.’ Times Literary Supplement 6–12 July 1990: 728. Gray, John Morgan. ‘Author and Publisher.’ [Three papers presented as a 10-week course offered by the Book Publishers Association through the University of Toronto, Extension Department, 1968–9]. i–22. – ‘Book Publishing.’ Writing in Canada: Proceedings of the Canadian Writers’ Conference, Queen’s University, 28–31 July 1955. Ed. George Whalley. Toronto: Macmillan, 1956. 53–65. – ‘Books Too Dear? No, Miss Graham!’ Maclean’s Magazine 1 December 1947: 46–7. – ‘Canadian Books: A Publisher’s View.’ Canadian Literature 33 (summer 1967): 25–36. – Fun Tomorrow: Learning to Be a Publisher and Much Else. Toronto: Macmillan, 1978. – ‘The Greatest Canadian Biography Never Written.’ Saturday Night November 1977: 38, 40, 42–5. – It Isn’t Only Money – It Never Has Been. IBY/CBA Lecture 1. Willowdale, ON: Canadian Booksellers Association, 1973. – ‘Trade Publishing in Canada.’ Publishing in Canada: Proceedings of the Institute on Publishing in Canada June 27–30, 1971. Ed. G. Pomahac and M. Richeson. Edmonton: School of Library Science, University of Alberta, 1972. 5–13. ‘Great Stories of Canada.’ The [Boy] Scout Leader September–October 1959: 11. Gross, Gerald, ed. Publishers on Publishing. London: Secker and Warburg, 1962. H., M.O. Rev. of History of the County of Lennox and Addington, by Walter S. Herrington. Globe 25 October 1913: 16. ‘H. Eayrs Dies, Publisher.’ Montreal Daily Star 30 April 1940. Halpenny, Francess G. ‘Editing.’ Publishing in Canada: Proceedings. Ed. G. Pomahac and M. Richeson. Edmonton: School of Library Science, University of Alberta, 1972. 14–25. Hamelin, Danielle. ‘Nurturing Canadian Letters: Four Studies in the Publishing and Promotion of English Canadian Writing, 1820–1920.’ PhD diss., University of Toronto, 1994.

Select Bibliography

309

Hillmer, Norman. ‘Eayrs, James George.’ The Canadian Encyclopedia. http:// www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com. Historical Perspectives on Canadian Publishing. McMaster University Library. http://hpcanpub.mcmaster.ca. Holland, Vivian. Time Trip. Toronto: Macmillan, 1973. Horne, Richard Henry. Exposition of the False Medium and Barriers Excluding Men of Genius from the Public. London: E. Wilson, 1833. Howsam, Leslie. ‘Sustained Literary Ventures: The Series in Victorian Book Publishing.’ Publishing History 31 (1992): 5–26. ‘Hugh S. Eayrs Passes Suddenly.’ Quill and Quire May 1940: 25–6. ‘Hugh S. Eayrs, Publisher, Dies after Seizure.’ Globe and Mail 30 April 1940: 1–2. ‘Items of Interest.’ Bookseller and Stationer 22 (April 1906): 40. James, Elizabeth. Introduction. Macmillan: A Publishing Tradition. Ed. James. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave, 2002. 1–10. – ‘Letters from America: The Bretts and the Macmillan Company of New York.’ Macmillan: A Publishing Tradition. Ed. James Basingstoke. Hampshire: Palgrave, 2002. 170–91. ‘Jehosaphat, What a Jump!’ Rev. of The Struggle for Imperial Unity: Recollections and Experiences, by George T. Denison. Globe 6 April 1909: 6. ‘John Gray 1907–1978.’ Quill and Quire September 1978: 1–2. ‘John Morgan Gray.’ Monetary Times November 1946. Karr, Clarence. Authors and Audiences: Popular Canadian Fiction in the Early Twentieth Century. Montreal/Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2000. Kijinski, J.L. ‘John Morley’s “English Men of Letters” Series and the Politics of Reading.’ Victorian Studies 34.2 (winter 1991): 205–25. King, James. Jack, a Life with Writers: The Story of Jack McClelland. Toronto: Knopf, 1999. Kuropatwa, Joy. ‘Knister, Raymond.’ The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature. Ed. Eugene Benson and William Toye. 2nd ed. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1997. 602–3. ‘Labour Bureau to Help Immigrants.’ Toronto Daily Star 20 November 1913: 20. ‘The Late Hugh S. Eayrs.’ Saturday Night 4 May 1940. Latham, Harold. My Life in Publishing. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1965. Lester, Malcolm. ‘Policy Issues: Reflections on My Year as President.’ Association of Canadian Publishers Notebook 4 (March 1981): 2, 9–10. Lowman, Ron. ‘Books Study Says Canada Must Block Foreign Takeovers.’ Toronto Star 22 February 1973: 1, 4. MacLaren, Eli. ‘“Against All Invasion”: The Archival Story of Kipling, Copy-

310

Select Bibliography

right, and the Macmillan Expansion into Canada, 1900–1920.’ Journal of Canadian Studies 40.2 (spring 2006): 139–62. – Dominion and Agency: Copyright and the Structure of the Canadian Book Trade, 1867–1918. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011. ‘Maclean-Hunter Buys Macmillan.’ Quill and Quire November 1972: 1. ‘Macmillan Company’s Manager.’ Canadian Bookseller January 1906: 5. ‘Macmillan-Morang Merger.’ Bookseller and Stationer and Office Equipment Journal July 1912: 25. ‘Macmillan Tightens Belt.’ Quill and Quire October 1978: 1. MacSkimming, Roy. The Perilous Trade: Publishing Canada’s Writers. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2003. Madison, Charles A. Book Publishing in America. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966. Marshall, Douglas. ‘In Our Good Books: The Quiet Editor Who Rescued One of Canada’s Great Literary Houses.’ Today Magazine (Toronto Star) 9 August 1980: 8–11. Mason, Jody. ‘“Sidown, Brother, Sidown!”: The Problem of Commitment and the Publishing History of Irene Baird’s Waste Heritage.’ Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada 45.2 (fall 2007): 143–61. Mathews, Robin. ‘Canada’s Hidden Working-Class Literature.’ Canadian Dimension 31.6 (November–December 1997): 37–9. McCleery, Alistair. ‘The Return of the Publisher to Book History: The Case of Allen Lane.’ Book History 5 (2002): 161–85. McGrath, Leslie. ‘“In Kamloops I’ll eat your boots”: Dennis Lee’s Alligator Pie.’ Historical Perspectives on Canadian Publishing. McMaster University Library. http://hpcanpub.mcmaster.ca. McLeod, D.J. ‘A Tribute to Mr. Eayrs.’ Quill and Quire May 1940: 26–7. McKillop, A.B. ‘Mystery at Macmillan: The Sudden Departure of President Frank Wise from Macmillan of Canada in 1921.’ Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada 38.1 (spring 2000): 73–103. – The Spinster and the Prophet: Florence Deeks, H.G. Wells, and the Mystery of the Purloined Past. Toronto: Macfarlane Walter and Ross, 2001. Millar, Laura. The Story Behind the Book: Preserving Authors’ and Publishers’ Archives. Vancouver: CCSP Press, 2009. ‘Miss F. Steinhoff Heads Press Club.’ Globe and Mail 28 May 1943: 11. Mount, Nick. When Canadian Literature Moved to New York. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005. Mumby, Frank Arthur. Publishing and Bookselling: A History from the Earliest Times to the Present Day. London: Jonathan Cape, 1930. Nash, Andrew. ‘Reading the Nation.’ Rev. of Print in Motion: The Expansion

Select Bibliography

311

of Publishing and Reading in the United States, 1880–1940, ed. Carl F. Kaestle and Janice M. Radway. Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 104.3 (September 2010): 365–75. New, W.H. A History of Canadian Literature. Montreal/Kingston: McGillQueen’s University Press, 1989. ‘New Head of Macmillans in Canada.’ Canadian Bookman n.s. 3.1 (June 1921): 49. ‘The New Imperialism.’ Rev. of Defence and Foreign Affairs: A Suggestion for the Empire, by Z.A. Lash. Globe 18 January 1917: 4. Newfeld, Frank. Drawing on Type. Erin, ON: Porcupine’s Quill, 2008. Newman, Christina McCall. ‘Adventure: How John Diefenbaker Confounded His Collaborators, Terrorized His Publisher, and Finessed a Big Best-Seller.’ Saturday Night November 1976: 33–4, 36–8. Nowell-Smith, Simon, ed. Letters to Macmillan. London: Macmillan, 1967. Nurse, Andrew. ‘“The Best Field for Tourist Sale of Books”: Marius Barbeau, the Macmillan Company, and Folklore Publishing in the 1930s.’ Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada 36.1 (spring 1998): 5–30. – ‘Marius Barbeau and the History of Anthropological and Folklore Publishing.’ Historical Perspectives on Canadian Publishing. McMaster University Library. http://hpcanpub.mcmaster.ca. [Obituary of Hugh Eayrs]. Winnipeg Free Press 4 May 1940. Ontario Royal Commission on Book Publishing. Canadian Publishers and Canadian Publishing. Toronto: Queen’s Printer for Ontario, 1973. Osmun, Lindsay. ‘New Business: The Impact of Fifth Business on Robertson Davies’s Relationship with His Canadian Publishers.’ Historical Perspectives on Canadian Publishing. McMaster University Library. http://hpcanpub. mcmaster.ca. ‘A Page about Books by Canadian Authors.’ Rev. of A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs: The Story of a Hundred Years 1761–1861, by George M. Wrong. Bookseller and Stationer and Canadian Newsdealer 24.9 (September 1908): 30–1. Panofsky, Ruth. ‘Barometers of Change: Presidents Hugh Eayrs and John Gray of The Macmillan Company of Canada.’ Journal of Canadian Studies 37.4 (winter 2002–3): 92–111. – ‘“Don’t let me do it!”: Mazo de la Roche and Her Publishers.’ International Journal of Canadian Studies 11 (spring 1995): 171–84. – ‘“Go my own way?” The Publication of Mazo de la Roche’s Jalna.’ Epilogue 9.1 (1994): 1–12. – ‘“Head of the publishing side of the business”: Ellen Elliott of the Macmillan Company of Canada.’ Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada 44.2 (fall 2006): 45–64.

312

Select Bibliography

– ‘The Macmillan Company of Canada.’ Historical Perspectives on Canadian Publishing. McMaster University Library. http://hpcanpub.mcmaster.ca. – ‘“The skeleton in every publisher’s house”: Readers Vivian Holland, Elizabeth Sturges, and Gladys Neale of the Macmillan Company of Canada.’ WWR Magazine: The Official Magazine of Women Writing & Reading 2.1 (fall 2007): 4–8. www.womenwritingreading.org. – ‘Success Well-Earned: Adele Wiseman’s The Sacrifice.’ English Studies in Canada 27.3 (September 2001): 333–51. Parker, George L. ‘The Agency System and Branch-Plant Publishing.’ History of the Book in Canada. Volume 3, 1918–1980. Ed. Carole Gerson and Jacques Michon. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007. 163–8. – The Beginnings of the Book Trade in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985. – ‘Bookman.’ Rev. of Fun Tomorrow: Learning to Be a Publisher and Much Else, by John Morgan Gray. Canadian Literature 84 (spring 1980): 93–5. – ‘The Canadian Author and Publisher in the Twentieth Century.’ Editor, Author, and Publisher: Papers Given at the Editorial Conference, University of Toronto, November 1968. Ed. William J. Howard. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969. 34–5. – ‘Distributors, Agents, and Publishers: Creating a Separate Market for Books in Canada 1900–1920. Part I.’ Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada 43.2 (fall 2005): 7–65. – ‘Distributors, Agents, and Publishers: Part II. The Toronto Publishing Scene during World War I.’ Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada 44.1 (spring 2006): 7–68. – ‘The Evolution of Publishing in Canada.’ History of the Book in Canada. Volume 2, 1840–1918. Ed. Yvan Lamonde, Patricia Lockhart Fleming, and Fiona A. Black. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005. 17–32. – ‘Growing Pains in World War II: The Struggle to Build a Real Publishing Trade in Canada, with a Little Help from the British.’ English Studies in Canada 25.3–4 (September–December 1999): 369–406. – ‘A History of a Canadian Publishing House: A Study of the Relation between Publishing and the Profession of Writing 1890–1940.’ PhD diss., University of Toronto, 1969. – ‘Publishing Industry.’ Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada. Ed. W.H. New. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002. 905–14. – ‘The Publishing Industry in Canada: 1918 to the Twenty-First Century.’ Historical Perspectives on Canadian Publishing. McMaster University Library. http://hpcanpub.mcmaster.ca. – ‘The Sale of Ryerson Press: The End of the Old Agency System and Conflicts

Select Bibliography

313

over Domestic and Foreign Ownership in the Canadian Publishing Industry, 1970–1986.’ Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada 40.2 (fall 2002): 7–55. – ‘Trade and Regional Publishing in Central Canada.’ History of the Book in Canada. Volume 3, 1918–1980. Ed. Carole Gerson and Jacques Michon. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007. 168–78. Patten, Robert L., and David Finkelstein. ‘Editing Blackwood’s; or, What Do Editors Do?’ Print Culture and the Blackwood Tradition, 1805–1930. Ed. Finkelstein. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006. 146–83. ‘The Perils of Canadian Publishing.’ Time 1 March 1971: 7–8B. Pitt, David G. E.J. Pratt: The Master Years 1927–1964. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987. – E.J. Pratt: The Truant Years 1882–1927. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984. ‘Portrait of a Talent Scout.’ Quill and Quire 11 (May 1945): 32. ‘Publisher Opposes Best Seller Ideas. Hugh Eayrs Says “Gone with the Wind” Ruined Many Good Books.’ Gazette [Montreal] 26 April 1940: 19. ‘Publishers Are Getting Over the Fear That Putting Out a Canadian Book Is Taking Chance – Big Change Noticeable.’ Bookseller and Stationer 38.10 (October 1922): 27. Purdie, James. ‘Macmillan’s President Finds Schools Pouring Out Avid New Book Readers.’ Globe and Mail 19 August 1969: B3. Regalado, Elizabeth, and Carl Spadoni. ‘The Archives of The Macmillan Company of Canada Ltd. Part II: 1966–80.’ Library Research News [McMaster University Library] 13.2 (fall 1989). Rev. of Canadian National Economy: The Cause of High Prices and Their Effect Upon the Country, by James J. Harpell. Globe 17 March 1911: 6. Richler, Mordecai. ‘Going Home Again.’ New York Times Book Review 1 September 1974: 10–12. Ross, Val. Robertson Davies: A Portrait in Mosaic. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2008. Rubens, Olive. ‘Hobbies Make Life and People – Interesting.’ Sherbrooke Daily Record 21 March 1959. Saunders, Tom. ‘Book Publishers and the Government.’ Winnipeg Free Press 6 May 1972: 21. – ‘A Conglomerate Buys In.’ Winnipeg Free Press 30 May 1973: 19. Shep, Sydney J. ‘Review Essay: Imagining Post-National Book History.’ Rev. of History of the Book in Canada, gen. ed. Patricia Lockhart Fleming and Yvan Lamonde. Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 104.2 (June 2010): 253–68.

314

Select Bibliography

Slopen, Beverley. ‘IBY/CBA Lecturer.’ Quill & Quire May 1973: 15. Smith, Donald B. From the Land of Shadows: The Making of Grey Owl. Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1990. – ‘Grey Owl and His Publishers.’ Historical Perspectives on Canadian Publishing. McMaster University Library. http://hpcanpub.mcmaster.ca. ‘Sold – The Macmillan Company of Canada.’ Macmillan News 2.1 (spring 1973): 3. ‘Some Canadian Books of the Month.’ Rev. of The Empire Day by Day: A Calendar Record of British Valour and Achievement on Five Continents and on the Seven Seas, by Frank Wise. Bookseller and Stationer and Canadian Newsdealer 26.3 (March 1910): 53. Spadoni, Carl. ‘A Bibliography of Macmillan of Canada Imprints, 1906–1980: First Supplement with Corrigenda.’ Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada 28 (1989): 38–69. – ‘The Dutch Piracy of Gone with the Wind.’ Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 84.2 (1990): 131–50. – ‘Leacock, Davies and Their American Publishers.’ American Canadian Culture: Across a Latitudinal Line. Ed. Klaus Martens and Paul Morris. Saarbrüken, Germany: Publications of the Centre for Canadian and AngloAmerican Cultures, Amarant Press, 2008. 151–67. – ‘Stephen Leacock and the Macmillan Company of Canada.’ Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada 22 (1983): 56–80. Spiers, John. Serious About Series: American Cheap ‘Libraries,’ British ‘Railway’ Libraries, and Some Literary Series of the 1890’s. London: Institute of English Studies, University of London, 2007. Squire, J.C. [Obituary of Sir Frederick Macmillan]. Bookman 4 June 1936. Stobie, Margaret. Frederick Philip Grove. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1973. Stouck, David. Ethel Wilson: A Critical Biography. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003. Stouck, Jordan. ‘Collecting Stamps Would Have Been More Fun’: Canadian Publishing and the Correspondence of Sinclair Ross, 1933–1986. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2010. Struthers, J.R. (Tim). ‘Elliott, George.’ The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature. 2nd ed. Ed. Eugene Benson and William Toye. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1997. 352–3. Sutherland, John. Foreword. Macmillan: A Publishing Tradition. Ed. Elizabeth James. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave, 2002. xvii–xix. Sullivan, Rosemary. Shadow Maker: The Life of Gwendolyn MacEwen. Toronto: HarperCollins, 1995.

Select Bibliography

315

Targ, William. Indecent Pleasures: The Life and Colorful Times of William Targ. New York: Macmillan, 1975. Tebbel, John. Between the Covers: The Rise and Transformation of Book Publishing in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Templeton, Wayne. ‘Architects of Culture: A Preliminary Analysis of the History and Structure of Publishing in English Canada.’ [Burnaby, BC: n.p., 1977]. Thacker, Robert. Alice Munro: Writing Her Lives. A Biography. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2005. Towheed, Shafquat, ed. The Correspondence of Edith Wharton and Macmillan, 1901–1930. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave, 2007. Townsend, W.J., H.B. Workman, and George Eayrs, eds. A New History of Methodism. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1909. ‘Troubling Macmillan Sale.’ Toronto Star 6 April 1980. Tuchman, Gaye, with Nina E. Fortin. Edging Women Out: Victorian Novelists, Publishers, and Social Change. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989. Turcon, Sheila. ‘Hugh Kane: “The Compleat Bookman.”’ Historical Perspectives on Canadian Publishing. McMaster University Library. http://hpcanpub. mcmaster.ca. Tyrrell, William. ‘To a Young Publisher.’ Quill and Quire May 1940: 26. Weeks, Edward. ‘My Memories of Mazo.’ Varsity Graduate 10.3 (March 1963): 46. Whiteman, Bruce. ‘The Archive of the Macmillan Company of Canada Ltd. Part I: 1905–1965.’ Library Research News [McMaster University Library] 8.1 (spring 1984). – ‘Canadian Issues of Anglo-American Fiction: The Example of H.G. Wells.’ Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 80.1 (1986): 75–81. – ‘A Canadian Publishing House: Some Notes on the Macmillan Company of Canada Archive at McMaster University Library, Hamilton, Canada.’ Publishing History 10 (1982): 59–64. – ‘The Early History of the Macmillan Company of Canada, 1905–1921.’ Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada 23 (1984): 68–80. – ‘The Publication of Maria Chapdelaine in English.’ Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada 21 (1982): 52–9. Whiteman, Bruce, Charlotte Stewart, and Catherine Funnell. A Bibliography of Macmillan of Canada Imprints 1906–1980. Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1985. Wilson, Catherine. ‘Hugh Kane.’ Quill and Quire December 1984: 17. [Wise, Frank]. ‘The Book Market in Canada.’ The Author 23 (1913): 109–11. – ‘Canadian Copyright.’ University Magazine 10.3 (October 1911): 404–13. Rpt. as Canadian Copyright. Toronto: Morang, 1911. – ‘A Canadian Point of View.’ Daily News [London, England] 4 February 1913.

316

Select Bibliography

– ‘Cloth or Paper: Which Shall It Be?’ Bookseller and Stationer 23.8 (August 1907): 25. – The Empire Day by Day: A Calendar Record of British Valour and Achievement on Five Continents and on the Seven Seas. Toronto: Macmillan, 1910. – ‘The Relation of the Publisher to Literature in Canada.’ Proceedings of the 53rd Annual Convention of the Ontario Educational Association. Toronto: n. pub., 1914. 139–46. ‘Worthy Career of Hugh Eayrs Ends Suddenly.’ Hamilton Spectator 30 April 1940: 18. Wright, Donald. ‘Donald Creighton, John Gray, and the Making of Macdonald.’ Historical Perspectives on Canadian Publishing. McMaster University Library. http://hpcanpub.mcmaster.ca. Young, David. ‘The Macmillan Company of Canada in the 1930s.’ Journal of Canadian Studies 3.3 (autumn 1995): 117–33.

Illustration Credits

Front cover 1929 Catalogue, front cover MCC fonds, William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections, McMaster University Library, Hamilton, Ontario Fig. 1 Frank Wise, photograph MCC fonds, William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections, McMaster University Library, Hamilton, Ontario Fig. 2 Macmillan’s premises at 70 Bond Street, Toronto, photograph Reprinted from Hugh Eayrs, A Canadian Publishing House (Toronto: Macmillan, 1923); MCC fonds, William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections, McMaster University Library, Hamilton, Ontario Fig. 3 Hugh Smithurst Eayrs, photograph Reprinted from Hugh Eayrs, A Canadian Publishing House (Toronto: Macmillan, 1923); MCC fonds, William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections, McMaster University Library, Hamilton, Ontario Fig. 4 A Book of Grey Owl, front cover MCC fonds, William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections, McMaster University Library, Hamilton, Ontario Fig. 5 1929 Catalogue, front cover MCC fonds, William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections, McMaster University Library, Hamilton, Ontario Fig. 6 Robert Huckvale, photograph Reprinted from Bookseller and Stationer (15 February 1943); MCC fonds, William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections, McMaster University Library, Hamilton, Ontario Fig. 7 Ellen Elliott, photograph

318

Illustration Credits

Reprinted from Bookseller and Stationer (15 February 1943); MCC fonds, William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections, McMaster University Library, Hamilton, Ontario Fig. 8 John Morgan Gray, photograph Reprinted from John Morgan Gray, Fun Tomorrow: Learning to Be a Publisher and Much Else (Toronto: Macmillan, 1978), with permission of John Anthony Morgan Gray; MCC fonds, William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections, McMaster University Library, Hamilton, Ontario Fig. 9 Kildare Dobbs, photograph Winnipeg Tribune fonds, PC 18 (A.81–12), Archives and Special Collections, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba Fig. 10 Gladys Neale, photograph Reprinted with permission of Ashley and Crippen Photography; MCC fonds, William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections, McMaster University Library, Hamilton, Ontario Fig. 11 Great Stories of Canada series, a display mounted by Macmillan during Young Canada’s Book Week, November 1960, photograph MCC fonds, William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections, McMaster University Library, Hamilton, Ontario Fig. 12 Advertisement for Governor General’s Literary Award winners, Robert Kroetsch and Gwendolyn MacEwen, April 1970 MCC fonds, William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections, McMaster University Library, Hamilton, Ontario Fig. 13 Invitation to launch of Robertson Davies’s novel, Fifth Business, 29 October 1970 MCC fonds, William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections, McMaster University Library, Hamilton, Ontario Fig. 14 Hugh Pyper Kane, photograph Library Negative Number 17. 13 August 1969. L7111. D. No. E1563. Customer Newsweekly. Reprinted with permission of the Globe and Mail. All rights reserved. Photographer: B. Davis; MCC fonds, William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections, McMaster University Library, Hamilton, Ontario Fig. 15 Alligator Pie, front cover Reproduced with permission of Dennis Lee (author) and Frank Newfeld (illustrator); MCC fonds, William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections, McMaster University Library, Hamilton, Ontario Fig. 16 Douglas Maitland Gibson, photograph Reprinted from Quill & Quire (February 1978): 6. Photographer: Lori Spring.

Index

Abbreviations GG Governor General’s Literary Award MCC Macmillan Company of Canada M&S McClelland and Stewart agency agreements, of MCC: under Eayrs, 74, 77, 85, 124; under Gray, 152–3, 156, 157–8, 161–2, 230–1; with London and New York offices, 4, 8, 23, 161–2, 230–1; under Wise, 21, 23–4, 26, 28, 29, 55, 63 agency system, 5–6, 7, 9, 23–4, 132, 152–3, 203, 217; and copyright law, 5–6, 77, 186; decline of, 186; and practice of ‘buying around,’ 157–8 agents, literary, 54, 169, 218; of Davies, 190, 243; and Eayrs’s work for Grey Owl, 99, 100–1; Gibson and, 238, 243, 246; and Gibson-Munro negotiations, 249, 251, 252, 253–4 Ager, Clarus: The Farmer and the Interests, 48 Aid to Scholarly Publications Program, 194 Alexandra Readers (Morang/MCC), 36, 41, 44–5 Alfred A. Knopf, 74, 96, 140, 213, 250, 251; Canadian branch of, 238

Allen, Ralph, 192 Alligator Pie (Lee), 223–6, 231; Kane’s belief in, 223–4, 225–6; Newfeld illustrations for, 224–5, 231; and Newfeld-Lee hostilities, 224–5; success of, 224 Amateur Diplomat, The (Eayrs/Costain), 67–8 Anansi, House of. See House of Anansi Press Andrews, Jamie, 16 Appleton, Frank, 141 Archer, John, 219 archive, function and importance of, 13. See also Macmillan and Company, archive of Arnold, Matthew, 4, 14 Association of Canadian Bookmen, 70, 114 Association of Canadian Publishers, 258 Atlantic Monthly, 85, 86, 94 Atlantic Monthly Press/Little, Brown:

320

Index

de la Roche and, 85, 86, 89, 90–2, 95, 96–8 Atwood, Margaret, 200, 221, 222 Bacque, James, 170, 222 Baird, Irene, 128, 135, 136; Waste Heritage, 104 Banff Centre, Publishing Workshop of, 236 Barbeau, Marius, 84, 105, 106, 216 Barber, Virginia, 249, 251, 252, 253–4 Barnard, Leslie Gordon, 119 Belaney, Archibald Stansfeld. See Grey Owl Bennett, Avie, 236, 256, 261 Beresford-Howe, Constance, 231, 262 Berton, Pierre, 192, 199, 200; The Golden Trail, 184 Besse, Ron, 257–62; and Gibson, 259–62; MCC authors’ letter to, 232–3, 259–60, 296n102; and MCC succession, 227, 257 Bessette, Gérard: Incubation, 82, 187 Biggar, E.B.: The Canadian Railway Problem, 48 Bissoondath, Neil, 262 Black Mountain poets, 178 Blake, William Hume (W.H.): Brown Waters and Other Sketches, 46; as translator of Maria Chapdelaine, 9, 49, 79–80, 106. See also Maria Chapdelaine Blasted Pine, The (Scott/Smith anthology), 194 Blatchford, Christie, 238 Blyton, Enid, 4 Bode, B.H., 111 Bohn’s Libraries, 23, 29 Bond Street, MCC offices on. See St Martin’s House Bonne Entente movement, 50

Book of Canadian Prose and Verse, A (MCC anthology), 103 Book of Grey Owl, A (MCC tribute), 101–2 Book Publishers Association of Canada, 209, 236 Book Publishing Development Program, 258 Bookseller and Stationer, 27, 36, 61, 67 booksellers: and Canadian books, 29, 77, 156, 172, 186; and copyright law, 77; ‘divine power’ of, 3; Dobbs and, 165–6; Eayrs and, 69, 119; Gray and, 186, 204; and post-war book trade, 156; Wise and, 29, 30, 51, 53, 54, 55–7, 69 Books in Canada, 236, 242 Book Society of Canada, 185 Bourdieu, Pierre, 25, 28, 78, 155, 181 Bourinot, Arthur S.: Under the Sun, 105 Boyle, Harry J., 248, 296n102; The Great Canadian Novel, 235 branch-plant system, 4, 5–6, 24; MCC and, 4, 7–8, 9, 28, 124, 128, 262–3 Brett, Bruce Y., 161–2 Brett, George Edward, 4, 22, 31, 159 Brett, George Platt (Sr), 111–12, 154, 159; and Eayrs, 18, 61, 70–3, 76, 81–2; and launch of MCC, 18, 21–4; MCC staff letters to, 59, 72–3; and Wise, 17–18, 21–4, 31, 32, 34, 56, 57; and Wise scandal, 59–61 Brett, George Platt (Jr), 18; and Eayrs, 111–12, 114–16, 120, 159; and Elliott, 121, 132, 144; and Gray, 159–62; and Huckvale, 126–7; and MCC dividend dispute, 143–4; and offer to buy MCC, 120–1; and visits to MCC office, 121, 126–7 Briggs, William, 5

Index British Book Service (Canada), 133–4 British Employment Association, 58 British Museum/Library: Macmillan archive at, 14, 15 Broadfoot, Barry: Ten Lost Years, 235 Broadus, E.K., 132 Brown, Audrey Alexandra, 104, 128; A Dryad in Nanaimo, 104 Browne, Thaddeus A.: The Belgian Mother, and Ballads of Battle Time, 49 Bruce, Charles, 192; The Mulgrave Road, 216 Buckskin Books (MCC series), 199–200 Callaghan, Morley, 9, 168, 201, 233; and Eayrs, 65, 67, 84, 103, 106, 119, 216; and Gibson, 235, 240, 241–2, 247; and Gray, 155, 197, 206, 240 Callaghan, Morley, works: Close to the Sun Again, 241–2; The Many Coloured Coat, 168; Morley Callaghan’s Stories, 168; Our Lady of the Snows, 242; A Passion in Rome, 168; Such Is My Beloved, 103; They Shall Inherit the Earth, 103; A Time for Judas, 242 Cambridge University Press, 23, 29, 74, 105, 164, 235 Cameron, Elspeth, 191; The Other Side of Hugh MacLennan, 240 Camp, Dalton, 215 Campbell, Donald, 257 Campbell, Marjorie Wilkins, 206; The Nor’Westers, 199 Canada Books of Prose and Verse series, 107. See also Treasury Readers Canada Council for the Arts, 157, 189, 190, 194, 196, 219, 247, 255, 258, 261 Canada Publishing Corporation, 257

321

Canadian Authors Association, 62, 70, 78, 134, 135, 191, 234 Canadian Bookman, 27, 75, 78, 123 Canadian Book Publishers’ Council, 203, 206, 209 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), 157, 219; Canadian stories on, 153; Gibson’s film reviews on, 236; Munro interview on, 248 Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing, 236 Canadian Forum, 78 Canadian Medical Journal, 60, 61 Canadian Mercury, 78 Canadian Northern Railway, 58 Canadian Publishing House, A (Eayrs), 76 Canadian Writers’ Conference (Kingston, 1955), 168 Canadian Writing Today (anthology), 197 Careless, J.M.S., 9, 195, 206; Brown of The Globe, 195–6 Careless, J.M.S., and R. Craig Brown: The Canadians 1867–1967, 187 Carman, Bliss, 5, 110 Carroll, Lewis, 4, 13, 224 Carver, Caroline, 223 Cassell & Co., 6, 24, 273n72 CDG Books Canada, 262 Central Ontario Drama League, 70 Cerf, Bennett A., 74 Chabot, Denys: La province lunaire, 247 Chace Act (US International Copyright Act of 1891), 5 Chaput-Rolland, Solange, 195 Chatto and Windus, 74 children, fiction/non-fiction for, 4, 136, 151, 197, 225; Buckskin Books, 199–200; Great Stories of Canada,

322

Index

184, 198–9, 216; readers’ assessments of, 170, 172, 173, 181, 184, 185. See also educational publishing; textbooks children, poetry for: by Lee, 223–6, 231; MacEwen as reader of, 10, 175–82. See also Alligator Pie; Lee, Dennis; Lee, Dennis, works children, textbook series for: Alexandra Readers, 36, 41, 44–5; Nova Scotia Readers, 44, 45; Treasury Readers, 31, 106–10 Christian Guardian, 203 Clarke, Austin: The Meeting Point, 187 Clarke, Bill, 69, 130; Elliott on, 132, 133 Clarke, Harry, 138 Clarke, Irene (née Irwin), 69, 130 Clarke, Irwin and Company, 69, 130, 132, 133, 182, 190 Clement, Caroline, 87, 89, 93–4, 99 Close, Ann, 251 Cohen, Leonard, 200 Cohen, Matt, 221 Coles, Don, 254, 255–6; and move to M&S, 256 Collin, W.E., 84; The White Savannahs, 104–5 Colonial Library (Macmillan series), 55 Connor, Ralph, 5, 77, 110; The Major, 30 Conrad, Joseph, 4 Constable & Co., 23, 74 Contact Press, 176, 180 Cook, Edward: Why the Empire Is at War, 47 Cook, Gregory, 237 Cook, Ramsay, 195, 196, 217 Co-Operative Book Centre of Canada, 157–8, 209

Copp Clark, 5, 23, 151, 261 co-publishers, American, 140–1, 169, 172, 185. See also specific publishers Copyright Act 1842 (UK), 26, 53 Copyright Act 1911 (UK), 31 Copyright Amendment Act, 1900, 5–6, 26, 53, 77 copyright law: and agency system, 5–6, 77, 186; American, 5, 133–4; British, 26, 31, 53; Canadian, 5–6, 26, 53, 77; Eayrs and, 77, 80–2, 108; Wise and, 26–7 Cosmopolitan Book Corporation, 90–2 Costain, Thomas B., 67–8 Coulter, John, 104 Couper, James A., 177 Craig, A.R.: The Philosophy of Training, 3 Creative Age Press, 140 Creighton, Donald, 9, 195, 217; and Gray, 195, 196, 206; and Kane, 231; Macdonald biography by, 195, 216 Cross, Julian Gifford, 130 Curtis, Lionel: The Problem of the Commonwealth, 47 Dalhousie Review, 78 D’Angelo, Peter, 248 Darnton, Robert, 10, 15 Davies, Michael, 182 Davies, Robertson, 8, 201, 217, 229, 233, 261; and Gibson, 235, 238–9, 240, 242–3, 256; and Gray, 149, 188, 190–1, 197, 206, 240; on Great Canadian Stories, 198 Davies, Robertson, works: Fifth Business, 9, 190–1; The Manticore, 191; A Mixture of Frailties, 190; One Half of Robertson Davies, 242; Pontiac and

Index the Green Man (play), 242–3; World of Wonders, 191, 242 Deacon, William Arthur, 101, 129, 141, 192; on Eayrs, 113, 119–20, 148; and Elliott, 134–5, 138, 146–7, 148; and Gray, 152, 158, 192, 195 Dear Enemies/Chers ennemis (Graham/Chaput-Rolland), 195 Deeks, Florence: and alleged plagiarism by Wells, 10, 17, 58, 82–3, 268n75, 273nn72, 75 Deer Park School (Toronto), 223 de la Roche, Mazo, 9, 15, 85–6; and Atlantic Monthly Press/Little, Brown, 85, 86, 89, 90–2, 95, 96–8; and Cosmopolitan offer, 90–2; and Eayrs, 8, 65, 79, 84–99, 102, 104, 105, 106, 119, 120, 123, 216; on Eayrs’s death, 98–9; and Gray, 98–9, 155, 187; negotiating skills/ tactics of, 86–7, 88–92, 94–9; scholarship on, 85, 88, 273n88; unprofessional opinion/treatment of, 85, 87–9, 92–4, 97–8, 99; and Weeks, 85, 87–98, 187 de la Roche, Mazo, works, 85–6; Finch’s Fortune, 88–9, 92; Jalna, 84, 85–6, 87, 89, 90, 105; Jalna series, 85, 89, 90–9; The Master of Jalna, 94–5; Whiteoaks of Jalna, 90; Young Renny (initially ‘Cousin Malahide’), 94, 95–8 Denison, George T.: The Struggle for Imperial Unity, 46–7 Dennys, Louise, 238 Dent (J.M.), 6, 23, 24, 29 Derry, Ramsay, 170, 234–5 Dewey, John, 111 Dickinson, Clarence H., 133 Dickson, Horatio (Rache) Henry

323

Lovat: background of, 100; and de la Roche, 88, 99; and Eayrs, 99–100, 132, 159; and Elliott, 124, 129, 132–3, 143; and Elliott’s discovery of Mitchell, 138, 139; and Elliott’s ouster, 141–2, 143; and Gray, 132, 141–2, 152–3, 159, 205, 207; and Grey Owl, 99–101; Grey Owl biography by, 101, 211; and Kane, 211, 229; rejected novel by, 132; and visit to MCC, 141–2, 153 Dickson, Marguerite (née Brodie), 132 Diefenbaker, John, 229; memoirs of, 218–20; published speeches of, 219 Diefenbaker, Olive, 219 Dobbs, Kildare, 8, 163–71, 192; authors associated with, 168–70; background of, 164, 165; as editor, 166–7, 169, 170–1; and Gray, 164–5, 166, 170, 205; and Great Canadian Stories, 199; as ‘influential’ reader, 163, 166, 173, 175; and MCC house identity, 163–5, 170, 175, 262; memoir of, 165; and move to journalism, 165, 170; reader’s reports of, 166–7, 168, 172; travel by, 165–6; and Wiseman, 164–5, 168–70 Dominion Drama Festival, 70 Doubleday Canada: Gibson’s work at, 206, 234, 235, 244, 248 Douglas Gibson Books (M&S imprint), 206, 236, 248, 252, 261–2, 263; and Munro’s Progress of Love, 252, 254, 298n80 Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, 129 drama: by Davies, 242–3; by de la Roche, 86; Eayrs’s involvement in, 70, 114; MacEwen as reader of, 176, 181; by Mitchell, 241; as published by MCC, 8, 104, 164, 194, 241

324

Index

Drummond, William Henry, 110 Dryden, Ken: The Game, 261 Duncan, Sara Jeannette, 5 Duthie, W.J. (Bill), and bookstore of, 165, 284n79 DuWors, Richard E., 177 Eady, Sir Wilfrid, 143–4 Eaves, Morris, 63–4 Eayrs, Charles (Carl), 66 Eayrs, Dora (née Whitefield), 66, 67, 109, 114 Eayrs, George, 66, 68 Eayrs, Hugh Smithurst, 65–125, 194, 204; as author, 46, 67–8; autonomy of, 65, 74, 76, 79–82, 112; background/early career of, 65–8; and booksellers, 69, 119; and Brett (Jr), 111–12, 114–16, 120, 159; and Brett (Sr), 18, 61, 70–3, 76, 81–2; ‘calling’ of, 76–7; Canadian nationalism of, 76–84, 109–10, 113–14, 119, 124–5, 135, 136, 148, 149, 155, 208, 216, 263; and challenges of 1930s, 110–14; character/behaviour of, 68–9, 73, 104, 108, 115–16, 124; civic/industry activities of, 69–70; and copyright law, 77, 80–2, 108; declining health of, 69, 100, 114–18, 120, 121, 123; and Deeks-Wells plagiarism case, 83; and de la Roche/ Weeks relationship, 84–99; and Dickson, 99–100, 132, 159; drinking by, 67, 69, 72–3, 99, 114, 117; early MCC career of, 61, 68, 82–3; and Elliott, 10, 117–24, 125, 128–9, 130, 148, 162; fiction/poetry by, 67–8; and Gray, 69, 109, 113, 115, 117, 118, 124, 127, 143, 150–1, 152, 159; and Grey Owl, 99–102; letter written

against, 72–3; lifestyle of, 65, 67, 69, 72–3, 103, 117; literary culture established by, 8, 65, 76–83, 113–14, 124–5, 131, 208; and D. Macmillan, 85, 98, 106–7, 115–16, 120–1; and F. Macmillan, 73–4, 75–6, 80–1, 83; and Maria Chapdelaine, 79–82, 106, 119, 216; and MCC house identity, 65, 77, 105, 106, 124–5, 208, 262; and Pierce, 31, 107–9; poetry published by, 8, 79, 84, 103–5, 106, 194, 256; and relationships with authors, 102–5, 193; as satirical poet, 68, 123; trade titles of, 65, 72, 79, 84, 102–6, 110, 111, 112, 148, 155; travel by, 68, 70, 119, 124; and Treasury Readers, 31, 106–10; untimely death of, 17, 65, 73, 85, 87, 98–9, 108, 112, 113, 117–24, 126, 129, 131, 138, 144; as Wise’s successor, 61, 62, 64, 65, 68, 69, 70–1, 80, 83. See also educational publishing, by MCC; Elliott, Ellen; finances, of MCC; see also under specific authors Eayrs, James, 66–7, 101 Eayrs, Michael, 66, 101 Eayrs, Winifred, 66 Edgar, Pelham, 67, 115, 116 Edinborough, Arnold, 192 Editors’ Association of Canada, 236 educational publishing, 6–7, 9–10, 24; challenges of, 111, 124, 203, 204, 216–17, 226; as supporting trade publishing, 7, 8, 9–10, 21, 30, 33, 34, 36, 72, 84, 106, 110, 113, 132, 164, 194, 216. See also textbooks educational publishing, by MCC, 9–10, 23, 24, 110–11, 124, 127, 154, 155, 216; Brett (Sr)’s advice on, 71–2; Eayrs and, 31, 65, 71–2, 75, 79,

Index 84, 103–4, 106–11; Gage’s treatment of, 261; Gray and, 154, 161–2, 182–6, 198–202, 203, 204; Kane and, 216–17, 226; and Morang acquisition, 36–45, 106; Neale’s contributions to, 182–6; and postsecondary market, 111; in series form, 31, 32–5, 36, 41, 44–5, 63, 65, 79, 106–10, 198–202, 216; and Treasury Readers, 106–10; Wise and, 26, 32–5, 36–45, 56, 63, 106. See also textbooks Eibel, Deborah, 179 E.J. Arnold and Son, 23 Elliott, Ellen, 8, 10, 102, 126–48; authors discovered by, 138–9, 140–1; background of, 128–30; and Brett (Jr), 121, 132, 144; and ‘calling’ of publisher, 131–2; Canadian nationalism of, 128, 131–2, 134, 135, 148; on Clarke and McClelland, 132–3; death of, 147–8; demotion of, 138–9, 144–5; denial of pension to, 145–6, 147; and Eayrs, 10, 117–24, 125, 128–9, 130, 148, 162; and Eayrs’s death, 117–18; Eayrs’s poetical tribute to, 123; as editor, 8, 10, 121–2, 124, 128, 131, 188; and Grey Owl, 123, 128, 130, 137; health problems of, 142–3; and Huckvale, 121, 124, 128, 135–6; literary culture established by, 128, 131–41, 147–8; as manuscript reader, 122, 132, 136, 137, 139, 140; MCC career of, 62, 118, 121–4, 128–9, 130, 131; and MCC house identity, 262; as MCC promoter, 134–5; and Mitchell, 138–9, 241; ouster of, 17, 141–8, 149, 153; poetry published by, 135, 139–40; recognition of, 146–8; and

325

relationships with authors, 136–41; second career of, 147; and spiritualism, 129–30; on Toronto, 137–8; travel by, 132, 165, 183; and Wise, 62, 131; as woman in publishing industry, 130–1, 182. See also under Dickson, Horatio (Rache) Henry Lovat; Gray, John Morgan; Grove, Frederick Philip; Macmillan, Daniel (grandson of co-founder) Elliott, George: The Kissing Man, 194 Empire Day by Day, The (Wise), 27–8, 47 Empire Home Reunion Association, 58 Engel, Marian, 221 Ernst and Ernst, 215 Ewart, Alison, 130 Fellman, Cameron, 257 Ferguson, Trevor, 223 finances, of MCC: Eayrs and, 72, 73–4, 75, 79–82, 83–4, 102, 110, 113, 125; Elliott and, 145; and Gage acquisition, 232, 256, 257–8; Gray and, 153–5, 186, 215; Huckvale and, 124, 127–8, 135; Kane and, 209, 212, 216–17, 223, 237; and Maclean Hunter acquisition, 203–5, 209, 226–8, 257; and MCC dividend dispute, 143–4; in post-war era, 202–3; and risks taken to publish good books, 7, 32, 49, 72, 79–82, 83–4, 102, 104, 125, 139–40, 143, 180, 186, 194–5, 255–6, 263; Wise and, 35, 39, 41, 44–5, 52, 57–63, 73–4 Finch, Robert, 103; Dover Beach Revisited and Other Poems, 168, 194 Findley, Timothy, 201, 233 First World War, 24, 107, 149; anti-

326

Index

American sentiment during, 32, 47; and Canadian national identity, 26, 47, 78; and drop in fiction sales, 54; and rise in spiritualism, 129; Times history of, 58, 59; Wise’s publishing program during, 26, 47, 49, 50–3 Foreign Reprints Act 1847 (UK), 53 Foster, George, 51 Fox, Francis, 259 Fredeman, William, 14, 15 French, William, 207, 242 French Canadian literature: at GGs, 247; in translation, 82, 104, 187. See also Hémon, Louis; Ringuet French-language publishing, 5, 44, 47; Dear Enemies/Chers ennemis, 194–5 Fritschner, Linda Marie, 163, 166, 175 Fry, Alan, 244 Fulford, Robert, 192, 206, 247 Fun Tomorrow (Gray memoir), 151, 206, 228; on Eayrs, 69, 115, 118; and Elliott ouster, 141–2; Gibson and, 206–7, 208, 262; on Huckvale, 127–8, 141–2; on Jeanneret, 152; on Neale, 185 Gage (W.J.), 5, 231; plagiarism case involving, 41, 43; sale of, 203, 215; Saul and, 41, 42–3, 60, 203 Gage Educational Publishing, and acquisition of MCC, 232, 257–62; and authors’ letter to Besse, 232–3, 259–60, 296n102; and commitment to trade publishing, 243; and demise of poetry, 255–6; and departure of Gibson/Gibson’s authors, 252, 256–7, 261–2 Gage-Nelson, 108–9 Gallant, Mavis, 9; and GGs, 245–7;

and Gibson, 235, 236, 243, 244–8, 256; and Munro, 252 Gallant, Mavis, works: A Fairly Good Time, 247; From the Fifteenth District, 244–6, 247; Green Water, Green Sky, 247; Home Truths, 246–7; The Other Paris, 247; Overhead in a Balloon, 247; Paris Notebooks, 247; The Pegnitz Junction, 247 Garrett, Eileen J., 140 Gates, A.I., 111 Gedge, Pauline, 229 General Publishing, 131 George Morang (publisher). See Morang, George Nathaniel; Morang Educational Company Gibson, Douglas Maitland, 8, 209–63; authors associated with, 239–57, 259; authors’ move to M&S with, 256–7, 261–2; background/character of, 235–7; and Besse, 259–62; and Derry, 234–5; at Doubleday, 206, 234, 235, 244, 248; editorial ethos of, 237, 238–9; editorial imprint of, 206, 236, 248, 252, 254, 261–2, 263; and Gray’s memoir, 206–7, 208, 262; as hired at MCC, 206, 234–5, 237, 262; and Kane, 225, 233, 234–5, 237, 262; and MCC house identity, 233, 259, 263; and MCC’s sale to Gage, 243, 252, 257–62; and McKnight, 252–4, 261; and move to M&S, 252, 256–7; poetry published by, 254, 255–6; recognition of, 236; and short story writers, 243, 244; ‘Survival Guide’ of, 239, 255; as teacher, 236. See also under specific authors Gibson, Graeme and Shirley, 221–2 Gilmour, George, 225, 234; back-

Index ground of, 229; and hiring of Gibson, 234–5; and Kane, 220, 229–30, 231, 234–5 Globe (Toronto), 26; and reviews of Wise’s trade titles, 46–7, 48 Globe and Mail, 198, 231, 236, 241, 242. See also Deacon, William Arthur Godfrey, Dave, 221, 222 Godfrey, J.M., 50 Godson, Ruth, 205 Goldsmith, Oliver (Canadian poet), 110 Goosequill (pseud.): As Others See Us, 49 Gordon and Gotch, 57 Gosewich, Arnold, 259, 261 Gould, Mona, 128, 139–40; I Run with the Fox, 139; Tasting the Earth, 139, 140 Gould, Warwick, 12 Governor General’s Literary Awards (GGs), winners of, 105, 141, 170, 194, 199; Callaghan, 216; Creighton, 195–6; Davies, 191; Gallant, 246–7; Grove, 141; Hodgins, 243, 245; MacEwen, 181; MacLennan, 192; Munro, 251; Pratt, 105, 141; Vanderhaeghe, 255; Wiseman, 168, 169–70, 190 Graham, Gwethalyn, 195 Grant, George, 222 Gray, James H.: The Boy from Winnipeg, 196 Gray, John Anthony Morgan, 150 Gray, John Morgan, 8, 19, 62, 63, 149–208, 256; army service by, 128, 138, 142, 150; authors associated with, 149, 186–98; autonomy of, 153, 155–6, 159–60; background of, 149–50; biographies/histories

327

published by, 195–6; and booksellers, 186, 204; and Brett (Jr), 159–62; Canadian nationalism of, 149, 155–8, 198–200, 263; on Canadian publishers’ challenges, 6–7, 9; and changes in Canadian publishing, 202–5; character of, 150–1, 164; and copyright law, 186–7; death/ legacy of, 206–8; and Dickson, 132, 141–2, 152–3, 159, 205, 207; and Eayrs, 69, 109, 113, 115, 117, 118, 124, 127, 143, 150–1, 152, 159; editors/readers associated with, 162–86; and Elliott’s demotion/ ouster, 138–9, 141–2, 143, 144–6, 147, 148, 149, 153; and Gage-Nelson plagiarism claim, 109; and Gibson, 206–7, 208, 262; as hired at MCC, 69, 150; on Huckvale, 127–8, 141–2; and Kane, 202, 204, 206, 208, 209, 211–15, 219, 222, 226–31; and London/New York offices, 152–62; and D. Macmillan, 143–6, 153, 154, 155–6, 158–9, 161–2, 195; and H. Macmillan, 154–5, 196, 202, 204, 205; and Massey Commission, 156–7; and MCC centennial project, 187; as MCC general manager, 144–7, 149, 151–2; and MCC house identity, 163–5, 170, 175, 262; as MCC president, 149; MCC promotion by, 157–8; and MCC properties, 155, 158–9; and MCC’s sale to Maclean Hunter, 203–5, 226–8; and MCC succession issue, 202, 213–14, 215, 226–7, 230, 257; and Neale, 10, 151, 182–6; office of, 152; poetry published by, 166–7, 170, 173, 175–82, 186, 194, 256; and relationships with authors, 151,

328

Index

187–98; retirement of, 205–6, 215, 228, 229; Selkirk biography by, 151, 159, 165, 193, 207; series publication by, 198–202; trade publishing by, 154, 155–6, 186–98; as willing to take risks, 194–5; women readers of, 170–86. See also Dobbs, Kildare; educational publishing, by MCC; finances, of MCC; Fun Tomorrow (Gray memoir); Neale, Gladys; see also under specific authors Great Stories of Canada (MCC series), 184, 198–9, 216 Grey Owl, 9; and Dickson, 99–101, 211; and Eayrs, 8, 65, 79, 84, 99–102, 104, 137; Eayrs’s defence of, 101–2; and Elliott, 123, 128, 130, 137; and Gray, 187; lecture tours by, 100–1; literary tributes to, 101; The Men of the Lost Frontier, 137; Pilgrims of the Wild, 99, 100, 101; true identity of, 101–2, 211 Group of Seven, 78 Grove, Frederick Philip: and Eayrs, 84, 88, 102–3, 110, 123, 136, 216; and Elliott, 123, 128, 136–7, 138, 139, 141, 143; as MCC manuscript reader, 102, 136, 138 Grove, Frederick Philip, works: Consider Her Ways, 103, 137; In Search of Myself, 103, 137, 141; It Needs to Be Said, 102; The Master of the Mill, 103, 137; Our Daily Bread, 102; The Yoke of Life, 102 Grove School (now Lakefield College School), 149–50 Guillet, Edwin C., 185 Gundy, Samuel B., 27 Gyi, Michael, 214 Gzowski, Peter, 236

Haig-Brown, Roderick, 199 Hall, H.S.: Junior Algebra for Schools, 34, 35 Hamelin, Danielle, 24, 45, 50 Hamilton, Thomas Glendenning: Intention and Survival, 130 Hardy, Francis, 158 Hardy, Thomas, 4, 108 Harpell, James J.: Canadian National Economy, 48 Harrison, Lionel G., 179 Hawkes, Arthur, 50 Hearst, William, 51 Heath, G.J., 52–3, 55 Heimrich, Carl, 173 Hémon, Louis: Maria Chapdelaine (trans. Blake), 8–9, 49, 104; copyright issues of, 80–2; Eayrs and, 79–82, 106, 119, 216 Hémon, Marie, 80–1 Herrington, Walter S., 46 Herriott, Archibald, 108 Hicks, Michael A., 184 Hiebert, Paul: Sarah Binks, 122 Historica Foundation of Canada, 236 Hodder and Stoughton, 6, 24, 68, 86 Hodder-Williams, Ernest, 68 Hodgins, Jack, 223, 233, 254, 255; GG won by, 243, 245; and Gibson, 235, 243–4, 256 Hodgins, Jack, works: The Barclay Family Theatre, 223, 243; The Invention of the World, 223; The Resurrection of Joseph Bourne, or a Word or Two on those Port Annie Miracles, 223, 243, 245; Spit Delaney’s Island, 223, 243 Hogarth Press, 74 Holland, Vivian, 170–3, 184, 185; background of, 171; and Canadian

Index content, 172; and educational publishing, 173; and Gray, 171; and New York office, 172; and propriety/taste, 172–3; reader’s reports of, 171–3, 174, 175; Time Trip, 173 house identity, 36; readers’ influence on, 163–4, 175 house identity, of MCC, 262–3; under Eayrs, 65, 77, 105, 106, 124–5, 208, 262; under Gibson, 233, 259, 263; under Gray and Dobbs, 163–5, 170, 175, 262; in Maclean Hunter era, 227–8; under Wise and Saul, 36, 41, 43, 64, 165, 262; and women readers, 173, 174–5 House of Anansi Press, 220–3, 226; MCC’s bid to acquire, 221–2. See also Lee, Dennis Houston, James, 236 Howsam, Leslie, 33 Hubbard, Elizabeth K., 184 Huckvale, Robert, 8, 116, 118, 120, 121, 124, 126–8, 132; background of, 126; Brett (Jr)’s assessment of, 126–7; departure/pension of, 146, 147; as Eayrs’s successor, 124, 126–8; and Elliott, 121, 124, 128, 135–6; Gray on, 127–8, 141–2, 151; and MCC finances, 127–8, 135; as succeeded by Gray, 142 Hughes, James L., 29–30 Hunt, John D.: The Dawn of a New Patriotism, 48; Democracy in Canada, 48 Hunter, Rose and Company, 206 imprints, editorial, 262, 299n120. See also Douglas Gibson Books International Copyright Act of 1891 (US), 5

329

Irwin, John, 69, 130, 133 Irwin, John W., 185–6 Israel, Charles, 168 James, Elizabeth, 4, 16, 17, 23 James, Henry, 4 Jarvis, A.H., 56, 57 Jarvis, W.H.P. (Goosequill): As Others See Us, 49 Jeanneret, F.C.A., 152 Jeanneret, Marsh, 151–2, 215; memoirs of, 262 J.M. Dent, 6, 23, 24, 29 Johnson, Charles, 202 Johnson, E. Pauline, 110 Johnston, Robert L., 22 John Wiley and Sons Canada, 262 Jonas, George, 222, 296n102 journals, literary, 78. See also specific journals Kane, Alice, 210 Kane, Hugh Pyper, 8, 209–33; background of, 210; ‘calling’ of, 211; Canadian nationalism of, 215–16; character of, 210–11; death of, 232; and Diefenbaker memoirs, 218–20; and early career at M&S, 202, 209–14, 221, 224, 227; and educational publishing, 216–17, 226; and Gibson, 225, 233, 234–5, 237, 262; and Gilmour, 220, 229–30, 231, 234–5; and Gray, 202, 204, 206, 208, 209, 211–15, 219, 222, 226–31; as hired at MCC, 212–14; and Laurentian Library, 201; and Lee, 211, 220–6, 231, 232, 256; and MCC’s bid to acquire Anansi, 221–2; and MCC’s sale to Maclean Hunter, 16, 204, 209, 220, 226–31; and MCC

330

Index

succession issue, 202, 213–14, 215, 226–7, 230, 257; as MCC trade director, 209, 220, 229–30, 232, 234; and McClelland, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 227, 230, 231; and Neale, 214; and Ontario Royal Commission on Book Publishing, 214–18; poetry published by, 223–6, 256; and return to M&S, 209, 220, 230–1. See also finances, of MCC; Gibson, Douglas Maitland; Gray, John Morgan Kane, Sean, 210, 221–2 Kattan, Naim, 247 Keay, Jack, 214 Kennedy, Leo, 103, 104; The Shrouding, 104 King, William Lyon Mackenzie, 129–30; as published by MCC, 105 Kipling, Rudyard, 4, 45, 108; The Fringes of the Fleet, 54; Letters to the Family, 54; and Wise, 53–5 Knister, Raymond: White Narcissus, 104 Knopf. See Alfred A. Knopf Knox, Olive, 136 Kroetsch, Robert, 149, 194, 255 Kurelek, William, 241 Laidlaw, Robert: The McGregors, 249 Lampman, Archibald, 5, 104–5, 110 Lane, Allen, 11 Lash, Z.A.: Defence and Foreign Affairs, 47 Latham, Harold, 22 Laurence, Margaret, 200 Laurentian Library (MCC series), 198, 200–1 Layton, Irving, 200

Leacock, Stephen, 9, 28–9, 110; and Eayrs, 8, 65, 84, 102 Lear, Edward, 224 Lee, Dennis: and Anansi, 220–3; and Kane, 211, 220–6, 231, 232, 256; MCC career of, 223, 226; and MCC’s sale to Gage, 232, 233, 259–60, 261; and Newfeld, 224–5. See also Alligator Pie Lee, Dennis, works: Alligator Pie, 223–6, 231; Civil Elegies, 221; Garbage Delight, 225, 231; Jelly Belly, 225, 261; Nicholas Knock and Other People, 223, 224, 225–6 LeFebvre, J.A., 80–1 Leitch, Adelaide: The Great Canoe, 199–200 Lester, Malcolm, 258 Lever, Bernice, 242 Lévesque, Henri, 156 Levine, Norman, 194 Lewis, Bruce, 221 Lewis, C.S., 4 Lewis, Irene H., 70 Livesay, Dorothy, 104; Green Pitcher, 104, 139; Signpost, 104, 139 London, Jack, 4, 45 Macdonald, Sir John A.: Creighton’s biography of, 195, 216 MacDonald, Thoreau, 80 MacDonald, Wilson, 110, 123 MacEwen, Gwendolyn: and business of publishing, 176–7, 180; and children’s books, 181; GG won by, 181; and Gray, 176, 206, 256; as poet/ novelist, 175–6, 181, 256; as reader of poetry, 10, 175–82; reader’s reports of, 177–80, 181, 182 MacEwen, Gwendolyn, works:

Index The Armies of the Moon, 181; The Drunken Clock, 176; Julian the Magician, 176, 181; King of Egypt, King of Dreams, 181; Magic Animals: Selected Poems Old and New, 181; The Rising Fire, 176; Selah, 176; The Shadow-Maker, 181 MacLaren, Eli, 24, 26, 53 Maclean, Alan, 205 Maclean Hunter: and acquisition of MCC, 12, 16–17, 203–5, 209, 220, 225, 226–31, 234, 258; and MCC’s sale to Gage, 232–3, 257–8, 259 Maclean Publishing, 67 Maclean’s, 138, 153, 197 MacLennan, Hugh, 8, 201, 217, 229, 233; and Gibson, 235, 240, 256; GG won by, 192; and Gray, 149, 155, 188, 191–4, 205, 206, 240 MacLennan, Hugh, works: Barometer Rising, 191; Each Man’s Son, 216; Return of the Sphinx, 187, 193; Scotchman’s Return and Other Essays, 192–3; Voices in Time, 240; The Watch that Ends the Night, 9, 192 MacLeod, Alistair, 236 Macmillan, Alexander (co-founder), 3, 31 Macmillan, Daniel (co-founder), 3, 31 Macmillan, Daniel (grandson of cofounder), 62, 98–9, 117; and Brett (Jr)’s offer to buy MCC, 120–1; and de la Roche, 85, 86, 87, 93, 97, 99, 120; and Eayrs, 85, 98, 106–7, 115–16, 120; and Eayrs’s death, 98, 120–1; and Elliott, 128, 129, 131, 139, 141; and Elliott’s ouster, 143–6, 153; and Gray, 143–6, 153, 154, 155–6, 158–9, 161–2, 195; on Grove, 137; and Huckvale’s appointment,

331

126–7; and London–New York split, 160–2; and Wilson, 188 Macmillan, Frederick Orridge, 22, 28, 73–6, 80, 81, 83; and apprenticeship under G.E. Brett, 31; congenial personality of, 31–2; and Copyright Act 1911 (UK), 31; and Eayrs, 73–4, 75–6, 80–1, 83; and Net Book Agreement, 31; and Wise, 23–4, 31, 32, 38–9, 42, 52–7; and WiseKipling hostilities, 53–5; and Wise scandal, 59–62 Macmillan, George Augustin, 22 Macmillan, Harold, 3, 62, 117, 155, 161, 231; and Diefenbaker memoirs, 219; and Gray, 154–5, 196, 202, 204, 205; and MCC dividend dispute, 143–4; and sale of Macmillan archive, 13–14 Macmillan, Maurice, 158; and hiring of Kane, 212–13 Macmillan, Maurice Crawford, 22 Macmillan and Company, 3–4, 7, 14, 31, 214; agency operations of, 4, 8, 23, 230–1; archive of, 12–20, 162; and hiring of Eayrs, 61, 70; influence/reputation of, 22–3, 28–9, 33; and MCC’s sale to Maclean Hunter, 16–17, 203–5, 209, 220, 227–8; present incarnation of, 17; series publication by, 33–4, 44, 55; See also Macmillan and Company, archive of Macmillan and Company, archive of, 12–20; in Canada, 12, 14–15, 16–17, 18–19, 162; in England, 12–14, 15, 16–17; ideological bias of, 12–13, 20; in New York, 12, 14, 15, 17–18, 19; and sequestering/absence of records, 16–18 Macmillan Company of Canada

332

Index

(MCC), 3, 4–5; and acquisition of Morang, 36–45, 106; American copublishers of, 140–1, 169, 172, 185; and branch-plant system, 4, 7–8, 9, 28, 124, 128, 262–3; Brett’s launch of, 18, 21–4; and Canadian publishing industry, 5–12, 24, 77–8, 110–14, 202–3, 215–18; demise of, 262; educational publishing by, 9–10, 32–45, 106–10, 198–202; and foreign ownership issue, 204, 217–18, 226, 227–8; Gage acquisition of, 232–3, 243, 252, 256–62; house identity of, 36, 64, 65, 77, 105, 124–5, 164–5, 174–5, 233, 259, 262–3; influence/ reputation of, 8–9, 10, 22–3, 28–9, 33, 36, 38, 45; Kane’s overview history of, 215–16; as London/New York agency, 4, 8, 23, 161–2, 230–1; and London/New York offices, 4–5, 7–8, 12, 15, 18, 39, 44, 152–62; Maclean Hunter acquisition of, 12, 16–17, 203–5, 209, 220, 225, 226–31, 234, 258; pension plan of, 155; during Second World War, 117, 124, 126–41, 142, 143; series publication by, 32–5, 106–10, 198–210; women readers at, 19, 170–86. See also agency agreements, of MCC; educational publishing, by MCC; finances, of MCC; house identity, of MCC; series publication, by MCC Macmillan Company of New York, 3, 4, 7; archive of, 12, 14, 15, 17–18, 19; and break with London office, 4, 17, 160; growth/expansion of, 24; influence/reputation of, 22–3; and move of agency agreement to M&S, 161–2; and post-war relationship with MCC, 159–62. See

also Brett, Bruce Y.; Brett, George Edward; Brett, George Platt (Sr); Brett, George Platt (Jr) Macmillan War Pamphlets, 33–4, 135 Macphail, Andrew, 34, 80 MacSkimming, Roy, 130, 185, 222, 257, 260 MacVicar-Newby Agencies Ltd, 58–9 Mailit (Elliott/McKanday company), 147 manuscripts, assessment of. See readers; readers at MCC Marbury, Elizabeth, 90, 91 Maria Chapdelaine (Hémon; trans. Blake), 8–9, 49, 104; copyright issues of, 80–2; Eayrs and, 79–82, 106, 119, 216 Marois, Russell, 222 Massey, Vincent, 104, 156 Massey Commission, 156–7 Matheson, Wallace, 218 McCall, Christina: Grits, 260–1. See also Newman, Christina McCall McCleery, Alistair, 10–11, 63 McClelland, Jack, 197; character of, 200, 214; and Gibson, 236, 244; and Gray, 205, 207; and Kane, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 227; and Kane’s return to M&S, 230, 231; and offer to buy MCC, 227 McClelland, John, 27, 197, 210, 272n59; Elliott on, 132–3 McClelland and Goodchild (later McClelland and Stewart), 6, 24 McClelland, Goodchild and Stewart (later McClelland and Stewart), 27, 30 McClelland and Stewart (M&S), 7, 10, 102, 138, 171, 190, 263; as

Index agency operation, 162, 210, 213; and demise of poetry at MCC, 256; financial problems of, 203, 212, 227, 231; Gibson’s imprint at, 206, 236, 248, 252, 254, 261–2, 263; Kane’s early career at, 202, 209–14, 221, 224, 227; Kane’s return to, 209, 220, 230–1; McKnight at, 252, 261; move of Gibson’s authors to, 256–7, 261–2; Munro’s move to, 252–4, 256, 298n80; New Canadian Library of, 198, 200, 201; and offer to buy MCC, 227 McClung, Nellie: Sowing Seeds in Danny, 30 McCourt, Edward, 199 McDonald, Larry, 241–2 McDougall, Colin, 194 McDowell, Franklin Davey: The Champlain Road, 105 McFadden, David, 177 McFee, Oonah, 229; Sandbars, 223, 231 McGill Fortnightly Review, 78 McGraw-Hill, 203 McGraw-Hill Ryerson: Munro and, 248, 249, 253 McIntyre, Alfred: and de la Roche, 90, 92, 96–7 McIntyre, W.A., 44 McKanday, George Milton, 129, 147 McKechnie, Laurie, 192 McKillop, A.B.: on Eayrs, 68; on Saul, 35, 37; on scandal/troubles of Wise years, 57–63; The Spinster and the Prophet, 10, 17, 57–8, 83, 273n75 McKnight, Linda, 252–4, 261 McLachlan, Ian, 223 McLaughlin, Lorrie: West to the Cariboo, 200 McLaughlin, William W., 121 McLeod, D.J., 119

333

McLeod, George J., 27 McLeod and Allen, 6, 24, 27 McMaster University, 235; MCC archive at, 12, 14–15, 16–17, 19, 162 McQueen, Rod: The Moneyspinners, 261 Meany, Patrick, 213 Mercer, May, 60 Merritt, William Hamilton: Canada and National Service, 47 Methodist Book and Publishing House, 5, 30. See also Ryerson Press Miller, Peter, 277 Mills, John, 242 Minifie, James, 229 Mitchell, George W., 34–5; An Introduction to Latin Prose, 34 Mitchell, Margaret, 4; Gone with the Wind, 112–13 Mitchell, W.O., 8, 128, 201, 229, 233, 240; Elliott’s discovery of, 138–9; and Gibson, 235, 240, 241, 256; and Gray, 138–9, 149, 155, 188, 189, 206, 240, 241 Mitchell, W.O., works: Dramatic W.O. Mitchell, 241; How I Spent My Summer Holidays, 241; Since Daisy Creek, 241; Who Has Seen the Wind, 9, 138–9, 189, 241 Modern Library (Random House), 74 Mohr, Anton, 184 Montgomery, Lucy Maud, 77; The Watchmen and Other Poems, 30 Morang, George Nathaniel, 23, 26, 36–9; financial/health problems of, 36–7, 38, 39; Saul’s relationship with, 37–9 Morang Educational Company, 36–7; MCC’s acquisition of, 36–45, 106; Saul’s role in sale of, 37–9; textbook lists of, 36–7, 43–5

334

Index

Mowat, Farley, 172, 200; Lost in the Barrens, 184 Munro, Alice, 233; and father’s novel, 249; and Gallant, 252; GG won by, 251; and Gibson, 235, 236, 243, 248–54, 256; as McGraw-Hill Ryerson author, 248, 249, 253; and move to M&S, 252–4, 256, 298n80; and photographic book project, 248; and ‘pressure’ of publishing deadlines, 248–9; publishing costs covered by, 250–1 Munro, Alice, works: The Moons of Jupiter, 9, 251; The Progress of Love, 252–4, 298n80; Who Do You Think You Are?, 250–1 Munro, John, 219 Munro, Ross: Gauntlet to Overlord, 141 Musgrave, Susan, 194 nationalism, Canadian: beginnings of, 7, 26, 28, 64; in centennial-year era, 180, 187, 221; of First World War and after, 78; and foreign ownership issue, 204, 217–18, 226, 227–8; post-war, 153, 186, 199. See also under specific MCC presidents Natural Science of Canada (M&S subsidiary), 220, 230 Neale, Gladys, 130, 171, 173, 182–6, 262; background of, 182–3; on Gage’s treatment of MCC’s educational titles, 261; and Gray, 10, 151, 182–6; and Kane, 214; as literacy advocate, 183; as manuscript reader, 184–5; recognition of, 185–6; travel by, 183 Nelles, C.L., 56–7 Nelson Canada, 173, 200. See also Thomas Nelson

Net Book Agreement, 31 New American Library Canada, 258 New Canadian Library (M&S series), 198, 200, 201 Newfeld, Frank, 224–5, 231. See also Lee, Dennis Newman, Christina McCall: on Diefenbaker memoirs, 218. See also McCall, Christina Newman, Peter C., 200 New Press, 170, 222, 227 New Provinces: Poems of Several Authors (MCC anthology), 103–4 New York Public Library: Macmillan archive at, 12, 14, 15, 17–18, 19 Norwood Press (Boston), 39 Nova Scotia Readers (Morang/MCC), 44, 45 Nowell-Smith, Simon, 13–14 Ondaatje, Michael, 221, 238 Ontario, textbooks used in: commission on, 26; contracts for, 24, 34–5, 37, 108, 226; and curricular reform, 111; new rules governing, 203, 226. See also textbooks Ontario Development Corporation, 203, 217 Ontario Royal Commission on Book Publishing, 214–18, 227, 228 Orvis, Kenneth, 172 Owen, Ivon, 207 Oxford University Press (Canada), 6, 24, 25, 27, 55, 122, 138, 202, 207, 231 Page, P.K., 9, 128; The Sun and the Moon, 140–1 paper: price of, 51–2, 230; shortages of, 51, 52, 134, 230 Parker, George, 6, 23–4, 29, 39, 51, 52, 78, 133, 207

Index Parker, Gilbert, 5 Parsons, Lydia Mary: Mrs Parsons’ Manual for Women’s Meetings, 48 Pedlar’s Pack, A (MCC anthology), 103 Pelletier, Gérard, 238 PEN (Poets, Essayists, and Novelists) Canada, 70 Percival, W.P., 135 Peterson, C.W.: Wake Up, Canada!, 48 Phelan, Josephine: The Ardent Exile, 216 Pickthall, Marjorie, 110 Pierce, Lorne, 30–1, 141; and Eayrs, 31, 107–9 plagiarism, cases involving: Deeks vs Wells, 10, 17, 58, 82–3, 268n75, 273nn72, 75; MCC vs Gage, 41, 43; MCC vs Gage-Nelson, 109 poetry, as published by MCC: for children, 181, 223–6; demise of, 255–6; Dobbs as reader of, 166–7; under Eayrs, 8, 79, 84, 103–5, 106, 194, 256; under Elliott, 135, 139–40; financial risks associated with, 104, 139–40, 180, 255–6; under Gibson, 254, 255–6; under Gray, 166–7, 170, 173, 175–82, 186, 194, 256; under Kane, 223–6, 256; MacEwen as reader of, 10, 175–82; under Wise, 21, 45, 48–9. See also Lee, Dennis; MacEwen, Gwendolyn; Pratt, E.J. Pope, Ted, 192 Pratt, E.J., 9; and Eayrs, 65, 67, 79, 84, 103–4, 105, 106, 115, 116, 118–19, 216, 256; and Elliott, 128, 129, 138, 141; GGs won by, 105, 141; as MCC manuscript reader, 103; and spiritualism, 129, 138 Pratt, E.J., works: Brébeuf and His Brethren, 105, 118–19, 141; The Fable of the Goats and Other Poems, 105;

335

Many Moods, 103, 105; The Witches’ Brew, 103 Pratt, Viola, 129, 138 Prentice-Hall, 218 publishers: ‘calling’ of, 76–7, 131–2, 211; as ‘cultural consecrators,’ 25, 28, 63–4, 78, 155, 181 Purver, Horace, 59, 60 Pyne, R.A., 51 Quill and Quire, 119, 161, 203, 228, 231, 257 Raddall, Thomas, 199 Random House, 74, 244 Random House Canada, 244 readers, 162–4; archived reports of, 15, 19; ‘hack,’ 163, 170, 174–82; and house identity, 173, 174–5; ‘influential,’ 163, 166; as invisible yet powerful, 162–3, 174–5; number per book, 136; women as, 19, 170–86. See also readers at MCC; readers at MCC, women as readers at MCC: Dobbs, 166–71, 175; Elliott, 122, 132, 136, 137, 139, 140; Grove, 102, 136, 138; Holland, 170–5, 184, 185; MacEwen, 175–82; Neale, 184–5; Pratt, 103; Sturges, 170, 173–5, 184, 185 readers at MCC, women as, 19, 170–86; cultural bias against, 163, 170–1, 183; and house identity, 173, 174–5; recognition/remuneration challenges of, 170, 173, 183–4. See also Holland, Vivian; MacEwen, Gwendolyn; Neale, Gladys; Sturges, Elizabeth; women, in Canadian publishing Reaney, James, 168, 194 Reciprocity Agreement (1911), 32

336

Index

Reiman, Walter, 243 Richardson, Burt (ed.): Those Things We Treasure, 219 Richler, Mordecai, 200; The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, 196; and Gray, 196–7 Richmond Street (Toronto), 25 Ringuet (pseud.): Thirty Acres, 82, 104, 105, 141 Ritchie, Charles, 229, 231; Storm Signals, 261 Robarts, John, 215 Roberton, Thomas B.: T.B.R. Newspaper Pieces, 105 Roberts, Charles G.D., 5, 110, 119 Rohmer, Richard, 215 Ross, Malcolm, 255; The Arts in Canada, 194; and New Canadian Library, 200 Ross, Sinclair: The Well, 168, 194 Rossetti, Christina, 4, 14 Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 14 Round Table movement, 27 Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, 195 Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences (Massey Commission), 156–7 Rule, Jane: Desert of the Heart, 195 Ryerson Press, 7, 10, 30–1, 102, 133, 263; and Gone with the Wind, 112, 113; sale of, 203, 215; and Treasury Readers, 106–10 Sadleir, Michael: Desolate Splendour, 74–5, 77 Sales Unlimited (Wise company), 58–9, 60 Sanderson, Charles R., 133

Sandwell, B.K., 152 Sandwell, Barney D., 206 Sargent, Elizabeth, 174 Saturday Night, 236, 247; Dobbs’s move to, 170; and review of Goosequill novel, 49; and review of Gray memoir, 206; and saga of Diefenbaker memoirs, 218 Saul, John Cameron, 35–43, 44–5; and Alexandra Readers, 41, 44–5; background of, 37; as bibliophile, 37, 39; and Deeks-Wells plagiarism case, 83; as hands-on editor, 37, 39–40, 41, 43; illness of, 41–2; and knowledge of book trade, 35, 37, 40–1; and MCC-Gage plagiarism case, 41, 43; and MCC house identity, 36, 41, 43, 64, 165; McKillop on, 35, 37; and Morang acquisition, 37–9; and move to Gage, 42–3, 60, 203; textbook contracts secured by, 35–6, 38, 40, 43; textbooks originated by, 35; travel by, 37, 39, 40, 41–2, 165; and Wise, 35–43, 59–60, 162, 164 Saul, Lilian, 39, 42 Schoemperlen, Diane, 262 Schull, Joseph, 217, 229; Laurier, 196; The Nation-Makers, 187 Scott, Duncan Campbell, 110, 179–80 Scott, F.R., 103–4, 194 Scott, Foresman (US publisher), 203, 257 Second World War, 117, 124, 126–41, 143; Gray’s army service during, 128, 138, 142, 150; and Macmillan War Pamphlets, 135 Sedgwick, Ellery, 86, 89 Selkirk, Thomas Douglas, Earl of: Gray’s biography of, 151, 159, 165, 193, 207

Index series publication: in Britain, 33–4, 44, 55 series publication, by MCC, 32–5, 63, 65, 79, 106, 198–202; Alexandra Readers, 36, 41, 44–5; Buckskin Books, 199–200; Great Stories of Canada, 184, 198–9, 216; Jalna, 85, 89, 90–9; Laurentian Library, 198, 200–1; Macmillan War Pamphlets, 33–4, 135; Treasury Readers, 31, 106–10 Service, Robert: Songs of a Sourdough, 30 Seton, Ernest Thompson, 110 Shaw, Nicholas Byam, 204 Shields, Carol: A Fairly Conventional Woman, 260 Sime, Jessie Georgina, 136 Skelton, Robin, 262 Smallwood, Joey, 229, 231; memoirs of, 218 Smith, A.J.M., 103, 194 Smith, Lillian, 210 Smith, R.M., 179 Sotheby’s, 13, 14 Spadoni, Carl, 14, 28, 102, 112 St Laurent, Louis, 156 St Martin’s Classics (MCC series), 108 St Martin’s House (70 Bond Street, Toronto), 56, 66, 117, 142, 166, 259; and adjacent/nearby properties, 155, 158–9; book launches at, 103, 192; building of, 35; Gray’s office in, 152; Kane and, 210–11, 214; MCC’s move out of, 259; Wise and, 42, 51, 56; and Wise scandal, 58, 60, 61, 62–3, 71 St Martin’s Press, 160, 284n58 Stewart, George, 210, 212

337

Stoddart, Jack (Sr), 131 Stringer, Arthur, 77 Stuart, Robert, 249, 250 Studies in Canadian Literature: special issue on Canadian publishing, 11–12 Sturges, Elizabeth, 170, 172, 173–5, 184, 185; background of, 173–4; and Canadian content, 174; and morality/taste, 174; reader’s reports of, 173–5 Sutherland, Donald (MCC trade manager), 214 Swayze, Beulah Garland: Father Gabriel’s Cloak, 200 Targ, William, 22 Tennyson, Alfred, 4, 13, 37 textbooks: challenges to sale of, 111, 124, 203, 204, 216–17, 226; Eayrs’s correction of errors in, 75; and government contracts/sales, 6, 23, 24, 26, 34–6, 37, 38, 40, 43, 51, 106–9, 111, 203, 226; Gray’s updating of, 154; Morang’s list of, 36–7, 43–5; Neale as reader of, 184–6; and plagiarism allegations, 41, 43, 109; Saul’s originating of, 35; series publication of, 31, 36, 41, 44–5, 106–10. See also educational publishing Thacker, Robert, 248, 250 Thomas Nelson, 6, 24, 39. See also Nelson Canada Thorndike, E.L., 111 Tolchard, F. Douglas, 133 Toronto Board of Trade: publishers’ section of, 25, 51, 70, 119, 126, 133 Toronto Public Library, 133, 210; Osborne Collection of, 209

338

Index

Traill, Catharine Parr, 110 travel: by Dobbs, 165–6; by Eayrs, 68, 70, 119, 124; by Elliott, 132, 165, 183; by Gray, 151; by Neale, 183; by Saul, 37, 39, 40, 41–2, 165 Treasury Readers (MCC/Ryerson Press), 31, 106–10 Trudeau, Pierre Elliott: Federalism and the French Canadians, 196 Truscott, Steven, 251 Tyrrell, William, and bookstore of, 56, 119, 166 Underhill, Frank: In Search of Canadian Liberalism, 196 United Church Publishing House, 203. See also Ryerson Press Universal Copyright Convention, 186 University of Reading: Macmillan archive at, 12, 13, 14, 15 University of Toronto, 67, 115, 149, 150, 152, 200, 243, 246 University of Toronto Press, 6, 111, 130; Jeanneret as director of, 151–2, 215 Upjohn, Frank, 141–2, 144, 151, 206, 207, 284n58 Upjohn, Guy, 206 Usukawa, Jane (later Saeko), 170 Vanderhaeghe, Guy: and Gibson, 243, 254–5, 256; Man Descending, 254–5 Viking Press, 74, 169, 185 Voaden, Herman, 104 Waddell, John, 34–5; A School Chemistry, 34 Walker, Ernest W., 133

Wall, Ann, 221 Watt, Frederick B.: Who Dare to Live, 135 Weatherill, Evelyn, 192 Weaver, Robert, 153 Weeks, Edward: and de la Roche, 85, 87–98, 187; and Eayrs, 85–98, 100 Wells, H.G., 4, 45; alleged plagiarism by, 10, 17, 58, 82–3, 268n75, 273nn72, 75 Whalley, George, 168 White, Thomas, 51 Whitefield, Dora. See Eayrs, Dora Whitefield, Leon (Lee), 69 Whitehead, Frank, 204, 226–7, 229, 231 Whiteman, Bruce, 14, 34, 35, 36, 45, 79–80, 84, 208, 263 Whitney, William, 59 Wilkinson, Anne, 194 Willison, John Stephen, 27 Wilson, Ethel, 9, 201; and Gray, 149, 155, 188–9; and Elliott, 188; and D. Macmillan, 188 Wilson, Ethel, works: Hetty Dorval, 188; The Innocent Traveller, 188; Mrs Golightly and Other Stories, 189; Swamp Angel, 188 Wing, Willis Kingsley, 190 Win-the-War Movement, 50 Wise, Frank, 8, 21–64; autonomy of, 23–4, 45, 63–4, 65, 74; background of, 24–5; and booksellers, 55–7, 69; and Brett (Sr), 17–18, 21–4, 31, 32, 34, 56, 57, 59–61; Canadian nationalism of, 26, 28–9, 45–6, 47–50, 63–4; and Canadian trade list, 23–4, 25–6, 29, 30, 32–3, 45–50, 63–4; character/behaviour of, 29–30, 32, 50, 52–7, 62, 131; and

Index citizenship theme, 48; civic/industry activities of, 25, 26–7, 50–2; as copyright reform advocate, 26–7; dismissal/resignation of, 17, 18, 42, 61, 62; educational publishing by, 26, 32–5, 36–45, 56, 63, 106; fiction and poetry published by, 21, 45, 48–9; and First World War, 26, 47, 49, 50–3; and First World War history book, 58, 59; fraud/ mismanagement by, 42, 43, 57–63, 70–1, 73, 80, 83; and Kipling, 53–5; later life/career of, 61–2; letters written against, 59, 73; literary/ publishing culture established by, 8, 21, 25–6, 63–4; and loyalty to Britain, 22, 24, 27–8, 45, 46–7, 49, 50–1, 58, 64; and F. Macmillan, 23–4, 31, 32, 38–9, 42, 52–7, 59–62; and MCC house identity, 36, 41, 43, 64, 165, 262; at New York office, 18, 21–2, 25, 34; pro-war sentiment of, 47, 48, 50–1; and pros/cons of Macmillan name, 28–9; and Saul, 35–43, 59–60, 162, 164; series publishing by, 32–3, 106; as succeeded by Eayrs, 61, 62, 64, 65, 68, 69, 70–1, 80, 83. See also finances, of MCC; Saul, John Cameron Wiseman, Adele, 9, 15, 201; and Dobbs, 168–70; GG won by, 168, 169–70, 190; and Gray, 188, 189–90 Wiseman, Adele, works: Crackpot, 190; Old Markets, New World, 190; The Sacrifice, 164–5, 168–70, 189–90

339

W.J. Gage. See Gage (W.J.); Gage Educational Publishing; and Gage-Nelson women, in Canadian publishing, 10; cultural bias against, 163, 170–1, 183; as displaced by men, 138–9, 144–5, 151; as rarities in senior positions, 130–1, 182; as readers, 19, 170–86. See also Elliott, Ellen; Neale, Gladys; readers at MCC, women as women authors, and relationships with editors/publishers: de la Roche, 85, 87–9, 92–4, 97–8, 99; Gallant, 244–8; Munro, 248–54; Wiseman, 168–70, 188, 189–90. See also specific women authors Wood, Edgar Allardyce: The Great Chief, 199; The Map-Maker, 199 Wood, R.C.: The Soldier’s First Aid, 47 Wood, William: Flag and Fleet, 47 Woodcock, George, 242 Woolf, Leonard and Virginia, 74 World of Books (periodical), 27 World Wars I and II. See First World War; Second World War Wright, Richard B., 254, 255, 296n102; Andrew Tolliver, 200; Clara Callan, 170 Writers’ Union of Canada, 258, 260 Wrong, George MacKinnon, 27; history books by, 46, 105, 106, 216 Yeats, W.B., 108 Young, David, 110

This page intentionally left blank

STUDIES IN BOOK and PRINT CULTURE General Editor: Leslie Howsam

Hazel Bell, Indexers and Indexes in Fact and Fiction Heather Murray, Come, bright Improvement! The Literary Societies of NineteenthCentury Ontario Joseph A. Dane, The Myth of Print Culture: Essays on Evidence, Textuality, and Bibliographical Method Christopher J. Knight, Uncommon Readers: Denis Donoghue, Frank Kermode, George Steiner, and the Tradition of the Common Reader Eva Hemmungs Wirtén, No Trespassing: Authorship, Intellectual Property Rights, and the Boundaries of Globalization William A. Johnson, Bookrolls and Scribes in Oxyrhynchus Siân Echard and Stephen Partridge, eds, The Book Unbound: Editing and Reading Medieval Manuscripts and Texts Bronwen Wilson, The World in Venice: Print, the City, and Early Modern Identity Peter Stoicheff and Andrew Taylor, eds, The Future of the Page Jennifer Phegley and Janet Badia, eds, Reading Women: Literary Figures and Cultural Icons from the Victorian Age to the Present Elizabeth Sauer, ‘Paper-contestations’ and Textual Communities in England, 1640–1675 Nick Mount, When Canadian Literature Moved to New York Jonathan Earl Carlyon, Andrés González de Barcia and the Creation of the Colonial Spanish American Library Leslie Howsam, Old Books and New Histories: An Orientation to Studies in Book and Print Culture Deborah McGrady, Controlling Readers: Guillaume de Machaut and His Late Medieval Audience David Finkelstein, ed., Print Culture and the Blackwood Tradition Bart Beaty, Unpopular Culture: Transforming the European Comic Book in the 1990s Elizabeth Driver, Culinary Landmarks: A Bibliography of Canadian Cookbooks, 1825–1949 Benjamin C. Withers, The Illustrated Old English Hexateuch, Cotton Ms. Claudius B.iv: The Frontier of Seeing and Reading in Anglo-Saxon England Mary Ann Gillies, The Professional Literary Agent in Britain, 1880–1920 Willa Z. Silverman, The New Bibliopolis: French Book-Collectors and the Culture of Print, 1880–1914 Lisa Surwillo, The Stages of Property: Copyrighting Theatre in Spain Dean Irvine, Editing Modernity: Women and Little-Magazine Cultures in Canada, 1916–1956

Janet Friskney, New Canadian Library: The Ross-McClelland Years, 1952–1978 Janice Cavell, Tracing the Connected Narrative: Arctic Exploration in British Print Culture, 1818–1860 Elspeth Jajdelska, Silent Reading and the Birth of the Narrator Martyn Lyons, Reading Culture and Writing Practices in Nineteenth-Century France Robert A. Davidson, Jazz Age Barcelona Gail Edwards and Judith Saltman, Picturing Canada: A History of Canadian Children’s Illustrated Books and Publishing Miranda Remnek, ed., The Space of the Book: Print Culture in the Russian Social Imagination Adam Reed, Literature and Agency in English Fiction Reading: A Study of the Henry Williamson Society Bonnie Mak, How the Page Matters Eli MacLaren, Dominion and Agency: Copyright and the Structuring of the Canadian Book Trade, 1867–1918 Ruth Panofsky, The Literary Legacy of the Macmillan Company of Canada: Making Books and Mapping Culture