New Canadian Library: The Ross-McClelland Years, 1952-1978 9781442684669

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N E W C A N A D I A N L I B R A R Y: THE ROSS-McCLELLAND YEARS, 1952–1978

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JANET B. FRISKNEY

New Canadian Library: The Ross-McClelland Years, 1952–1978

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

© University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2007 Toronto Buffalo London www.utppublishing.com Printed in Canada isbn: 978-0-8020-9746-0

Printed on acid-free paper

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Friskney, Janet Beverly, 1968– New Canadian library : the Ross-McClelland years, 1952–1978 / Janet B. Friskney. (Studies in book and print culture) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn: 978-0-8020-9746-0 1. New Canadian Library – History and criticism. 2. Canadian literature – 20th century – History and criticism. 3. Ross, Malcolm, 1911–. 4. McClelland, Jack, 1922–. I. Title. II. Series. z483.m33f75 2007

070.509713c541

c2007-903257-5

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 Mom, who has always encouraged me to buy books. And in memory of Dad, who introduced me to the wonder of borrowing them.

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If Canadian books are mingled with books from England and the United States and all the other lands that publish in English, they are likely to be lost, for their tone is not aggressive or eccentric. But gather them together as a Canadian library, and consider them as the production of a land and a people, and they assume a more impressive stature. Robertson Davies, ‘The Northern Muse’ (1964)

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Contents

illustrations xi acknowledgments xiii abbreviations xvii

Introduction

3

Part One: The Historical Narrative 1 Malcolm Ross, Jack McClelland, and the Launch of the NCL 21 2 Establishing a Canadian Literary Reprint Series, 1958–1967 44 3 Establishment and Its Discontents, 1968–1978 67 Part Two: Editorial Practices and the Selective Tradition 4 Selection, Rejection, and Compromise 91 5 On the Matter of the Source Text 122 6 Canonical Conundrums 152

Appendix A Appendix B Appendix C

New Canadian Library Titles, 1958–1978 186 Copies of NCL Titles Sold Annually, 1958–1979 196 Titles Proposed but Not Included in the NCL to 1978 205

x Contents

notes 219 selected bibliography 253 illustration credits 271 index 273

Illustrations

1.1 Jack McClelland with the first four New Canadian Library titles, 1958 32 1.2 First four volumes in the New Canadian Library in their original cover design 38 1.3 Announcement of the New Canadian Library in Quill & Quire, 1957 41 2.1 Announcement of Laurentian Library in Quill & Quire, 1967 64 3.1 Four New Canadian Library volumes in the second cover design 74 3.2 Shifty-eyed character from the ‘Great Canadian 5–Pack’ promotion, 1972 76 4.1 Malcolm Ross 108 5.1 Edward Meade’s Remember Me 147

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Acknowledgments

Research for this book involved a great many people. For responding to my research queries, or otherwise offering me helping hands along the way, I am indebted to the following: Sandra Alston; Jodi Aoki; Margaret Atwood; Carl Ballstadt; Marilyn Barber; Patricia Belier; David Bentley; the members of Bibsocan; Marie-Claire Blais; Winnifred Bogaards; the members of BooksCanada; George Bowering; George Brundak; Jan de Bruyn; Silver Donald Cameron; Sandra Campbell; Kerry Cannon; Linda Cardwell; Carleton University’s Inter-Library Loan staff; Carole Carpenter; Robert Chambers; R.H. Cockburn; Fred Cogswell; Leonard Cohen; Matt Cohen; Sarah Cooper; Derek Crawley; Sandra Djwa; Bernadine Dodge; Stan Dragland; Patricia Fleming; Karel Forestal; Keath Fraser; Karen Friskney; Robert Friskney; Robert Fulford; Mavis Gallant; Anne Goddard; Morgan GradySmith and Meaghan Denomme at McClelland and Stewart; Judith Skelton Grant; James Gray; Kyle Greenwood; Francess Halpenny; John D. Hamilton; Robert Harlow; Patti Harper at Carleton University; Linda Hoad; Elaine Hoag; Alison Hopwood; Ernie Ingles; Gordon Johnston; Sean Kane; Naim Kattan; W.J. Keith; G.D. Killam; Sarah King; Lorna Knight; Michèle Lacombe; Irving Layton; John Lennox; Douglas Lochhead; Mary Lu MacDonald; Jay Macpherson; Joyce Marshall; Paul Martin; Robin Mathews; Larry McDonald; Duncan McDowall; Pauline McKillop; Stan McMullin; Jacques Michon; Orm Mitchell; Peter Mitham; Patricia Morley; Christine Mossin; Heather Murray; W.H. New; Frank Newfeld; M.G. Parks; Cara Peterman; Elizabeth Popham; Anna Porter;

xiv Acknowledgments

Lynne Prunskus; Al Purdy; Mordecai Richler; Laurence Ricou; Gordon Roper; Peter Saunders; Roy Schieder; the members of SHARP-l; Norman Shrive; Rowland Smith; Carl Spadoni and his colleagues at the William Ready Division of Archives and Special Collections, McMaster University Library; Randall Speller; D.O. Spettigue; David Staines; J.M. Stedmond; Apollonia Steele and her colleagues at Special Collections, University of Calgary Library and Cultural Resources; David Stouck; Philip Stratford; T.H.B. Symons; John Taylor; Clara Thomas; William Toye; Michael Treadwell; Josée Vincent; Tom Vincent; J.B. Wadland; John Wadland; Don Wallace; Germaine Warkentin; Elizabeth Waterston; Joan White; Bruce Whiteman; Milton Wilson; Leslie Woolcott; Paul Wright; Alan Young; Laura Zink; and the staff at Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, the University of Toronto Archives, Library and Archives Canada, Queen’s University Archives, and those at the other archives with whom I made contact. Scholarships from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire, the Canadian Federation of University Women, and Carleton University sustained me during the original research process, which occurred while I was pursuing doctoral studies at Carleton. Special thanks go to my friends at Carleton, Joanna Dean and Jim Opp, who provided both practical and moral support. The unflagging good humour of A.B. McKillop, who supervised the dissertation on which this book is based, cannot be underestimated. His encouragement, along with the critical and practical input of Nancy Earle, Carole Gerson, Leslie Howsam, Ken Lewis, Siobhan McMenemy, Frances Mundy, George Parker, Michael Peterman, Daniel Quinlan, and UTP’s anonymous peer reviewers and its Manuscript Review Committee, helped to transform the dissertation into a book. Thanks also to Wesley Bates for the cover illustration and Val Cooke for the cover design. My mother, Edith Friskney, has exhibited tremendous fortitude and enthusiasm, rarely daunted by the trail of paper and books that clutter her home during my visits. Some of the material discussed in this book was previously covered in an article I wrote for the Malcolm Ross memorial issue of Canadian Poetry (Spring/Summer 2003), an opportunity for which I must thank David Bentley and Carole Gerson.

Acknowledgments xv

For permission to use quotations from unpublished materials, I would like to thank Patti Harper, Carleton University (Claude Bissell correspondence), Robert Chambers (his Citation for Jack McClelland), Paul Gooch, Victoria University in the University of Toronto (Northrop Frye correspondence), Alison Hopwood, David Klinck (Carl Klinck correspondence), Douglas Lochhead, Philip Cercone (Hugh MacLennan correspondence), Jay Macpherson, Ann Mandel (Eli Mandel correspondence), Christopher Matthews (John P. Matthews correspondence), the late Jack McClelland and the William Ready Division of Archives and Special Collections, McMaster University Library (McClelland and Stewart archival materials), Anne McDougall (Robert McDougall correspondence), John D. Hamilton (A.L. Phelps correspondence), Florence Richler (Mordecai Richler correspondence), Mark Roper (Gordon Roper correspondence), Julie Ross (Malcolm Ross correspondence), Germaine Warkentin and Robert C. Brandeis, Victoria University Library, Victoria University in the University of Toronto (David Sinclair correspondence), William Toye (A.J.M. Smith correspondence), Clara Thomas, Elizabeth Waterston, Beth B. Watters Morley (R.E. Watters correspondence), Milton Wilson, and Kyle Greenwood (George Woodcock correspondence). Malcolm Ross and Jack McClelland, both sadly gone now, require extra special acknowledgment for supporting the idea of a study of the NCL and then warmly and generously responding to the questions I put before them during the course of researching the subject. Their heirs and literary executors, Julie Ross and Elizabeth McClelland, have been equally kind, and I’m extremely grateful to them for helping bring this book to fruition.

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Abbreviations

ACQL CC CCCN CEECT CUA CWS JGM LAC M&S MR NCL NFB OAC SC-UCLCR TFRBL-UT UWOA WRDARC-MU

Association for Canadian and Quebec Literatures Canada Council for the Arts Calgary Conference on the Canadian Novel Centre for Editing Early Canadian Texts Carleton University Archives Canadian Writers Series (NCL sub-series) John Gordon (Jack) McClelland Library and Archives Canada McClelland and Stewart Malcolm Ross New Canadian Library National Film Board Ontario Arts Council Special Collections, University of Calgary Library and Cultural Resources Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto University of Western Ontario Archives William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections, McMaster University

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NEW CANADIAN LIBRARY: THE ROSS-McCLELLAND YEARS, 1952–1978

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Introduction

‘Psst! ... Wanna Read a Canadian Book?’ queries the trenchcoated, shifty-eyed cartoon character who featured in McClelland and Stewart’s paperback promotion of 1972. Arrayed along the lining of his coat, as if they are the veriest of contraband, are five titles in the Toronto book publishing firm’s venerable series, the New Canadian Library (NCL). Launched on 17 January 1958, the NCL was a quality paperback series of literary reprints that gathered together works either written by Canadians or set in Canada and first issued between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. The series had two principal architects: English professor Malcolm Ross (1911–2002), its general editor, and Jack McClelland (1922–2004), its publisher. They initiated the venture with the hope that it would find a receptive audience among the Canadian reading public and an academic community willing to embrace it as part of a larger endeavour to establish firmly the teaching and research of Canadian literature within post-secondary institutions across Canada. When Ross conceived the idea of the series in the early 1950s, the environment for such an undertaking did not appear auspicious. At the time, the general trade and educational markets for Canadian literature within Canada remained small, while its appeal internationally was negligible.1 John Gray, president of Macmillan of Canada, with whom Ross also broached his idea, firmly turned down the proposal, convinced that no stable market for such a series could be ensured and that paperbacks were a passing fad.2 Gray’s conviction about the lack of a stable market rested on the scant course adoptions commanded by Canadian

4 New Canadian Library

literature in secondary and post-secondary classrooms. At midcentury, sales to the educational market – particularly to elementary and high schools – provided the stable foundation on which much of Canada’s book publishing industry rested. Ross’s approach to Jack McClelland proved more successful. The publisher expressed misgivings similar to Gray’s, but was eventually persuaded by Ross’s assertion that the availability of the books would create the market for them.3 The basis for Ross’s belief was twofold. First, he had witnessed an increase in post-secondary teaching of American literature, itself a relative newcomer on the English university curriculum in Canada, with the availability of paperback editions.4 Second, his academic colleagues across the country included a small but highly committed coterie of scholars and critics who wished to make Canadian literature a central component of their research and teaching careers. Numbered among this group were individuals such as Claude Bissell, Roy Daniells, Carl Klinck, Robert McDougall, Desmond Pacey, Gordon Roper, Clara Thomas, Elizabeth Waterston, and R.E. Watters. Through the middle decades of the twentieth century, these academics, some of whom self-identified as pioneers or missionaries of the subject, produced, individually or collaboratively, critical work about Canadian literature, expanding, refining, or challenging the understanding of the field previously expressed in historical surveys published in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Until the launch of the NCL, however, any ambition to teach Canadian literature was inhibited by a lack of available and affordable teaching texts, particularly low-priced editions of Canadian novels. The bulk of past Canadian literary writing was out of print, while most contemporary books existed only in hardback editions priced beyond the budget of students. This group of academics would adopt the series Ross conceived, and encourage its continuance through their suggestions for further titles and through the introductions they penned for volumes issued in the series. When Ross retired as general editor in 1978, Canadian literary icon Margaret Laurence honoured him for the commitment to Canadian literary studies that the NCL represented, describing the series ‘as one of the most valuable, significant, and farreaching events in our literary history.’5 Two decades later, literary critic W.J. Keith similarly asserted that during McClelland’s

Introduction 5

career as a publisher, the NCL ‘was the greatest achievement of M&S, so far as Canadian literature was concerned.’6 The series survives to this day, in a revised format and under the general editorship of University of Ottawa English professor David Staines, as well as the supervision of an editorial board drawn from Canada’s academic and literary communities. However, it is the period between 1952 and 1978, the Ross-McClelland era of the series’s history, that is the focus of this study. It takes as its fundamental concerns the editorial and reception history of the NCL of these years, locating that story within the larger environments of the Canadian book trade and the emergent academic field of Canadian literary studies. A rich archival base, including the papers of Malcolm Ross and McClelland and Stewart, supports such an approach, as do a variety of published sources, most significant among them the individual volumes that made up the NCL, and the miscellany of book reviews those titles prompted. I Heightened scholarly awareness of book history makes it an opportune time to undertake a detailed historical examination of the New Canadian Library. Book history is a field of study whose considerations encompass matters relating to the production, dissemination, and reception of books and print, the human agents involved in such processes, and the interactive relationship that exists between published materials and the wider social and cultural milieux of which they are part and parcel. British book historian D.F. McKenzie, who himself envisioned the field as a ‘sociology of texts,’ argued twenty years ago that book history ‘directs us to consider the human motives and interactions which texts involve at every stage of their production, transmission and consumption. It alerts us to the roles of institutions, and their own complex structures, in affecting the forms of social discourse, past and present.’7 The recent publication of the three-volume History of the Book in Canada / Histoire du livre et de l’imprimé au Canada provides ample evidence of the cultural impact of books and print in Canadian society. Of particular concern here is that after the First World War, ‘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.’8 The NCL is a

6 New Canadian Library

significant example of that phenomenon. From an international perspective, the NCL of the Ross-McClelland years is also representative of three venerable book publishing traditions, and a pioneering example of a fourth. These four traditions, whose histories are strongly interlinked, are the series, the reprint series, the paperback, and the quality paperback. The publisher’s series – often referred to as a library series – is a distinct publishing format characterized by particular production and marketing strategies. In Leslie Howsam’s words, a publisher’s series is ‘a named, sometimes numbered, group of books with a common theme, usually with uniform binding and often uniformly priced, appearing under a general title.’9 Publishers adopt a series format as a means of dispersing the risk of individual titles across a collection of books. Since it is inevitable that some titles in a series will fare better than others in the marketplace, a publisher’s assessment of success is based on performance across all titles. Nonetheless, extremely good or bad sales of particular volumes can influence the overall editorial direction of a series. In addition, use of a common title and cover design is not simply cost-effective; it creates brand-name recognition, and at its most successful encourages consumers to collect multiple volumes.10 Numbering titles can also facilitate the impulse to collect, as it heightens awareness among purchasers that they possess an incomplete set, a circumstance publishers hope buyers will feel compelled to rectify. Even so, some publishers opt not to number volumes, since it is then easier to drop titles from a series without arousing public attention. In general, the strategies that distinguish the publisher’s series support D.F. McKenzie’s established point that form (or format) affects the meaning or sense of a text.11 At the same time, the differentiated sales performance typical of volumes within a series indicates a limit on form as a factor in purchasing, and asserts that other considerations, including the individualistic content of texts, or the reputations they have accumulated through multiple editions, also play a significant role in the buying of books. Reprint series are one of the most common examples of the series format. In English-language publishing, the popularity of reprint series can be traced back as far as the late eighteenth century, when the House of Lords ruling in Donaldson versus Beckett (1774) brought a decisive end in Great Britain to the notion

Introduction 7

of perpetual copyright. Reprint series were not unknown before that time, but the entry of numerous titles into the public domain as a result of this legal ruling gave publishers a new impetus toward reprinting. Since then the presence of works in the public domain, of which any publisher is free to take advantage, has inspired and sustained many a reprint series.12 However, publishers are not compelled to confine the contents of their reprint series to works in the public domain: those willing and able to negotiate reprint rights have also included titles still in copyright. The many reprint series that circulated throughout Europe and North America during the nineteenth century were variously bound in cloth, paper, or paper-covered boards. Indeed, although the ‘paperback revolution’ is commonly perceived as a mid-twentieth-century phenomenon, important precursors to Penguins and Pocket Books characterized the nineteenth-century book trade, particularly in the area of reprint series. In his history of American book publishing, John Tebbel refers to the paperback revolution as ‘a continuing phenomenon whose origins date back to the 1840s.’ Even prior to that decade, certain types of publications, such as almanacs or works issued in instalments, had often appeared in paper covers. However, in the early 1840s, American newspaper publishers, some of whom dedicated most of their publications to reprinting serial fiction, initiated what were known as ‘supplements’ or ‘extras’ – complete novels produced cheaply in quarto format, the street editions of which were sold in colourful paper covers. A change in American postal regulations in 1843 brought this lively trade to an end by mid-decade. However, by then the extras had established a place within the American market for complete, paperbound books, a format that became increasingly popular through the middle decades of the nineteenth century as first railway travellers, and then the soldiers of the Civil War, embraced inexpensive, disposable, paperbound publications to alleviate the tedium of travel or camp life.13 During the same period, British publishers launched railway libraries to meet a similar need in their domestic market. Issued in papercovered boards featuring colourful images, titles in railway libraries were typically, though not exclusively, reprints. These British series, like the ‘cheap libraries’ of paperbound books that proliferated in the United States and Canada between 1875 and 1890, kept prices down by taking advantage of the lack of reciprocal

8 New Canadian Library

copyright between Great Britain and the United States. When a copyright agreement was established between the two countries in 1891, it contributed to the collapse of the cheap North American libraries. Paperbound books subsequently fell out of favour in North America’s English-language market, but in Europe and French-speaking Canada they remained popular. A new era began in the 1930s when the Albatross Modern Continental Library, which was established in 1932 and reprinted English-language titles for Europe’s Continental market, brought a fresh look to the paperbound book by reducing its size and adopting a spare, modern cover design. Albatross titles, which included a symbol of the bird on their covers and used colourcoding to designate genre, were the immediate model for Allen Lane’s Penguin Books, launched in Great Britain in 1935. In initiating his paperback venture, Lane envisioned inexpensive reprints of quality fiction and non-fiction for those of largely middlebrow taste. To keep the retail price down to 6d, Lane produced his books in substantial print runs, which in turn necessitated distribution outlets beyond regular bookstores, such as the Woolworth’s chain of department stores. Robert Fair de Graff, who kept an attentive eye on these European developments, is credited with initiating the twentiethcentury paperback revolution in North America. In 1939 de Graff joined forces with American publisher Simon & Schuster to launch Pocket Books, a house whose name would become synonymous with the paperback. Pocket Books emulated Albatross and Penguin by adopting a kangaroo as a recognizable branding device. In parallel with the British venture, its titles were issued at the extremely reasonable price of a quarter, and distributed beyond the regular bookstore network. However, Pocket Books diverged from its European forerunners by opting for pictorial covers, which de Graff believed would prove more appealing to North American readers. Pocket Books did well from the outset, but really took the North American market by storm beginning in 1941, the year de Graff achieved effective newsstand distribution. A popular preference for small, handy paperbacks was further consolidated by the Armed Services Editions, a collective enterprise of American publishers launched in 1943 under the auspices of the Council of Books in Wartime. These books accustomed service personnel to portable paperbacks, and thus

Introduction 9

encouraged them to purchase pocket books once they returned to civilian life. By the end of the Second World War, Pocket Books had a number of notable American competitors, such as Avon, Popular Library, and Dell, while in Canada Collins’ White Circle Pocket Editions were also on the English-language market. The war years were exploratory ones for North America’s pocket-book publishers as they learned what types of fiction and non-fiction held greatest appeal in the mass market. Popular Library and Dell, the offspring of magazine publishers, focused on mysteries, westerns, and romances, convinced that popular genre fiction would prove equally saleable in pocket-book format. By the early 1950s, American publishers also became aware that a significant niche market existed in the educational sector, particularly at the college level, where student enrolment had grown substantially since the war and affordable paperback editions held appeal as course texts. While some paperbacks issued for the mass-market were viable candidates for course adoption, there were numerous potential titles whose market would not extend beyond the classroom and a small regular book trade sale. To resolve these difficulties and tap this market, the ‘quality paperback’ (also known as the ‘egghead paperback’) was developed. ‘Quality paperback’ was a savvy choice of name, one coined to distinguish both the contents and the characteristics of the format from its mass-market antecedent. While often similar in size to their forerunners, quality paperbacks differed by being issued in more conservative covers, manufactured with somewhat higher production values, and distributed through regular booksellers and college bookstores. The more limited market pursued by quality paperbacks dictated significantly smaller print runs, which in turn ensured a higher retail price since per unit cost was increased for the publisher. On the other hand, the target market of quality paperbacks held greater backlist potential than was enjoyed by works produced for mass distribution. A mass-market title might see only a single printing, but steady course adoptions over a period of years of a quality paperback title could require a publisher to order regular reprints. Reprinting backlist titles was an important source of profits for publishers: once editorial and set-up costs were covered by the initial print run, publishers had the option of reprinting in shorter runs for the same unit cost, or reprinting the same volume at a greater margin of profit. As early

10 New Canadian Library

as 1948, the US publishing firm New American Library had a functional example of a quality paperback line in Mentor Books, but others date the formal emergence of quality paperbacks to the launch of Doubleday’s Anchor Books in 1953.14 When McClelland and Stewart began issuing the NCL in 1958, it was the first publisher in English Canada to venture into the quality paperback field. Others soon followed. II The New Canadian Library was conceived and launched less than a decade after the release of the Massey Report, the findings and recommendations of Canada’s Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences. Dubbed ‘The Culture Commission’ by the Canadian public during the course of its investigations, which ran from 1949 to 1951, this federal commission conducted a detailed survey of the country’s creative and intellectual life. The commissioners received much cooperation in this endeavour. The Second World War had heightened nationalism, which, in the immediate post-war years, intensified and gave greater political relevancy to a long-standing concern among Canada’s ‘culture lobby’ for a fully realized national culture, one that would reflect a level of creative accomplishment complementary to what Canada had achieved in other areas of its national life.15 The commissioners were drawn from the elite of this lobby, and in their report made a series of recommendations designed to encourage in Canada ‘a creative culture that would reflect a unique Canadian social culture.’16 One of the Commission’s most substantial outcomes was the creation of the Canada Council for the Arts in 1957. Paul Litt has used the term ‘liberal humanist nationalism’ to elucidate the brand of cultural nationalism that animated Canada’s mid-twentieth-century cultural elite, a group that included members of the Canadian academy. The liberal humanist component of this amalgam valued high culture as a means to enlightened individuality and judicious citizenship, reinforcing a stance taken up by British cultural critic Matthew Arnold almost a century earlier.17 The nationalist portion, which harkened back to late-eighteenth-century European thought, was rooted in principles of romantic nationalism. Romantic nationalism conceived of

Introduction

11

a nation as a people who shared a common heritage of language, geography, and race, and asserted that a nation’s distinct character is reflected in its creative life. These two strains of cultural thought were both well established in Canada prior to the Second World War. However, as Litt relates, in the immediate post-war years, advocates of each had much greater impetus to work together as they identified a common enemy in American mass culture, which they believed had the capacity both to undermine the civilizing role they attributed to high culture and to threaten opportunities for distinctive Canadian cultural expression.18 Even prior to the Second World War, many of those concerned about Canada’s cultural development had worked to accommodate these two strains of thought, neither of which offered an easy fit for the creative productions of a country of colonial origins; a country, moreover, whose anglophone elements exhibited in the pre-war years a residual affection and strong cultural deference toward Great Britain and its creative heritage. When compared with the creative achievements of the mother country, Canadian productions had often been deemed second-rate by those of liberal humanist persuasion, who, as advocates of high culture, set great store by aesthetic standards of achievement formulated outside of Canada. For the Dominion’s earliest English professors, ‘the ideological and aesthetic purity of British literature so far surpassed the writings of other English-speaking nations, including those of their own country, that Canadian or American authors were but infrequent intruders into a hallowed canon, at least up to the end of the Grat War.’19 Romantic nationalists, for their part, were continually disappointed by their failure to find a unified national portrait emerging out of Canadian cultural productions, an objective undermined by the country’s geographic variance, as well as the linguistic and ethnic diversity of its population.20 Much of the cultural commentary prior to the Second World War that focused on indigenous literary production concerned itself with measuring Canadian literary progress, identifying factors inhibiting that growth, and advocating practical means by which the qualitative and quantitative production of Canadian literary works might be improved. Most commentators prior to mid-century located the realization of a qualitatively high and vitally authentic Canadian literature firmly in the future. Indeed, when the Massey Report appeared in 1951, the commissioners,

12 New Canadian Library

based on the reports and submissions they received, still felt it appropriate to pose the question: ‘Is there a national literature?’21 The two strains of thought active in Canadian cultural nationalism at mid-century ensured an inherent tension in the nurture and assessment of Canadian cultural productions. ‘The popular appeal and Canadian emphasis which nationalism demanded sometimes threatened the critical standards and cosmopolitan outlook of the cultural elite,’ explains Litt. ‘The claims of nationalism wrestled with those of elitism within the minds of individuals and between different factions of the culture lobby.’22 Through the middle decades of the twentieth century, this tension was a significant presence in Canadian literary criticism, one that Jonathan Kertzer explicates in Worrying the Nation: Imagining a National Literature in Canada (1998) as a disjuncture between the claims of ‘merit’ and ‘authenticity.’23 One of the most famous examples of this phenomenon was, of course, penned by the University of Toronto’s internationally renowned literary critic Northrop Frye. ‘Had evaluation been [the] guiding principle’ of this volume, explained Frye in his conclusion to the Literary History of Canada (1965), ‘this book would, if written at all, have been only a huge debunking project, leaving Canadian literature a poor naked alouette plucked of every feather of decency and dignity.’24 Frye was quite cognizant of the dilemma under which he worked when he served as a critic of Canadian literature. Just three years earlier, he had divulged in a letter to George Woodcock, the editor of the scholarly journal Canadian Literature, that throughout the decade from 1950 to 1960, when he wrote the annual Canadian poetry surveys for University of Toronto Quarterly, he ‘was conscious of the tension in critical standards between what was relevant to actual criticism and what was relevant to presenting Canadian poets to a Canadian audience.’ Frye then added: ‘This tension grew to the point of being extremely uncomfortable: for the last year or so I felt trapped in a pseudo-critical position.’25 Fellow critic Hugo McPherson had similarly, if more colourfully, confessed to Woodcock in 1959: ‘[The CBC radio show] “Anthology” is supposed to be avante garde, but in fact it is all too polite about Canadian writers. I get the impression,’ he stated, ‘that many of its speakers (including me) are torn between the evangelizing desire to get the so-called “literary” listener to go out and read Canadian

Introduction 13

books, and the prophylactic urge to express some cruel but necessary truths about Canadian literature.’26 The degree of critical tension experienced by Canadian literary critics and book reviewers varied from individual to individual. However, even the staunchest advocates of Canadian literary studies at mid-century could not claim to be free of its grip. In the notes he prepared for a public lecture in the 1940s, literary historian Carl Klinck promoted an historical and biographical methodology toward Canadian writing, but first felt it necessary to assert that a strictly ‘aesthetic’ approach ‘leaves out much writing that has some value’ and ‘obscures the “Canadian” element which has its own value.’27 During the following decade, University of New Brunswick English professor Desmond Pacey, too, called for alternative critical practices when examining Canadian literature; specifically, he deemed New Criticism, a methodology which eschewed a consideration of historical and biographical context, inappropriate to much Canadian literature since there had been ‘insufficient historical and biographical criticism applied to most of our writers.’ Pacey believed that, in general, ‘the job of the literary critic in Canada is still the pioneer task of clarifying the historical background, sorting out biographical and bibliographical detail, [and] seeking to arrive at preliminary evaluations and interpretations.’28 The history of the NCL during the Ross-McClelland years offers a significant window into the critical tension experienced by Canadian literary critics through the middle decades of the century. The evidence is there to be found in volume introductions, book reviews, and editorial practices. Certainly it was an influence apparent in Malcolm Ross’s thinking as general editor. Toward the close of his tenure in the position, Ross told an editor at M&S that he had always been receptive to the inclusion of titles in the series for ‘extra-aesthetic’ reasons. ‘As a teacher of Canadian literature I have been concerned with the growth, the slow growth of a Canadian literary culture, and in all the regions of our time and space ...,’ he noted. He then went on to explain: ‘... at this stage of our self-awareness some such study of our culture, both high and low and middling, is valid and has been necessary. And I think NCL, in these terms, has made a serious contribution to the selfknowledge of Canadians, even if such self-knowledge has not always flattered our self-pride.’29

14 New Canadian Library

III What was Malcolm Ross’s original editorial vision for the New Canadian Library? When asked this question in 1995, the former general editor offered the following retrospective statement. ‘I’m not sure that I had any clear map ahead of me,’ he recalled. I wanted to bring back so people could read them and study them ... – and I was thinking mainly of fiction at the time – [books] which could be seen as reflecting Canadian life in the various regions of Canada during the different periods in which the development was going on from the earliest days to the present. So in other words I wanted to give it an historical sense and a regional sense and I wasn’t concerned with just finding a few masterpieces if there were any. I didn’t want to publish anything that was illiterate, mind you. But I wasn’t on the hunt for a handful of ‘classics.’ I was trying to illustrate a sort of cultural history – what was developing in the creative imagination of Canadians as they grew up here at different times and in different places. And I thought it would take time; we could probe here and there.30

The probing was extensive. By the time Ross retired as general editor in 1978, just over 180 titles had appeared in the NCL’s Main and two subsidiary lines, the NCL Original Series and the Canadian Writers Series (see appendix A). His ambition to achieve historical and regional representation had been addressed, though certainly not realized to the degree he wished. Of those 164 volumes that appeared in the Main and the Original lines combined, approximately 60 per cent contained literary or literary critical materials first published after 1940. Titles with pre1900 materials represented about 15 per cent, while roughly 25 per cent fell between these two periods. In terms of regional coverage, the series of the Ross-McClelland period included at least one title set, in whole or in part, in every province and territory, with the exception of the Yukon. Titles set in Western and Atlantic Canada, however, were dominated by Manitoban and Nova Scotian settings, respectively. Integral to Ross’s editorial concern for historical and geographic coverage was an interest in capturing a range of literary modes, as well as a sampling of titles that would reveal the diversity of ethnic and religious heritage to which Canadians from specific localities and regions were heir.

Introduction 15

Ross never voiced a particular editorial objective regarding the ratio of female to male writers. The final statistic in this regard was 23 per cent female to 77 per cent male. One should be particularly attentive to Ross’s use of ‘we’ in his retrospective vision statement. Ross was far from alone in the NCL venture, as he was always the first to admit. In the narrowest sense, his use of the pronoun signifies his interactions with Jack McClelland, and the various employees at McClelland and Stewart who had a participatory role in making the series a reality. However, that ‘we’ is also indicative of the consultative method that characterized his editorial practice throughout his tenure as general editor. While conceived by one academic and produced by one publisher, the New Canadian Library series during the RossMcClelland era was in many ways a collective enterprise, a sustained effort of an English-Canadian literary community comprising academics, book reviewers, writers, journalists, and publishers. The critical tension that vexed certain of its members notwithstanding, this was a community, particularly through the 1950s and 1960s, who shared a common objective of legitimizing Canadian literature as a field of study, and who viewed Canadian literary works as significant cultural products worthy of the consideration of Canadian students, as well as a larger Canadian reading public. While Ross commenced his general editorship with an idea of how he wished to proceed, surviving documentation makes it clear that the NCL from its inception was very much a work-inprogress. Without diminishing the agential roles of its principal architects, it needs to be understood that the academic who conceived it, and the publisher who took it on, guided a series that was influenced by their own preferences and concerns, as well as the enthusiasms and anxieties of M&S’s editorial and marketing personnel, and the suggestions of academics, teachers, educational authorities, authors, booksellers, and members of the public. Nor should one ignore the pragmatic in exploring its history: the series faced numerous constraints endemic to publishing, among them copyright restrictions, permissions costs, and competition, as well as the particular financial anxieties of its publisher, McClelland and Stewart. These circumstances came to bear upon the series, shaping it in ways in which its users remained largely unaware. In and of themselves, publisher’s series are rarely canons,

16 New Canadian Library

particularly those which are produced in an open-ended fashion, as was the case with the NCL. When studied in detail, publisher’s series can, in fact, reveal an eclecticism that makes their alternative designation of ‘library series’ particularly apt. Nonetheless, the processes of selection that they require, and of reception that they invoke, can certainly implicate publisher’s series in the phenomenon of canonization. Indeed, in examining the history of the NCL, one gains insight into what British cultural critic Raymond Williams identified as the ‘selective tradition.’ The ‘selective tradition’ refers to the ongoing, multi-generational process of sorting to which the artefacts of every society, or field of endeavour, are subject. In response to the critical preoccupations of each generation, the selection of valued artefacts is narrowed or modified. Certain formerly neglected or rejected items may be ‘recovered’ as a result of shifts in critical thinking, while those that survive the cut may do so only because they possess the necessary flexibility for reinterpretation.31 Without doubt, the NCL of the Ross-McClelland years represented a clear selection of Canadian literary titles; however, from the moment the first four volumes appeared, this collection of books was subject to further, and much more restrictive, selection on the part of the academy, as well as the general reading public, the two audiences toward which the series was directed. The archival-based study of the NCL that follows has been divided into two parts. Part One, ‘The Historical Narrative,’ recounts in three chapters the chronological development of the NCL, placing emphasis on circumstances and decisions that influenced the overall direction of the series, as well as its ongoing reception by book reviewers and literary critics. Part Two, ‘Editorial Practices and the Selective Tradition,’ devotes its first two chapters to the general selection process and the editorial treatment of titles at the volume level. A third chapter manipulates documentary and statistical data specific to the NCL, exploiting the finite number of volumes of the series format to explore some of the particularities of Canadian literary canon formation during the 1960s and 1970s. The chapter closes with a narrative of the circumstances leading up to, and culminating in, the Calgary Conference on the Canadian Novel of 1978, the event that marked the formal end of the first phase of the history of the New Canadian Library. Several appendices and a selected bibliography have

Introduction 17

been included in this book as an aid to future researchers, whose scholarly and critical preoccupations with the NCL of the RossMcClelland era may prove quite different from the ones that have animated me as a book historian.

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Part One The Historical Narrative

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1 Malcolm Ross, Jack McClelland, and the Launch of the NCL

By the early 1950s, neither the notion of a Canadian reprint series nor the pocket-book paperback represented new ideas. Malcolm Ross’s innovation resided in bringing the two concepts together, and then successfully selling his idea to Jack McClelland, the publisher whose legendary reputation for taking risks on Canadian authors and their manuscripts was then still in its formative stages. When first presented with the university professor’s proposal, McClelland’s reaction was the same as that of John Gray at Macmillan of Canada: ‘We’d lose our shirts!’ The five years that stretched between Ross broaching his idea with McClelland and the appearance of the first four New Canadian Library titles testify to the caution with which McClelland and Stewart entered the venture. The NCL had immediate antecedents in two short-lived hardback series of Canadian reprints that had appeared on the English-language market earlier in the century. The first of these was the Radisson Society’s Master-Works of Canadian Authors, a deluxe series that between 1925 and 1927 managed to produce only four of its projected twenty-five volumes. Graphic Publishers of Ottawa launched the more modestly bound Canada Series in 1931, but similarly issued only three of more than fifty planned reprints before the company folded in 1932. Knowledge of these earlier failures may well have discouraged Gray’s interest in taking on a Canadian literary reprint series; however, by the time Ross approached him, it is probable that Macmillan was committed to another series venture. In 1953, Macmillan launched Pioneer Books, a hardback series of Canadian titles of historical

22

The Historical Narrative

interest. Although Macmillan would sporadically issue volumes in this series until 1964, the earliest of them sold so poorly that Gray was left vastly discouraged.1 Indeed, the dismal sales of the early Pioneer titles may have countered any initial regrets he harboured about rejecting the Canadian literary reprint venture Ross had proposed. By contrast, on the other side of Canada’s linguistic divide, the Montreal publisher Fides was doing very well in the domestic French-language market with Collection du Nénuphar, a series of French-Canadian reprints it had published since 1944 in a large paperbound format. Fides went on to initiate a second reprint series in 1956, Classiques canadiens, which it targeted at a student market; volumes in this series appeared in pocket-book size and contained extracts from a broad range of FrenchCanadian literature.2 Classiques canadiens thus anticipated important features of the NCL in English Canada. The wariness that Canada’s English-language publishers felt at mid-century toward undertaking a Canadian literary reprint series was not shared by other individuals and groups active in the nurture or preservation of the country’s book culture. Disturbed by the number of Canadian titles that were out of print, in 1945 journalist Wilfrid Eggleston challenged Canadian publishers to produce ‘a series of Canadian classics at a price not over a dollar.’3 When the Reprint Society of Canada was established in Montreal in 1947, it looked like Eggleston’s wish had been granted; however, Canadian titles would represent only a small portion of the forty-odd works the organization reprinted in hardback editions over the next five years. Two further calls-to-arms came in the mid-1950s, by which time preparatory work on the NCL was already under way. The first emerged as a resolution of the delegates at the 1955 Canadian Writers’ Conference, who averred ‘that to establish a continuing literary tradition in Canada significant works by Canadians must be kept in print and if necessary republished in inexpensive editions for use both by students and by general readers.’4 The Ontario Library Association passed a similar resolution two years later, and went a step further by arranging a debate between Jack McClelland and Robert McDougall, an English professor from Carleton University, on the merits of reprinting. McDougall took up a position in favour, McClelland against. In his presentation, McClelland challenged the notion that a significant interest in out-of-print Canadian titles did indeed

Malcolm Ross, Jack McClelland, and the Launch of the NCL 23

exist. To support his position, he cited the poor sales figures of several older M&S titles still in print, each of them books for which a demand had been alleged to exist; he also noted the low prices commanded by out-of-print Canadian books in the antiquarian market.5 McClelland’s public address served secondarily as a platform to chastise librarians for purchasing habits that undermined Canadian publishing and, by extension, the cause of Canadian authorship. He took particular issue with what was known in the trade as ‘buying around,’ the practice of ordering books from British or American wholesalers despite the fact that a Canadian publisher had made legal arrangements to serve as the agent for those titles within Canada. McClelland’s was no small criticism. In the 1950s, agency arrangements, along with textbook publishing for primary and secondary schools, still provided the financial foundations on which original Canadian trade book publishing rested. That is, profits generated through agency arrangements and textbook publishing (activities that were far from mutually exclusive) provided Canadian book publishers with profits that could then be invested in original works by Canadian authors writing for a general readership. Few original Canadian trade titles garnered much profit for their publishers since the domestic market was small, while international sales remained the exception rather than the rule. The founding of the Canada Council (CC) in 1957 eased the situation only slightly for publishers, since during its first fifteen years the institution placed more emphasis on improving the material conditions of authors rather than those of publishers. Until the early 1970s, when the CC and the Ontario Arts Council (OAC) initiated their block grant programs, Ontario’s trade book publishers typically received government funding only episodically through title-specific project grants. In the mid1950s, when McClelland and Ross commenced serious planning of the NCL, neither the CC nor the OAC yet existed, the general market for Canadian literary reprints was small, and, most challenging of all, only a minority of Canada’s universities offered even a single course dedicated exclusively to Canadian literature. I In 1952, the year he first put his idea to Jack McClelland, Malcolm Ross was not an obvious champion of a Canadian literary reprint

24

The Historical Narrative

series in paperback. His education at the post-secondary level had excluded any consideration of Canadian literature. However, experiences outside his formal training as a scholar and critic had by then encouraged him to take up its cause. His commitment to the study of Canadian literature, and the promotion of its writers, as well as to other forms of Canadian cultural expression, would remain an integral part of his life and work from the 1950s onward. By 1981, poet and English professor Douglas LePan readily identified Ross as one of ‘a long and distinguished line of Canadian university professors who have shown sympathy and appreciation for Canadian literature and who have given wise encouragement to contemporary Canadian writers ... Indeed, in my opinion there is no Canadian academic of our time who has done more to foster interest in Canadian literature and to encourage Canadian writing.’6 Born in Fredericton, New Brunswick, on 2 January 1911, Ross attended primary and secondary school in the city and then studied at the University of New Brunswick (UNB), where he completed a bachelor’s degree in 1933 with a double major in English and philosophy. Under the tutelage of UNB professor Malcolm McPherson, whose lectures in English literature he found compelling, Ross read Herbert Grierson’s Cross-Currents in English Literature of the XVIIth Century (1929), a work he later described as a revelation since it made him begin to see ‘literature as an expression of the whole culture.’ Grierson’s book provided ‘a study of the culture of the seventeenth century which related the writing to the political events of the time, the attitudes of the whole society, the changes going on in the world.’7 At the University of Toronto, where he obtained a master’s degree in English in 1934, Ross focused on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century literature, submitting a thesis on Shakespeare. An important influence at Toronto was A.S.P. Woodhouse, whose history-of-ideas approach to literary studies Ross found to be in sympathy with his own emergent beliefs about the relationship between literature and the larger political and social milieux in which it takes shape.8 Ross later recalled that he never slighted the aesthetic side of literature; he simply did not view literature as something that transpired in isolation of other forces.9 When Ross completed his doctorate at Cornell in 1941, he emerged from graduate school as a specialist of seventeenth-century English literature. Two early

Malcolm Ross, Jack McClelland, and the Launch of the NCL 25

books, the first of them based on his doctoral dissertation, reflected this specialization: Milton’s Royalism: A Study in the Conflict of Symbol and Idea in the Poems (1943) and Poetry and Dogma: The Transfiguration of Eucharistic Symbols in Seventeenth Century English Poetry (1954). While still in primary school, Ross had received some minor exposure to Canadian poetry. However, independent, youthful reading of Maritime writers like Bliss Carman, Charles G.D. Roberts, and Theodore Goodridge Roberts outstripped what he was required to study.10 Carman was the subject of two of Ross’s earliest contributions to Canadian literary studies: ‘A Symbolic Approach to Carman’ (1932) and ‘Carman by the Sea’(1947).11 Forty years later, Ross delivered a revealing lecture on the same poet entitled ‘Bliss Carman and the Poetry of Mystery: A Defense of the Personal Fallacy.’ In it, he expressed gratitude that he first encountered Carman’s poems ‘without benefit of criticism, biography, literary history or any prejudice other than the assurance [from my grade four teacher] that Carman was as good as Longfellow and the knowledge that he was from Fredericton.’12 Ross revealed that his affection for Carman’s poetry was later challenged as a student at the University of Toronto, where he learned of the ‘repudiation of the romantic tradition by the young modernists of Montreal,’ by whom he meant poets Leo Kennedy, F.R. Scott, and A.J.M. Smith.13 A.G. Bailey, a fellow graduate student and New Brunswicker, who would go on to become a poet and historian, convinced Ross that an appreciation of one kind of poetry did not necessitate the denial or denunciation of another. ‘It was from him,’ Ross recalled, ‘... that I came to realize that a change in fashion is not necessarily a change in value, that it is possible to enter very different cultural moments on their own terms without deserting either the present or the future for the past.’14 That realization later influenced his editorial practice toward the NCL. Matthew Arnold’s stricture against the ‘personal fallacy,’ a critical principle that in the 1930s undermined appreciation of Carman’s work, as well as that of many other Canadian writers, represented a further early challenge for Ross. The impact of Arnold’s assertion on Ross’s critical thinking, and the degree to which he struggled with it, are manifest in the strength with which he repudiated Arnold’s viewpoint so late in his career. In ‘The

26

The Historical Narrative

Study of Poetry,’ Arnold warned: ‘Our personal affinities, likings and circumstances have great power to sway our estimate of this or that poet’s work and to make us attach more importance to it as poetry than in itself it really possesses, because to us it is, or has been, of high importance.’15 ‘I am ... increasingly suspicious of what we may call “the impersonal fallacy,”’ Ross countered in 1984 as a seasoned critic and scholar, ‘ – the objective, clinical, antiseptic estimate of a poem, judicial but not always judicious, made by suppressing all the nerve-ends of personal sensibility, by unfleshing our sympathies, and uprooting us from the soil of our own experience and affections.’16 As an advocate of Canadian literature and Canadian literary studies, Ross chose to embrace the likings and circumstances Arnold warned against, convinced that they could serve as sources of critical and cultural insight. Ross’s commitment to Canadian literary and cultural studies was one that developed significantly over the course of the 1940s, due in no small part to his activities during the Second World War. In 1941 he was teaching at Indiana University but was ambivalent about accepting a permanent position there, especially in light of Canada’s involvement in the war. While wrestling with this dilemma, Ross read, and became excited about, a recent work penned by Donald Creighton, a Canadian historian with a fine narrative style. Creighton’s Commercial Empire of the St. Lawrence, 1760–1850 (1937), Ross later recalled, provided him, for the first time, with a genuine ‘sense of being Canadian’ and convinced him that his country had a history. Ross was particularly engaged by Creighton’s book because the historian interpreted Canada’s past as a clash among the British, French, and American peoples, one which, through an intermeshing of these three elements, gave rise to a unique culture.17 Thus encouraged to return to Canada, Ross applied to various branches of the Canadian Armed Forces, only to be turned down because of high blood pressure. It was John Grierson, commissioner of the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), who provided Ross with a way to join the war effort. From 1942 to 1945, Ross journeyed back and forth across the country as a member of the distribution arm of the NFB during one of the most nationalistic periods of the agency’s history; by war’s end, he was director of the national unit for distribution of documentaries.18 Ross’s travels for the film board brought him into contact with people

Malcolm Ross, Jack McClelland, and the Launch of the NCL 27

from a diversity of ethnic backgrounds, an experience that encouraged him to forget about the ‘little Anglo-Saxon world’ in which he had been raised, and to formulate opinions about the multicultural nature of the country.19 Insights wrought by his NFB years were reinforced between 1945 and 1949, when he taught at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg and encountered there ‘people from every corner of Europe ... and some parts of Asia.’20 The experiences and insights of his years at the NFB and the University of Manitoba informed Ross’s work in Canadian cultural studies in the 1950s, the decade during which his ideas about the country and its creative potential crystallized. Through the 1950s, he compiled the anthology Our Sense of Identity (1954), published an article entitled ‘American Pressures and Canadian Individuality’ (1957), and edited The Arts in Canada: A Stock-Taking at MidCentury (1958). His introduction to Our Sense of Identity placed historical weight on ‘the two nations’ in the formation of national character, citing the dual French and English presence as a circumstance that created a ‘dynamic and fruitful tension,’ and identifying irony ‘as the key to our identity’ because it was the ‘inescapable response to the presence and pressures of opposites in tension.’21 The ethnic diversity that succeeded this original FrenchEnglish duality, argued Ross, allowed a shift from ‘the dual irony to the multiple irony, from the expansive open thrust of the French-English tension to the many-coloured but miraculously coherent, if restless, pattern of the authentically Canadian nationhood.’22 In ‘American Pressures and Canadian Individuality,’ Ross revisited the idea of a French-English dialectic metamorphosizing into a ‘growing sense of the multi-dimensional structure of our national life,’ and characterized that circumstance as an influential force in Canadian fiction over the preceding decade.23 Ross’s faith in an emergent multicultural Canadian identity was also evident in his introduction to The Arts in Canada, a text in which he predicted a future synthesis of national and international influences on Canadian artists and their work. ‘[I]n all the arts,’ he wrote, ‘we seem to be engaged, simultaneously, in the twin acts of discovery and assimilation.’ ‘[A]ssimilation is just as necessary to our advance as discovery,’ he asserted. ‘Like other peoples everywhere we must advance over our own cobblestones ... The personal vision takes charge of the “international idiom.”

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The Historical Narrative

There is no reason at all why the spectrum should shrink to grey, why, in the end, our varied culture should turn flat and single. We are learning a new idiom. We shall come to talk it with our own accent, our several accents.’24 Ross thus made his contribution to the ‘native versus cosmopolitan’ debate that prevailed among Canada’s literary critics at mid-century. Northrop Frye, too, had taken up the issue in the essay on poetry he penned for The Arts in Canada. Ross viewed the pressures exerted by native and cosmopolitan forces in a much more positive light than did Frye, who characterized the Canadian poet as one ‘torn between the centrifugal impulse to ignore his environment and compete on equal terms with his British and American contemporaries, and a centripetal impulse to give an imaginative voice to his surroundings.’25 From the position of hindsight, one can view both Frye’s and Ross’s commentaries as expressive of the tension at play within liberal humanist nationalism. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Ross’s general editorship of the NCL would be underpinned by the ideas about Canada and its creative life that he formulated in the 1950s. In public lectures given in the late 1970s and early 1980s, he would revisit some of this early thinking, and on occasion openly challenge more pessimistic assessments of the country’s cultural heritage and prospects that had subsequently been articulated by Frye.26 For Ross, the 1950s was also a decade in which he gained a great deal of practical experience that would aid him in his long tenure as general editor of the NCL. In addition to his work on Our Sense of Identity and The Arts in Canada, from 1953 to 1956 he held the editorship of the Queen’s Quarterly, and also played a key role in organizing the Canadian Writers’ Conference at the university in 1955.27 His work as editor of the university quarterly accustomed Ross to the rhythm of serial publication, to the process of soliciting contributions, and to the benefits of networking. Indeed, in his effort to increase creative writing within the journal’s pages, Ross reached out to the contemporary Canadian literary community. He published early work by his former student Margaret Laurence, as well as other emerging writers such as Sheila Watson. Interaction with such writers further affirmed him in his belief that the works of Canadian authors should be part of the university curriculum. The will to teach Canadian literature existed. The trick, in Ross’s view, was to establish the way.28

Malcolm Ross, Jack McClelland, and the Launch of the NCL 29

II When Malcolm Ross approached Jack McClelland in 1952 with the idea of a Canadian literary reprint series in paperback, McClelland was still relatively new to book publishing. McClelland and Stewart, the firm which bore his family name, had been founded in 1906 by his father, John McClelland, and Frederick Goodchild; in 1913, these two men were joined by a third partner, George Stewart. When Goodchild left the partnership in 1918, the firm adopted the name under which it remains known to the present day. Until mid-century agency business represented a central component of M&S’s operations. However, like fellow Toronto-based houses Ryerson Press and Macmillan of Canada, M&S pursued its agency activities in conjunction with publishing original Canadian trade titles. Though the firm’s volume of original titles ebbed and flowed with the financial fortunes of the business and the economics of the Canadian book trade, John McClelland remained adamant throughout his long career that it was M&S’s ‘duty to publish Canadian authors.’29 Jack McClelland shared his father’s conviction and, once he took over the family business, made it the firm’s raison d’être. Born on 30 July 1922, John Gordon (Jack) McClelland joined McClelland and Stewart in November 1946, not long after he had returned home from a wartime stint in the navy, where he earned the rank of lieutenant-commander. His father set him to learning the ‘ropes [of the business] from the bottom up,’ a training period that led him to pass through the warehouse, accounting, and publicity departments before he settled into management.30 In 1948 the younger McClelland was appointed a director. In the fall of 1952, he became general manager and executive vicepresident. His status was raised to president in 1958, but he had effectively taken over the direction of the company from the time of his 1952 appointment.31 From the earliest days of his publishing career, McClelland was determined ‘to concentrate on Canadian books.’ Like other of the cultural elite of his generation, at mid-century he believed that Canadian literature was still ‘in its infancy and although there had been some very good Canadian books published, this was not widely appreciated by the general public.’32 A focus on

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The Historical Narrative

Canadian authors and their books seemed even wiser to McClelland after 1948, the year M&S abruptly lost its agency arrangement with Doubleday, the American firm whose publications generated almost half of the Canadian publisher’s business.33 Disturbed by the experience, McClelland resolved that the family firm should become less dependent on foreign houses.34 M&S continued to engage in agency publishing through the late 1940s and early 1950s; however, these years witnessed a substantial reorientation of M&S’s focus ‘from the distribution of foreign editions to original Canadian publishing.’35 In 1956, McClelland dissolved his firm’s agency arrangement with the British firm of Dent, and thus paved the way for the creation of the company’s educational department, an action that had previously been prohibited by the contractual agreement M&S had with the foreign publisher.36 M&S was subsequently in a position to originate works for both the educational and trade markets. McClelland’s reputation as a dedicated publisher of Canadian authors grew steadily through the 1950s and 1960s. In his estimation, his ‘main innovation’ at M&S was ‘a real search for Canadian authors. Up until that time in Canadian publishing,’ he explained, ‘authors wrote their books and then had to try to find a publisher. I actively sought out Canadian writers.’37 Contemporary evidence supports his contention. ‘Jack McClelland has made himself a fresh, even revolutionary influence on Canadian publishing,’ wrote one journalist in 1963. ‘He mingles socially with librarians, newspaper reporters, television workers, anyone who might give him a lead on a writer or an idea for a new book.’38 By the early 1960s, McClelland’s approach to publishing had caused Ted Browne of Longmans Canada to christen him ‘the Canadian publisher,’39 a sobriquet that survives to the present day as part of the company’s corporate identity. During his journey from ‘boy publisher’ to the ‘old bastard’ of the Canadian trade, McClelland gained notoriety for his colourful promotional stunts, which included dressing in a toga and taking to the streets of Toronto in a snowstorm to promote Sylvia Fraser’s The Emperor’s Virgin (1980).40 McClelland’s surviving articles, interviews, and public addresses reveal his beliefs about the role of a publisher. He felt the function of the publisher was ‘to serve as a middleman between the creative author and the reader. As books are the generally

Malcolm Ross, Jack McClelland, and the Launch of the NCL 31

accepted means for the diffusion or dissemination of knowledge in permanent form,’ he explained in 1954, ‘the publisher is to a great extent responsible for the recording and preserving of our cultural heritage.’41 ‘[T]he best of publishing is highly personal,’ he told an interviewer seventeen years later, ‘because of the personal commitment of the publisher, the relationship between publisher and author.’42 Toward the close of his years with M&S, McClelland further clarified his ideas about the relationship between publisher and author. ‘If you’re honest as a publisher the first thing you have to realize is that publishing is a function but writing is an art. I’m aware of very few successful books that were inspired by a publisher ...The author is the only important person; I’ve fired people who forgot that. This has been my policy; it’s one of the reasons that authors have been my friends.’43 McClelland was asked in 1954 why he, and a few other Canadian publishers, chose to issue original titles despite the difficulties of the Canadian market. ‘One [of the reasons],’ McClelland responded, ‘is that some publishers have a deep and sincere interest in the development of a distinctive Canadian literature.’44 In bestowing upon McClelland an honorary doctorate from Trent University in 1985, Robert Chambers stated that McClelland had contributed much to that objective. Chambers identified the increase in professional authors, an enlarged reading public, and committed publishers as the three crucial ingredients that ‘led to the flowering of our national literature, especially in the years since the Second World War.’ McClelland in particular he described ‘as a bold and innovative pioneer in the production of important Canadian books’; then added: ‘Indeed, it is impossible to imagine the Canadian literary landscape without the distinctive contribution of McClelland and Stewart. My own support library for teaching modern Canadian literature ... is about two-thirds stocked with titles from McClelland and Stewart, most notably the central series of literary reprints known as the New Canadian Library. Without them, I could not go about my work of introducing students to our literary heritage.’45 III In the mid-1950s, Jack McClelland had no inkling that, some thirty years later, the series he was planning with Malcolm Ross

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The Historical Narrative

1.1 Jack McClelland featured with the first four New Canadian Library titles. This photograph appeared in the March 1958 issue of Canadian Business in conjunction with an article entitled ‘He’s Taking a Chance,’ which highlighted McClelland and the launch of the series.

would be described as ‘the central series of [Canadian] literary reprints’ (see illus. 1.1, above). Quite the contrary. Doubt about the financial viability of the venture assailed McClelland even as he entered into it. Ross’s campaign to gain McClelland’s support began unobtrusively. McClelland was a former student of Ross’s, and it was the publisher who inadvertently set the stage for the professor when he wrote late in 1952 to congratulate Ross on a recent article. Ross responded with a note of thanks, and scrawled a provocative postscript across the top of his missive: ‘Do you have any plans for college or school texts? What about a series of low-priced papercover Canadian classics? Would do wonders for the teaching of Canadian literature.’46 In a subsequent letter, presumably in answer to a query from McClelland, Ross provided enrolment

Malcolm Ross, Jack McClelland, and the Launch of the NCL 33

figures for a number of English courses at Queen’s University, where the professor was on faculty. Conversations with colleagues from other institutions, Ross further revealed, had left him with the impression that ‘more use would be made of Canadian titles once they became available at low cost,’ an outcome he felt would also hold true for secondary schools. Off-the-cuff, Ross proposed that works by Susanna Moodie, Frederick Philip Grove, Morley Callaghan, Hugh MacLennan, Thomas Raddall, W.O. Mitchell, and Stephen Leacock might make good series titles; he also suggested an original anthology of poetry by Charles G.D. Roberts, Bliss Carman, Archibald Lampman, and Duncan Campbell Scott. ‘[T]his project has to be done by someone,’ the professor asserted in closing.47 Ross and McClelland appear to have met during 1953, but serious action did not begin until spring 1954. The first step was to assess the market. Jim Totton, a salesman in the educational division at M&S, concurred with Ross’s suggestion that the series could be marketed both to post-secondary and secondary institutions, as well as to the general public.48 Of the three, Totton deemed the post-secondary market the most significant; he firmly believed that success would be contingent upon university-level course adoptions. Totton was therefore disappointed to discover that, in 1954, most university-level coverage of Canadian literature occurred in the context of combined courses in American and Canadian literature, with Canadian works representing the much smaller component of course content. In addition, most of these courses were taught beyond the first year, in classes with enrolments ranging from 50 to 100 students, rather than in large, firstyear courses.49 Despite this disappointing information, as well as other financial concerns about mounting a quality paperback series for the Canadian market, McClelland tentatively told Ross that summer that the series might proceed under two conditions: first, if Ross was still willing (he was); and, second, if the titles that were chosen ‘were feasible from the cost point of view.’50 These comments notwithstanding, it was January 1955 when M&S finally made a firm commitment to the series. ‘After a good deal of further discussion here and after a long struggle with costs we are finally able to turn on the green light and say that we are prepared to go ahead with the project as planned, sink or swim,’ McClelland wrote to Ross late that month. ‘The one great

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difficulty is that there doesn’t seem to be a hell of a lot of money in it for anybody ... It will mean damned little remuneration for you in relation to the effort involved. In view of this you may want to chuck the whole thing.’ McClelland then went on to reveal ‘the grim facts’ of the series’s financing. ‘We will have to price the books at $1.00 – possibly 95¢ but probably $1.00,’ a figure that placed the cost of each volume at the high end of the 65-to-95– cent range American publisher Doubleday had established for its Anchor quality paperbacks. ‘Out of this sum we are able to allocate only 7¢ for royalty,’ McClelland further explained. ‘In the case of certain books the split between editor and author will not be important but in other cases it will assume considerable importance. We suggest 4¢ a copy to you as the editor and 3¢ a copy to the author as being an equitable split and about par for the course. We would like to limit our advance [on royalties] to $100 in each case; i.e. $100 to you, $100 to the author.’51 It eventuated that when Ross, who would be formally confirmed as general editor of the series in 1957,52 turned to others to write introductions for titles in the series, M&S paid out additional funds to these individuals, as well. Introducers typically received one-time payments of $100, an amount that was calculated as an additional advance against Ross’s royalties. That is, Ross began to receive further remuneration on NCL titles with outside introducers only after $200 of his royalty entitlement, rather than $100, had been covered by sales. McClelland initially projected fall 1955 for the release of the first two NCL titles. To select these books, McClelland and his staff reviewed suggestions made earlier by Ross, who had included speculative lists in letters dated December 1952 and April 1954, and submitted a more formal list in October 1954.53 The publisher settled on an initial issue of Frederick Philip Grove’s Over Prairie Trails and Sinclair Ross’s As for Me and My House, but replaced Sinclair Ross’s novel with Morley Callaghan’s Such Is My Beloved after Malcolm Ross suggested that it might be better to balance Grove with an eastern writer.54 For both McClelland and Ross, personal reasons favoured this first pairing. Over Prairie Trails was a childhood favourite of McClelland’s;55 Ross, in turn, was particularly concerned that a book by Callaghan be reprinted because he felt the author ‘hadn’t been given a fair break’ in Canada. Callaghan was ‘much better known outside, praised more

Malcolm Ross, Jack McClelland, and the Launch of the NCL 35

outside [the country] than in,’ he later recalled. Of all Callaghan’s works, Ross was particularly keen to reprint Such Is My Beloved: he remembered the novel being ‘completely slaughtered’ in Canada at the time of its original publication in 1934; during the professor’s graduate school days, it had been banished to the bowels of the library at the University of Toronto, where it could be accessed only by faculty or graduate students armed with a note from a professor.56 Delays plagued the launch of the series. Determined to get the whole venture off to a good start, McClelland abandoned the autumn 1955 date when it became clear that it would be too late to garner course adoptions for the fall term.57 The second projected launch date of January or February 1956 was discarded, in turn, when advance orders from regular booksellers, many of whom did not like the selected titles, stalled at 300 copies per volume. McClelland then speculated with the idea of confining the release of the first two titles to the educational market in spring 1957 and saving the launch to the general trade for the fall, by which time an additional two volumes could be prepared: the firm’s trade department had by then convinced the publisher that a launch to the general trade market with anything less than four titles was doomed to failure.58 Subsequent exchanges between M&S and Ross resulted in Stephen Leacock’s Literary Lapses and Sinclair Ross’s As for Me and My House being designated the third and fourth titles.59 McClelland then decided that it would be best, after all, to launch all four titles simultaneously to both the educational and trade markets. Mid-October 1957 was projected, only to be abandoned when an error in engraving the covers resulted in a delay at Hazell Watson and Viney, the printer in England. When it became apparent that the first four titles would not arrive in Canada until December, McClelland pushed back the launch date one final time to 17 January 1958.60 IV Naming and dressing the new series, as well as planning how best to promote it, took up much imaginative energy at McClelland and Stewart during 1957. Numerous names were bandied about, among them ‘Canada’s Century Series,’ before the ‘New Canadian Library’ prevailed. ‘I’m inclined to think it’s the best series

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title that we’ve had so far,’ McClelland told Ross in April 1957. ‘In some ways it is misleading but, on the other hand, the New American Library is misleading to the same degree in that their books are reprints. It makes the point that these books are Canadian without involving us in beavers or maple leaves, or other such blatant symbols. There is also the angle that we hope these books will appear to immigrants as an opportunity to bone up on Canadian literature and in that sense the title seems appropriate.’61 Ross’s response was succinct, and rather lukewarm: ‘The series title seems o.k. – if “new Canadian” doesn’t suggest immigrant literature and/or very recent literature.’62 McClelland’s decision to adopt a series title that so closely paralleled the name of the American paperback house New American Library (NAL) may have been much more deliberate than he let on: within the year, the Canadian publisher revealed an interest in expanding the NCL enterprise into a much larger paperback initiative, one that might encompass several lines aimed at different markets, just as NAL had done with its mass-market Signet Books versus its more selectively marketed Mentor Books.63 Designing the covers for the NCL bedevilled M&S. ‘We have rejected God knows how many different designs and are still not satisfied,’ McClelland revealed to Ross in August 1957. ‘We feel that it is essential that we have something really good[,] for these books will depend, to a considerable extent, on point-of-sale advertising of the jacket.’64 McClelland meant that the covers had to be sufficiently compelling to encourage spontaneous purchasing. In all forms of paperback publishing at mid-century, the margin of profit was so small that publishers could rarely afford to spend much on advertising. Consequently, the covers of paperbacks became an even more important form of point-of-sale advertising than prevailed in relation to hardback trade titles. In the case of the first four NCL titles, each of which was produced in print runs of 5,000 copies, M&S had calculated a gross margin of 16 cents per book, from which it then had to deduct all its selling and overhead costs.65 A print run of 5,000 copies represented a quarter of the volume at which Doubleday produced its quality paperbacks in the mid-1950s, 66 yet M&S aligned the NCL’s retail cost closely to the high-end of American quality-paperback pricing in order to ensure the series would be perceived as competitive. If the initial printings of the first four NCL titles sold

Malcolm Ross, Jack McClelland, and the Launch of the NCL 37

out, M&S anticipated clearing approximately $100 per volume. 67 A cover exhibiting ‘a good deal of white space’ and a simple and uncluttered ‘logotype symbol’ won out in the end. One of Toronto’s leading book designers, the Czechoslovakian-born Frank Newfeld, who had come to Canada from England in 1954, was responsible for the design. While developing the NCL covers, Newfeld kept three objectives in view. First, he strove for an easily recognizable format that would also be ‘distinctly Canadian.’ Second, he wished to emphasize the authors, since the series was an attempt ‘to reintroduce works by good Canadian writers to the Canadian public.’ Third, he concerned himself with ‘visibility in the book store,’ to which end he adopted the ‘maximum use of white’ to achieve visible emphasis. The ‘torn strip’ motif that appeared on both the front and back covers was ‘intended to convey somehow both the rugged orderliness of the country and its unexplored possibilities.’ Finally, for ‘emphasis on the importance of the author,’ Newfeld adapted drawings from photographs. He decided to make Leacock’s and Grove’s portraits ‘more strictly representational than those of Callaghan because of their type of writing.’ In the case of Callaghan’s Such Is My Beloved, ‘the power and tragic force’ of the novel encouraged the designer toward ‘a more abstract style of picture,’ as well as a ‘strong but irregular hand[d]rawn title.’ Special treatment of colour, which he chose to employ ‘more incidentally ... for emotional effect,’ also featured in Newfeld’s design. The colours used for Leacock’s Literary Lapses were ‘softer and more gentle’ than what he applied to Grove’s Over Prairie Trails. On the cover of Grove’s work, colours were opposed in order to ‘convey at once the sweep of the prairie and the brooding strength of the country.’ Finally, the bright harshness of the colours used for Sinclair Ross’s As for Me and My House were meant to ‘convey the strength of contrast’ between the harsh ‘prairie landscape – scorched by the sun, an[d] the harsh repressed emotions which at last burst forth in the protagonists of the novel’ (see illus. 1.2, p. 38).68 Once the series had been named and dressed, McClelland turned his attention to the fanfare that would accompany the NCL’s launch, and wrote his staff a lengthy memo on the issue. Review copies were to be central to the promotional effort. McClelland envisioned sending packages, comprising copies of the first four volumes and an explanatory letter, to a wide range

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1.2 The first four volumes in the New Canadian Library in the original cover design by Frank Newfeld. Although a publication year of 1957 appears on the copyright page of these books, the series was launched 17 January 1958. Difficulties with the engravings for the covers delayed the initial shipment of books from their British printer, Hazell Watson and Viney Ltd. Of these first four volumes, Over Prairie Trails was a personal favourite of McClelland’s. In turn, Ross championed the reprint of Such Is My Beloved, a novel he felt had not received the reception it deserved at the time of its original publication in 1934.

Malcolm Ross, Jack McClelland, and the Launch of the NCL 39

of media. College bookstore managers, selected English professors, and key personnel in trade bookstores were all to receive complimentary copies. McClelland also favoured a point-of-sale poster, and hoped for as much television and radio coverage as possible. He volunteered himself for media appearances and suggested that Malcolm Ross could also be called upon for such activities. McClelland speculated that certain features of the series could be manipulated as promotional angles. He encouraged his staff to use the fact that the firm was undertaking the venture despite it being ‘pretty damn uncommercial,’ and then enumerated several explanations that could be presented in promotional materials: [W]e are doing it because for years we have listened to the complaints of teachers and readers generally that there are no good Canadian books available in inexpensive editions. We have always said that the reason that inexpensive editions of Canadian classics or semi-classics are not available is that there is not a sufficient market for them. This experiment should answer that question. Another reason we are publishing them is that we feel they should be available for students and for people interested in Canadian writers. This is, after all, our business. We are supposed to be promoters of Canadian reading and Canadian culture and so we do this sort of thing.

McClelland identified the choice of titles as another promotional angle that might be played. Questions could be posed, such as ‘What are Canadian classics?’ or ‘Are these four books Canadian classics?’ Speculation about future titles could also be encouraged. Finally, in the event that the firm received enquiries about the $1.00 price tag attached to the NCL volumes in comparison to the twenty-five or thirty-five cents at which many paperbacks sold, McClelland advised his staff to explain the difference between mass-market paperbacks produced in large print runs for short-term exposure on the newsstand, and quality paperbacks produced in much smaller volume for bookstore sale and with permanent availability in view. ‘On the whole,’ the publisher concluded, I think the publication of this series is performing a service to the

40

The Historical Narrative people of Canada although our advance sale is discouraging. It reflects the inertia of the retail trade rather than the public acceptance of the series. I have found a great deal of interest in the series at all levels. Basically it is a campaign to promote the reading of good Canadian books, to make Canadians aware of their cultural heritage, and to offer these books not only to the few that can afford expensive books. I hope newspaper editors, radio and TV producers, magazine editors, etc. will agree with us. I don’t care whether the reactions are favourable or critical, as long as we get the publicity.69

In the press releases subsequently drafted by M&S staff, one characterized the series as ‘inexpensive editions of Canadian books of enduring merit many of which have too long been out of print’; another described it as ‘the first series of Canadian classics in paper covers to be released in this country,’ a venture designed ‘to make available inexpensive editions of Canadian books of permanent value to all who are interested in our literature.’70 V Press releases went out to big-circulation magazines, Englishlanguage radio and television stations, university newspapers, and school magazines, as well as to the trade journals Quill & Quire and Canadian Author & Bookman (see illus. 1.3, p. 41).71 The promotional blitz included distribution of more than three hundred advance review copies of each title. Local booksellers liked the look of the books and responded by doubling their orders. CBC Radio’s Robert Weaver obligingly lined up television and radio spots for Ross in Toronto.72 On 4 January, prominent Globe and Mail book reviewer William Arthur Deacon, who was well known for his advocacy of Canadian writing, gave the series an early plug. ‘One great lack has been a cheap reprint series to extend the life and range of Canadian books that met with special favour on publication,’ Deacon wrote. ‘I am happy to announce that McClelland and Stewart is correcting this situation with a series of paperbound $1 books under the editorship of Malcolm Ross of Queen’s [University] ... I predict a good sale for these; and the number of excellent Canadian books now out of print suggests a series that will ultimately extend to a considerable length.’73

Malcolm Ross, Jack McClelland, and the Launch of the NCL 41

1.3 McClelland and Stewart formally announced the New Canadian Library to the book trade in the November–December 1957 issue of Quill & Quire, the industry journal that serves publishers, booksellers, and librarians throughout English Canada.

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After the NCL’s official launch on 17 January 1958, many more reviews and announcements appeared. Most were favourable. ‘bravo for McClelland and Stewart!’ exclaimed a newspaper reviewer in Winnipeg, who asserted the series was ‘filling a longstanding need.’74 ‘I wish I could tell you why we are proceeding with this series,’ McClelland was quoted in the Canadian edition of Time Magazine. ‘Paperback publishing is a gamble at ridiculous odds. We may lose our shirts, but we hope we can stir an interest in Canadian writing that will eventually pay off.’75 In early February, Wilfrid Eggleston offered a long and detailed review of the first four titles on CBC Radio’s Critically Speaking. ‘Anybody with four dollars to spend and an appetite for native reading matter couldn’t lay it out to better advantage than by going out and picking up the entire New Canadian Library to date,’ the journalist told his listeners. In closing the review, Eggleston reiterated comments he had made in the 1940s, when he first argued in favour of a Canadian reprint series. ‘It is too soon to guess whether the New Canadian Library ... will grow until it can take something of the same place in Canadian letters as the Everyman Library and other collections have done in English letters,’ he stated. In time one could buy American classics almost as cheaply, but the Canadian student who wished to learn something of his own native letters found nothing available, nothing within his purse ... What we should be working towards – and the New Canadian Library is one more laudable move – is a state of affairs in which the standard works of Canadian literature, both English and French, should be readily available in well-edited form, and at a price within the reach of the masses, especially the younger Canadians. I doubt whether any one publisher in Canada could undertake such a venture. There would be copy right difficulties as well as economic obstacles ... Away back in 1930 Graphic Publishers of Ottawa ... began a venture of this kind ... They had issued only two titles [sic] when the firm went bankrupt ... Perhaps a syndicate of publishers could revive this project and expand it to meet the needs of 1958.76

McClelland later told Ross he found Eggleston’s ‘reference to Graphic Publishers ... a bit unhappy,’ and then added: ‘I hope it isn’t prophetic.’77 Private responses engendered by the launch were uniformly

Malcolm Ross, Jack McClelland, and the Launch of the NCL 43

positive. Robert McDougall declared the initial titles ‘just excellent.’ ‘I think the cover designs are most attractive, their binding seems good, so also the paper and typography,’ he detailed, ‘all in all a miracle of value for $1.00, and if they don’t take on well with the public, it’s no fault of yours and the public be damned.’78 Claude Bissell, a Canadian literary critic who at the time was serving as president of both Carleton and University of Toronto, similarly decreed that the books had been ‘chosen with sensitivity and intelligence,’ and ‘warmly congratulated’ the firm on its ‘initiative and foresight.’79 Despite such accolades, McClelland maintained a reserved view of the NCL’s long-term prospects. In the wake of the launch, the publisher was caught between planning an exciting future for the series and shoring himself up against the possibility of failure. ‘We have rather extensive plans for the series, which would eventually include poetry anthologies, collections of essays, short stories, literary criticisms, etc., as well as works of fiction and nonfiction,’ McClelland wrote one correspondent in February. ‘But all these plans are predicated on the forlorn hope that we have a reading public in Canada who wants books such as these. I don’t really believe that such an audience exists in this country,’ the publisher explained, ‘and there is every indication at the present time that my estimate will prove to be correct. Despite an almost unprecedented amount of free publicity and promotion we have received for these books over the past few weeks, ... we have thus far received orders for less than a total of 1500 copies of each of the four titles ...What I really need is not suggestions for further titles in the series but the name of a good psychoanalyst.’ 80 Jack McClelland’s need for a good psychoanalyst notwithstanding, the publication of the first four NCL titles on 17 January 1958 represented a significant accomplishment. After five years spent pondering the series’ potential markets, pricing, initial titles, and physical presentation, the NCL was finally launched. The response from journalists, book reviewers, librarians, and academics proved highly favourable, with many of them identifying the series as the answer to a much-felt need of getting past Canadian literature back into print. Although early sales figures signalled a need for caution, the critical reception of the first four titles encouraged Ross and McClelland to proceed.

2 Establishing a Canadian Literary Reprint Series, 1958–1967

When Malcolm Ross and Jack McClelland began discussing title possibilities again in January 1958, the long-term future of the New Canadian Library was still a matter of conjecture. However, preparatory work for the series had left McClelland sufficiently intrigued about paperback publishing that he had begun to wonder about its general potential for a Canadian publisher. Through the initial years of the NCL’s existence, McClelland seriously contemplated the idea of a multifaceted paperback program whose corporate identity would be New Canadian Library. This concept eventually splintered into a number of separate M&S paperback initiatives, an outcome that allowed the NCL to retain its original identity as a reprint series devoted strictly to Canadian literature. Sales of NCL volumes were initially slow but picked up steam as the series advanced through its first decade. By 1967, Ross’s early prophesy was being realized; a more substantial market for the books was indeed emerging in response to their availability. The NCL simultaneously encouraged and benefited from a steady increase in post-secondary courses in Canadian literature: between 1958 and 1967 the number of Anglo-Canadian universities offering a dedicated half or full course in Canadian literature rose from just over 25 per cent to approximately 60 per cent. This increase was buttressed in real terms by enlarged university enrolment and the creation of new universities.1 The success the NCL achieved by 1967 was not without challenge. Throughout its first decade, concerns about financing the venture persisted, a circumstance that made an impact on the

Establishing a Canadian Literary Reprint Series

45

number of titles issued in each group, the regularity of NCL publication, and the specific books selected for reprinting. Even as the series gained a firmer foothold through the mid-1960s, McClelland and Ross could not relax. By then other Canadian publishers began to emulate the M&S initiative by issuing paperback reprints of their backlist titles. This action created direct competition for the NCL in the market and impinged on the firm’s ability to gain paperback reprint rights to titles originated by other publishers. Finally, the reception of the titles that did appear in the series varied. While book reviewers and literary critics remained largely positive about the NCL venture as a whole, their opinions diverged over the qualitative merits of specific titles. Running as a subtext through many of their reviews was the critical tension inherent in the liberal humanist nationalism that influenced their approach to Canadian literary works. I Malcolm Ross and Jack McClelland’s first meeting to discuss future NCL titles occurred contemporaneously with the launch of the series in January 1958. The publisher arrived at the meeting committed to issuing at least four further volumes, but he made it clear that any title selections beyond that should be understood as tentative.2 McClelland’s position changed in June: by then each of the first four books had achieved respectable sales. Stephen Leacock’s Literary Lapses, however, was outselling the other three considerably. Because the series was far from out of the financial woods, McClelland proposed in August that a Leacock title be included in the third NCL group ‘for sales purposes.’ Literary Lapses’s initial print run of 5,000 copies had ‘all but sold out,’ and its first reprint was on order. ‘It is perhaps not entirely consistent with our aims to include more than one Leacock title so early,’ McClelland conceded, ‘but we must be practical.’ Ross agreed to the publisher’s request, and they thus set a precedent of using Leacock titles as a financial aid to the series.3 Leacock’s books continued to be used in this fashion for more than a decade; thirteen of the sixteen groups of titles issued in the series between 1958 and 1971 contained a work by the author. The second group of NCL titles, which contained four books and appeared in late November 1958, did not elicit much media

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The Historical Narrative

attention, despite review copies having been sent out packaged in a net Christmas stocking.4 After the third batch appeared in April 1960, reviews picked up again. Most reviewers remained solidly in favour of the venture as a whole. Robert Weaver, producer of CBC Radio’s literary program Anthology and a founding editor of the little magazine Tamarack Review, even highlighted the series in Canadian Reader, the newsletter of the Readers’ Club of Canada. The club, on whose selection committee Weaver served, had chosen five NCL titles to offer to its membership.5 When they assessed individual titles included in the third group, reviewers were almost uniformly horrified by the appearance of Habitant Poems, an original anthology of W.H. Drummond’s poetry compiled by Arthur L. Phelps, a well-known cultural critic who since the 1920s had successfully pursued a dual career in the academy and broadcast journalism. McClelland had advocated a Drummond anthology as a financial support for the series, convinced it would achieve a popular trade sale. The publisher realized that Drummond’s work might not be considered ‘up to scratch’ from a literary perspective,6 but the vehemence with which Habitant Poems was attacked probably came as a surprise. For Desmond Pacey, Drummond’s poems had ‘all the false bonhomie, the fake sentiment, and treacly pathos of the American local color school to which, surely, they belong.’7 ‘A generation which sees Drummond as a subject mainly for parody is not likely to be convinced – at this late date – that he was a good poet,’ wrote Robert Fulford, book and arts critic at the Toronto Star; worse, Fulford suggested that Drummond’s poems were offensive in their representation of French Canadians.8 In marked contrast, a reviewer for the Vancouver Sun considered Drummond’s poetry not only ‘historically important to Canadian literature’ but also ‘good and enjoyable.’9 One of the most significant reviews received by the NCL during its first decade appeared in Canadian Literature in 1960, authored by Canadian man of letters George Woodcock, who had been invited to serve as the scholarly journal’s founding editor. Woodcock asserted that with twelve NCL titles on the market, enough volumes were available ‘to justify at least a first estimate on the value of the series as it now appears.’ (More likely it was an effective way for the journal to catch up, given that Canadian Literature began publication in 1959, after the first two groups of NCL titles

Establishing a Canadian Literary Reprint Series

47

had already been released.) Woodcock stated that when the series began ‘there were plenty of reasons to watch the venture with much more than ordinary interest.’ In reviewing the NCL to the twelfth volume, however, he felt that he had ‘not yet been stimulated to enthusiasm. Indeed,’ he noted, he was ‘disappointed by the hesitant and conservative impression which the selection so far evokes. There are some good safe works on the list, but no good dangerous books, and one is conscious too often of being in the presence of the worthy second-best.’10 Through the first eight volumes, Woodcock had found ‘mild encouragement to one’s anticipations.’ The only disappointments were Morley Callaghan’s Such Is My Beloved and the Charles G.D. Roberts anthology The Last Barrier and Other Stories. Callaghan’s work he considered a ‘poor keeper’ with ‘flaws of feeling and psychology,’ while The Last Barrier had left him wondering ‘by what literary claims such ponderous overwriting might offset Roberts’ dubiously scientific view of the animal world.’11 In contrast, Frederick Philip Grove’s Over Prairie Trails, Stephen Leacock’s Literary Lapses, Sinclair Ross’s As for Me and My House, Gabrielle Roy’s The Tin Flute, Thomas C. Haliburton’s The Clockmaker, and Hugh MacLennan’s Barometer Rising represented ‘six reasonably sound selections.’ But Woodcock then tempered his praise by adding that ‘only Sinclair Ross’s novel shone with the indefinable luminosity of a real master-work and there was a striking lack of the fresh and experimental. But, one felt justified in hoping, after laying down its foundations of good safe works, the series might begin to build with more daring.’12 Instead, Woodcock found the third batch of titles more conservative than the previous two groups, as well as ‘considerably lower’ in literary quality. He deemed Stephen Leacock’s Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich worthy but did question the inclusion of a second work by the author so soon after the first. The Thomas H. Raddall anthology, At the Tide’s Turn and Other Stories, he found hard to justify, dismissing the stories as ‘written for people who like to take their history in pre-digested form, not for those who have a mature interest in fiction, and it is strange to find them in a series that purports to be ruled by literary rather than antiquarian values.’13 Like most other reviewers, Woodcock found no literary virtue in Drummond’s poetry, which he felt said ‘much about popular Canadian taste in those happily past days when the public

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The Historical Narrative

recitation of bad verse was a recognized form of entertainment.’ Moreover, he suggested the inclusion of Drummond raised ‘very sharply the question whether the literary historian in Dr. Malcolm Ross may have not triumphed over his critical alter ego in determining his selections for the New Canadian Library.’14 However, Woodcock did offer Ross measured praise for Poets of the Confederation, describing this original anthology compiled by the general editor as an ‘adequate and handy selection’ of the poetry of Charles G.D. Roberts, Bliss Carman, Archibald Lampman, and Duncan Campbell Scott. Woodcock concluded his review by questioning the absence from the series thus far of twentieth-century Canadian poets and better-quality literature produced by the country’s writers during the preceding thirty years.15 Woodcock’s review annoyed McClelland, who referred to it as an ‘ill-conceived piece’ in a letter he wrote to Ross in October 1960. ‘I am sure that neither you nor I would disagree with his thesis entirely, as far as the outstanding merit of that particular group of books is concerned,’ the publisher acknowledged. ‘But I can’t feel that his specific criticisms were justifiable or very sensible.’ McClelland was particularly irritated by Woodcock’s ‘bland suggestion that there are many more recent and more deserving Canadian books that are unavailable. I would be very interested to know what these are, as I’m sure you would ... Perhaps he means the rich man and who has seen the wind? ... and one or two others, but migod, what a statement for him to make?’16 Ross, who had not yet seen the review, responded: ‘It should be clear ... that we are mixing our fare, and for good reason. The range from books like [A.M. Klein’s] The Second Scroll through Ralph Connor to the [Thomas McCulloch] Stepsure Letters is pretty catholic, and the series should be judged in terms of its total range.’17 Ross, of course, had the benefit of information to which Woodcock was not privy: the general editor was aware of forthcoming titles. Whatever their irritation over Woodcock’s review, it is clear that general editor and publisher paid attention to the critic’s commentary. In its wake, Ross and McClelland agreed that in each group they needed to balance older titles with relatively contemporary ones, as well as achieve equilibrium between literary and commercial concerns.18 Woodcock’s criticisms also appear to have influenced the content of the press release that accompanied the fourth group of titles, which appeared in mid-November

Establishing a Canadian Literary Reprint Series

49

1960. In a quote credited to Ross, but which may have been drafted by someone at M&S, the press release asserted: When complete ... the New Canadian Library will offer a useful and interesting cross section of Canadian writing of all periods. Titles by well known authors will be balanced with important but neglected works, and while we believe that the Library has considerable value for school and university courses in Canadian literature, we are keeping foremost in our minds the interest of the general reader. It is difficult of course to achieve a perfect balance of material in each group of books published, but we are striving to achieve a comprehensive series which we trust will stay in print for a long time.19

General readers, of course, were not the NCL’s target audience of first priority, but titles with strong trade-market appeal, such as Leacock’s works (Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town appeared as part of the fourth group), had already proven invaluable in providing greater financial stability to the fledgling enterprise. In his next, and much briefer, NCL review, Woodcock condemned the inclusion of Gwethalyn Graham’s Earth and High Heaven and Ralph Connor’s The Man from Glengarry in the fourth group, ignoring M&S’s claim in its press release that both were of ‘significance and popularity.’20 Other reviewers, such as Dalhousie University English professor M.G. Parks, proved more willing to make concessions, and to recognize that M&S was primarily a general trade publisher, and by no means a scholarly press. Parks shared Woodcock’s poor opinion of The Man from Glengarry, describing it as ‘an intruder from below the salt, a “popular” novel with few pretensions to serious literary merit.’21 However, unlike Woodcock, Parks did feel that ‘there is probably a place for ... [an] unsophisticated regional novel [like The Man from Glengarry] in the series as long as a fitting balance is struck and the artistically weak is not allowed to crowd out the strong merely because it is easy “popular” reading.’22 Parks went so far as to argue that ‘the publishers are thinking in terms of catholic or, more accurately, diversified taste,’ and linked the inclusion of some popular titles to the financial stability of the series as a whole. ‘If inclusion of the mediocre will help to keep the series on its feet, if a Connor novel is the price one must pay for a Ringuet or Callaghan or Grove or Haliburton, why should one grumble?’ queried Parks.

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‘Presumably the publisher of such a series in Canada cannot afford to take many financial risks,’ he added, though he did hope that with ‘many of the obvious (or even hackneyed) choices already exhausted, we may now hope to see the less esoteric of the modern poets (perhaps Klein) given their due, suitably safeguarded, if need be, by books of more popular appeal.’23 Though he proved far less forgiving the following year when an NCL edition of Mazo de la Roche’s Delight appeared,24 the critic was correct to identify finances as a significant concern for the publisher. With the release of the fourth group of titles, M&S was forced to implement a price increase on lengthier NCL volumes. The Man from Glengarry, Earth and High Heaven, and Ringuet’s Thirty Acres were the first three books in the series to retail at $1.25.25 II During the first few years following the NCL’s launch, McClelland, Ross, and M&S staff intermittently discussed the possibility of a much larger paperback initiative. Indeed, the publisher even considered establishing a subsidiary to M&S under the name ‘New Canadian Library Company.’ Plans for a broader paperback program were drafted and revised, and by April 1959 an intention to expand the NCL initiative into other fields ‘as rapidly as possible’ was affirmed. Determined to keep ‘the plan as simple and flexible as possible,’ those involved finally settled on six categories of paperbacks: Classics; Literary Criticism and Anthologies; Plays; Art; General Paperbacks; and Social Sciences.26 Conflict over who should be responsible for selecting future literary titles, followed by McClelland’s recognition that there would be greater tax advantages to issuing his paperback lines under the M&S imprint, eventually led the publisher to abandon any idea of a separate subsidiary.27 What eventuated during the 1960s was a handful of independent M&S paperback series. The Classics category was designed to encompass the Canadian literary reprint titles already issued in the NCL, as well any further volumes of this nature; after 1961, this category simply became known as the ‘Main’ series of the NCL. The Literary Criticism and Anthologies category, which was conceived to contain original compilations of previously published literary materials, was designated the ‘Original’ series. Poets of the Confederation, issued in April

Establishing a Canadian Literary Reprint Series 51

1960, was the inaugural title in this paperback line. To distinguish these works from those produced in the NCL’s Main line, Original titles appeared with an ‘O’ prefacing their volume number. After 1961, the Original series officially became a sub-series of the NCL. Despite the clear conceptual division made in April 1959, many of the original compilations of short stories and essays subsequently prepared for the NCL were issued as volumes in the Main line. Of the remaining four paperback lines envisioned in 1959, only the Plays category never took shape in any form. The Art category briefly came to fruition as the Gallery of Canadian Art, but withered after five volumes, despite a project grant from the Canada Council. The General Paperbacks category, which eventuated as the Canadian Best-Seller Library, was more productive. Between 1964 and 1968, forty-six volumes were issued in this mass-market series, which contained reprints of popular titles from the M&S backlist. The venture was far from a success, however, and M&S abandoned this paperback initiative after it ran into difficulties over distribution and met with fierce competition for space in mass-market outlets.28 Of greatest interest is the fate of the Social Sciences category. It emerged as the Carleton Library, a quality paperback series that served the post-secondary market in the fields of Canadian history and the social sciences. The Carleton Library’s beginnings are worth exploring in a little detail since its inception brought about the first of three significant crises in Ross and McClelland’s working relationship. This particular crisis played an instrumental role in delimiting the NCL, once and for all, solely as a literary reprint series. Evidence of a potential post-secondary market for paperback reprints of Canadian materials in fields outside of literature was what first encouraged M&S’s consideration of social science titles.29 In May 1960, McClelland followed up internal discussions by approaching the Management Committee of the Institute for Canadian Studies at Carleton University. The publisher proposed to the institute ‘a series of Canadian books in the Humanities and Social Sciences that would be published under a joint imprint in paper covers in our New Canadian Library series.’ McClelland was inclined toward such a venture because ‘statistical projections of secondary and college growth over the period of the next

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decade indicate a greatly enlarged market and a more urgent need for such material.’ The institute, in McClelland’s opinion, could be responsible for identifying titles in history, economics, political science, sociology, geography, journalism, etc.30 While McClelland’s proposal made no explicit mention of literature, in a private letter to Ross that month he did state that the relationship between the existing NCL and the proposed initiative with Carleton would need to be clarified.31 Ross felt that McClelland’s proposal went far beyond what he had discussed with the firm: the professor had understood that the approach to the institute was to be no more than a request ‘to survey possibilities.’ He was disturbed by the idea of ‘Carleton “guiding” the expansion of the paper-back series into a general field for the Social Sciences and the Humanities’; instead, he felt that any involvement on Carleton’s part should be confined to history and the social sciences.32 Representatives at the institute, however, believed that any joint initiative with M&S would need to encompass the humanities, including literature. By mid-June 1960, it became clear to McClelland that keeping the two series entirely separate, as Ross wished, was the only viable solution to the conflict that had emerged. The publisher so advised Robert McDougall, who was then chair of the institute. McClelland emphasized to McDougall that M&S was ‘anything but dissatisfied with the programme that Malcolm has worked up in the English field. The series has been successful and,’ he noted, ‘our future programme in this particular category has been mapped ahead and is under control.’ The institute had been approached because ‘neither Malcolm nor we felt that he was in a position to do a systematic expansion into the other areas that we feel is so essential.’ McClelland acknowledged that keeping the two series separate was not the best resolution for M&S from the perspective of marketing; however, his only substantial concern was that the Canada Council would be less willing to support an application that did not cover the full disciplinary range of the institute’s interests.33 In replying, McDougall acknowledged the difficulty of the situation, but he affirmed: ‘Malcolm must be kept happy; that is the number one priority in any arrangement that is made. There never was, and is not now, any intention on our part of under-cutting him and the splendid work he has already done on the New Canadian Library series.’34

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When Ross wrote the publisher the following month with the suggestion that he complete his obligations as general editor with respect to the two years’ worth of books already planned, and then withdraw from the NCL and allow the institute to take over supervision of the series, McClelland responded adamantly: ‘when it becomes a matter of choosing between the proposed association with them and the existing association with you the answer is very clear,’ wrote the publisher. ‘The editorship of the New Canadian Library is yours as long as you will have it and if we can find no way of working out the Carleton arrangement without impinging on that relationship the Carleton project will be dropped.’35 Ross, McClelland, and a number of M&S personnel formalized this decision at a meeting in January 1961, recording unequivocally that in future the NCL would confine itself only to the two literary categories: the Main series, with its emphasis on reprinting existing titles, and the Original sub-series, with its focus on original compilations of literary and literary critical materials.36 Other than giving serious consideration to an annual of Canadian poetry, short fiction, and essays under the NCL name, they stuck by this decision until 1967, when plans for the Canadian Writers sub-series got under way. McClelland eventually worked out alternative arrangements with the institute. The Carleton Library, M&S’s parallel quality paperback series in history and the social sciences, was launched 25 May 1963. M&S issued over one hundred volumes in the series before selling this publishing property in the late 1970s.37 III Once McClelland and Ross settled the matter of the NCL’s autonomy from other M&S paperback initiatives in January 1961, publisher and general editor were free to forge ahead with plans for forthcoming titles. McClelland entered the new round of planning with some fear that they might be ‘dredging the bottom of the barrel,’ but a meeting with Ross and his staff, which generated a substantial list of potential works, left him confident that they could ‘be more or less assured of another good five years of publication at our present or even at an accelerated rate, if the sales continue to hold up.’38 The fifth and sixth batches of NCL titles appeared in May and

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October 1961, the two issues together comprising thirteen additional volumes. Among English professors, public and private support for the venture as a whole remained strong. In the literary journal The Fiddlehead, Desmond Pacey applauded the ‘flourishing’ state of the series and reported that Ross was ‘showing good sense in his choice of titles,’ though he did encourage the general editor to expand the NCL’s offerings to include more collections of short stories, recent poetry, plays, and criticism.39 After receiving copies of the fall 1961 titles, R.E. Watters, an English professor at the Royal Military College in Kingston, wrote McClelland privately that the books made ‘impressive additions to a series which gets more and more useful and distinguished.’40 Gordon Roper, at the University of Toronto, was similarly impressed with the direction of the series. ‘I boost the excellence of the New Canadian Library when and where ever I can,’ Roper told McClelland in November 1961. ‘With all the talk about Canadian literature in these past 100 years, your Library is the most practical, sensible, and delightful action.’41 Early the following year, Ross received a similar accolade from novelist and essayist Hugh MacLennan, who held a teaching post at McGill. ‘En passant, your series is turning out [to be] one of the most important things in Canadian publishing,’ wrote MacLennan. ‘I give a half-course on Canadian prose ... Until recently, it was almost impossible to handle it all because books were either unavailable, or there was only one dog eared copy in the library. These, with the introductions, are building a true body of relationship between critic and author and the public.’42 This commentary forms an interesting juxtaposition to the range of opinion about individual NCL titles that remained characteristic of reviews. Certain volumes issued in the two groups of 1961 elicited almost universal praise or disdain; others received a mixed reaction. For example, novelist and English professor Constance Beresford-Howe wrote in The Montrealer that Roger Lemelin’s The Town Below had been bold for its day; time, however, had left it with not ‘the slightest shock value, and its literary weaknesses loom larger than before.’43 By contrast, Margaret Laurence, the future Canadian literary icon who was then doing freelance writing in Vancouver, wrote in a newspaper review that Lemelin’s work was ‘a sprawling and savagely funny novel, grotesque and elusive, endlessly interesting.’44 Neither reviewer took

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much pleasure in Frances Brooke’s The History of Emily Montague. Laurence considered it the ‘lemon in the lot.’ ‘A certain historical interest clings to it,’ she conceded, ‘but in order to ferret out any local color ... the reader must plod through a correspondence so formal and long-winded that it could only be rivalled by the files of the Colonial office.’45 Beresford-Howe similarly viewed Brooke’s work as ‘a rather bloated novel made up entirely of letters in the manner of Burney’s own Evelina or Richardson’s Pamela, but without any of the action or dialogue which enliven those works.’ Its chief attraction, she felt, was to be found in the book’s ‘details of the 18th century Quebec’s social strata, landscape and climate.’46 Even reviewers writing for academic and literary journals felt that Brooke’s novel deserved reprinting primarily for its documentary qualities. Indeed, for M.L. Mackenzie, a professor at the University of British Columbia, the work’s status as the first North American novel was its major distinction: he described it as a ‘book for specialists, and chiefly for Canadian specialists, since the most significant aspect of The History is that the scene is Canadian. Here is authentic Canada in its early days, delineated by someone who was there and who knew.’47 In assessing The Town Below and The History of Emily Montague, as well as several other titles issued in the 1961 groups, academic reviewers proved divided over reprints of titles whose claims they perceived to be more historical than aesthetic. Ronald Bates and Donald Stephens both applauded the reprint of McCulloch’s The Stepsure Letters, viewing it as an important act of recovery that could have an impact on the future interpretation of Canada’s literary development.48 Millar MacLure, on the other hand, subsequently called the exhumation of ‘the lucubrations of that tedious old pharisee Thomas McCulloch ... from their decent grave in The Acadian Recorder’ as ‘a curious lapse in [editorial] judgment.’49 M.G. Parks and Marion Smith, in turn, were dubious about the choice of Frederick Philip Grove’s Master of the Mill. In Parks’s estimation, the work was ‘apt to strike a reader of 1962 as somewhat dated, of some value historically but as mediocre art.’50 Smith held similar misgivings about the durability of Martha Ostenso’s Wild Geese and Sara Jeannette Duncan’s The Imperialist, but was ambivalent about dismissing either title completely. On the one hand, she noted, Wild Geese represented ‘pretty strong meat’ for its original readers, but ‘subsequent developments,

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historical and fictional, ... robbed the book of much of its impact and made its weaknesses more apparent.’ On the other, ‘in spite of its awkward shifts of point of view, its imperfectly realized characters, and the excessively poetic justice of its denouement, Miss Ostenso’s first novel keeps the reader’s interest throughout.’51 Smith felt that time had been kinder to Duncan’s book, but that its passage would nonetheless make an impact on contemporary response to the novel. Duncan’s style she considered ‘sometimes succinct and vivid, sometimes easy, sometimes coy, sometimes derivative, sometimes clumsy, but never involved.’ ‘It is in capturing the great Canadian ambivalence of sentimental attachment to Britain and touchy defensiveness of national identity that The Imperialist is most successful,’ the reviewer stated.52 Smith was self-conscious about her ambivalent response to these three NCL titles. Indeed, she stated up front that the books under review brought ‘up once again all the hoary old questions about the nature and status of Canadian literature.’ ‘A lively awareness of literary tradition is an important element in a cultural climate favourable to the growth of a national literature,’ she reflected. She then added: Why, then, the widespread uneasiness about the multiplication of courses in Canadian Literature in our universities? about publications such as the New Canadian Library paperbacks? even about such periodicals as Canadian Literature? Is it all to be dismissed as a reflection of the national inferiority complex or of academic oldfogeyism? The problem is essentially one of critical attitudes. Is a book to be read, studied, written about for its literary qualities or for its Canadian-ness? Is it to be evaluated in terms of other works of its own time and type or of Canadian works of its own time and type? Of a given author, which is the more significant – a superior work which is not distinctively Canadian or an inferior one which is? Where is the line to be drawn by the critic who is striving to see literature steadily and see it whole?53

Smith’s words capture the central tension between liberal humanist and nationalist imperatives that were at play within the emergent field of Canadian literary studies. For professors and critics of English literature, the study of Canadian literature provoked

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questions about how one defined the concept of literature, by what rationale one determined literary merit, and to what degree national claims justified the serious study of literary works whose qualitative values seemed below par. The NCL provided a focal point for those anxieties because each title published simultaneously recovered a part of Canada’s literary past, yet made it available for critical scrutiny. The critical tension present in Canadian literary studies also found voice in reviews of Masks of Fiction, a multi-authored collection of Canadian literary critical essays compiled by A.J.M. Smith. Henry Kreisel, who was both an English professor and a novelist, felt the contents of Smith’s book exemplified the ‘awkward age’ of contemporary criticism of Canadian literature. On the one hand, critics now had a respectable body of Canadian writing on which to focus; on the other, that literature still was ‘not of sufficient magnitude to be able to bear the full weight of a critical analysis which employs all the techniques and instruments which critics have developed in the last thirty years or so in order to deal with writers of the very first rank and with masterpieces of the highest intensity.’54 In his review for the Canadian Forum, Paul West concurred that the collected essays were critically problematic but did not share Kreisel’s rationalization of those shortcomings. Instead, he asserted that the volume’s essays were too little focused on the art behind the works under examination. ‘[T]he essays in this anthology display for the most part no critical discrimination, as if to suggest that the texture of most Canadian novels is too boring to merit scrutiny. And aesthetic criticism becomes irrelevant effrontery: yet the Canadian novelist will never be secure until his workmanship is thoroughly probed by imaginative critics.’55 IV Internal anxieties regarding production costs, royalties, and overall investment arose soon after the release of the fall 1961 titles. ‘I want to be sure that you are aware that we are losing our shirts (& ties) on these long N.C.L. titles,’ stated M&S executive vicepresident and general manager Hugh Kane in a memo to McClelland. Kane referred specifically to The Mountain and the Valley, The History of Emily Montague, and The Town Below.56 McClelland was

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aware of this difficulty, as well as others, besetting the series. Lengthier titles and increased printing costs were cutting into the NCL’s slender margin, as were demands from outside publishers for higher royalties on reprint rights. In addition, with thirty titles already in print, the series represented a substantial investment for the publisher. ‘Our inventory at the end of this year will run very close to $30,000,’ McClelland explained in an unsent letter to Ross. ‘When there are only a few thousand dollars involved it doesn’t matter so much whether you make a full margin on the money or not, but when it’s [$]30,000 and it is increasing steadily, you either have to make a full margin or pack the whole thing up.’57 Not surprisingly, when Ross, McClelland, and M&S personnel met the following month, production costs figured in the discussion. Tackling the difficulty of lengthier titles, they determined that, in general, NCL titles should not exceed 256 pages, a quota they felt would allow them to ‘accommodate a normal 320page book.’58 It was a guideline only, one they recognized would need to be set aside on occasion; over the succeeding years, it was many times. In late March 1962, McClelland made a timing decision regarding NCL issues. ‘The fact of the matter is that we’re always a season behind,’ the publisher explained to Ross. ‘Instead of publishing in January or February and August or September we’re invariably publishing in June and November, and it just doesn’t make sense.’59 As a result, the seventh batch of titles appeared in September 1962, rather than spring 1962 as originally projected. In addition, although McClelland had planned to return to publishing two groups of titles in 1963, a slowdown in sales led to a policy change in February of that year: for the immediate future, NCL publication would be confined to one group a year. ‘Inherent in this decision,’ noted McClelland in a follow-up letter to Ross, ‘is the mutual understanding that we are going to make during 1963 a concentrated effort to increase the level of sales ... If we can find a way of improving the present sale and inventory situation,’ he explained, ‘we shall revert to the schedule of two groups of titles a year.’60 Despite McClelland’s hopes, reversion never occurred, and for the remainder of Ross’s tenure as general editor, only one group of titles appeared each year, although the size of these groups fluctuated. Concerns about sales still prevailed in the fall of 1963, while the

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firm’s investment in the series had increased. Of the forty-one titles published by that time, only twelve had been reprinted, a circumstance that would have undermined the firm’s ability to reach break-even point on the venture as a whole. By mid-year, even prior to the July release of the eighth group of titles, the value of inventory had risen to $32,000, while another $8,000 was tied up in unearned advances, a situation that created a higher ratio of ‘investment to sales’ than was advisable. The preceding fall and spring seasons had generated a total of $48,500 in sales.61 McClelland and Jim Totton, now M&S’s editor-in-chief, discussed the series’s financial woes privately in September. Totton suggested that, preparatory to a meeting with Ross and other M&S personnel, the two of them should examine the house’s general sales figures ‘to decide who are the best-selling authors and whether any of their other works should be included in the N.C.L. series. We might find,’ he added, ‘that each year we could include one or two best-selling authors.’62 ‘From our sales records,’ McClelland replied, ‘the sort of title that must be excluded [from the NCL] in future (or kept to an absolute minimum) is the (a) obscure titles – Stepsure, Montague, etc. (b) lesser-known contemp. authors – Kreisel etc.’ He also felt they needed to ‘consider adding more non fiction of a general nature that does not compete with [the] Carleton [Library].’63 When McClelland and Totton met with Ross and their M&S colleagues on 5 October, a preference for titles of ‘a reasonable length’ was reaffirmed; in addition, it was asserted that consideration should be given to the saleability of each proposed title.64 Soon after these internal reflections, Fred Cogswell published a review article in Edge on the development of the NCL through its first forty-one volumes. Cogswell was a poet and an English professor at the University of New Brunswick, as well as editor of the well-respected little magazine the Fiddlehead. Cogswell’s range of professional pursuits coloured his article. Unlike most reviewers, he included some commentary on the physical make-up of the volumes (skimpy margins, inconsistent typography, and unoriginal cover designs), but still placed most of his focus on title selections. Cogswell believed Canada’s greatest literary accomplishments had occurred in poetry and the short story. He therefore found it ‘disconcerting ... to find this achievement in no way reflected in the composition of the New Canadian Library.’

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While Poets of the Confederation was a ‘fine anthology,’ Cogswell recommended the publication of at least two more collections of English-Canadian poetry, and a third on modern FrenchCanadian poetry in translation. He also favoured the addition of anthologies devoted to Canadian drama and familiar essays. Even in relation to the novel, the genre on which the NCL had concentrated, Cogswell believed there had been ‘some astounding omissions.’ ‘A series in the Canadian novel without William Kirby’s The Golden Dog and Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano is like a collection of Shakespeare’s plays with King Lear and Hamlet left out,’ he declared. ‘A selection, moreover, which represents Frederick Philip Grove by such a novel as The Master of the Mill must be condemned as irresponsible if such other and better novels as Fruits of the Earth or A Search for America are available.’65 This review is of particular interest because it included the outcome of Cogswell’s ruminations on the ‘function of a paper-back series of reprints.’ He determined that series of this nature could ‘exist for one or more of three reasons: (a) to make money; (b) to acquire prestige for the editor and publisher by the selection of master-pieces; and (c) to provide students with useful reprints or historically important books which would not otherwise be available.’ Cogswell then applied his formula to the forty-one titles populating the NCL list, assigning the relevant letter(s) to each title and adding a fourth category, ‘x,’ to denote those titles he considered out-and-out mistakes. His grading scheme resulted in ‘a’ being applied to 18,66 ‘b’ to 20,67 ‘c’ to 11,68 and ‘x’ to 17.69 Twenty-five of these titles were designated with two letters. Among the ‘mistakes’ identified by Cogswell were novels by MacLennan and Callaghan, as well as Duncan’s The Imperialist. After making this evaluation, Cogswell offered measured praise for the series. ‘The relatively small number of titles selected for profit (17) [sic], the number useful to students (11), and of genuine excellence (20) indicate that the New Canadian Library is a worth-while venture undertaken from the best of motives,’ he stated. With an eye to publishing considerations, he added: ‘Its failure to correspond with an ideal map either of completeness or excellence in the printing of Canadiana is caused by a combination of copyright difficulties on the one hand and of the need to balance excellence and use with a reasonable degree of profit on the other.’ Like Wilfrid Eggleston, Cogswell believed what was

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really required was a joint initiative among all Canadian publishers. ‘Until the nebulous day when such a prospect is feasible,’ he concluded, ‘the best thing all those interested in Canadian literature can continue to do is to support and be grateful to Malcolm Ross and the New Canadian Library.’70 V Malcolm Ross and Jack McClelland soldiered on with the NCL, issuing five or six new titles in the series each year between 1964 and 1967. Although M&S continued to send out review copies – the 1966 titles went out wrapped in a measuring tape inscribed with ‘A Good Measure of Reading Pleasure’ – the annual appearance of NCL titles had ceased to provoke much public comment. Only the two Original poetry anthologies compiled by Milton Wilson, Poetry of Midcentury (1964) and Poets between the Wars (1967), sparked any notable media attention. The series had become an established part of English Canada’s literary and publishing landscape. Behind the scenes, however, Ross, McClelland, and M&S staff continued to wrestle over title selection within the constraints of Canadian trade and educational publishing. At a meeting in July 1964, they affirmed an intention to ‘try to include as many titles as possible that can be sold in colleges and schools,’ it being well established by then that, just as Totton had originally projected, the educational sector represented the series’s more significant market.71 The difficulty was that certain titles that would be a credit to the NCL list, and find a small, steady sale in the educational market, would still not be commercially viable for M&S. In consequence, Ross and McClelland briefly flirted with the idea of applying to the Canada Council to assist with the publication costs of financially marginal titles. Ross perceived such support as a means of aiding one of his objectives as general editor, that of giving ‘the series a proper balance, not only in the kind of writing but in the various historical phases in development of Canadian writing.’72 In McClelland’s view, however, it was not necessarily older works that could use the support. Mid-twentieth-century novels such as Henry Kreisel’s The Rich Man and John Marlyn’s Under the Ribs of Death had proved much less financially successful than Susanna Moodie’s mid-nineteenth-century work Roughing It

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in the Bush. In addition, the publisher was convinced that the additional collections of short stories, plays, and essays that Ross wished to include – an ambition encouraged by comments from reviewers such as Pacey and Cogswell – could be pursued without subsidy provided the books were ‘designed in such a way [that] they will meet the demand for academic use.’73 In 1965, Ross did submit a draft document to McClelland that listed titles the general editor considered candidates for subsidy. However, there is no evidence that McClelland pursued the matter any further, and he may not have felt a need to do so after he learned NCL sales increased in 1964 by more than 12,750 copies.74 Retaining and competing for paperback reprint rights was a major issue with which Ross and McClelland had to contend as they developed the NCL list through the mid-1960s. In September 1964, M&S unexpectedly received a letter from Gwethalyn Graham requesting a termination of her NCL agreement for Earth and High Heaven.75 At McClelland’s request, Ross took up the matter with the author, to whom he confessed her decision to withdraw the title had come as ‘a real blow.’ ‘The book is not only a great favourite of mine,’ Ross told Graham, ‘but is also an indispensable element in the balanced library of Canadian writing that I am trying to build.’76 Graham replied promptly and apologetically that she wished to withdraw her book for reasons of financial necessity; she had received a much better financial offer from an American paperback house. ‘[S]ince earth and high heaven was published four years ago in the New Canadian Library series,’ she explained, ‘it has earned a total of $103.00 in royalties. (It took me until last spring to work off the initial $100 advance.) Now Paperback Library of the U.S. wants to reissue it provided they can have Canadian rights, with an advance of $2500.00 – $1250.00 to my U.S. publishers and $1250.00 to me. Since I live entirely by writing, with television scripts paying the rent, I find myself in the disgusting position of not being able to have principles.’77 Thus informed, McClelland was able to rescue the situation by contracting with Graham for non-exclusive rights to the Canadian market. He did so by convincing Paperback Library that ‘no real competition would exist between their lowpriced newsstand edition and our much higher priced bookstore edition.’78

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The situation with the rights to Graham’s novel was minor in comparison to the competition emerging in the quality paperback field from fellow Canadian publishers. In 1963, University of Toronto Press had launched its Canadian University Paperbacks.79 Of much greater concern was the appearance in 1965 of Oxford in Canada Paperbacks and Clarke Irwin Canadian Paperbacks. Oxford planned to ‘make available the highlights of the Canadian Oxford list’ as well as new titles; included among its first group of paperbacks was a reprint of A.J.M. Smith’s Oxford Book of Canadian Verse, a work that commanded course adoptions.80 The Clarke Irwin series, in turn, aimed ‘to present a cross-section, in subject matter and literary quality, of the successful books which Clarke Irwin has published in recent years.’ The venture was initiated with ten titles, among them Anne Langton’s A Gentlewoman in Upper Canada and Robertson Davies’ Leaven of Malice.81 The latter title was one for which M&S had unsuccessfully sought rights for the NCL, but even direct appeals from Davies had not persuaded Clarke Irwin to grant them.82 Competition gained intensity in 1967 when Ryerson Paperbacks and Macmillan of Canada’s Laurentian Library joined the fray. Ryerson’s first issue included Desmond Pacey’s Ten Canadian Poets, while Laurentian Library entered the field in September with a full-page advertisement in Quill & Quire that proclaimed: ‘new: the best Canadian writers now in paperback’ (see illus. 2.1, p. 64).83 Among the six titles advertised were four books M&S had earlier attempted to acquire for the NCL: Ethel Wilson’s Hetty Dorval, Hugh MacLennan’s Two Solitudes, Colin McDougall’s Execution, and Morley Callaghan’s Stories. The Laurentian Library’s inception also brought about the NCL’s loss of MacLennan’s Each Man’s Son: Macmillan ended its agreement with M&S in order to regain Canadian paperback rights to the title for its own series. ‘As you know, we imagined over a period of ten years that we could get along without paperbacks,’ the Macmillan representative apologetically told Hugh Kane. ‘Not only have we changed our minds about this, but we are coming round to the view that presently most publishing houses will get along without clothbound books, or very nearly so.’84 By the end of Ross’s tenure as general editor in 1978, the Laurentian Library would contain at least thirteen titles for which M&S had been denied paperback reprint rights for the NCL.85

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2.1 Macmillan of Canada announced the launch of its Laurentian Library in the September 1967 issue of Quill & Quire. This quality paperback series represented the most important competitor to the NCL in the late 1960s and 1970s.

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VI By the end of its first decade, the New Canadian Library held an established place in both the trade and educational book markets in Canada. That position was achieved only after considerable investment on the part of the firm. M&S was encouraged to persevere despite a rocky financial start because, in educational circles, the series was quickly recognized as an invaluable aid in the teaching of Canadian literature; this venture, more than any other that had preceded it, had provided a practical and inexpensive means of directly engaging students with past literary works written by Canadians or about Canada. As Malcolm Ross had predicted in the early 1950s, one of the net results of the availability of these books was to encourage teaching in the field. By 1965, Queen’s University English professor John Matthews could confess to being a ‘heavy user’ of NCL titles, and readily made a direct link between the availability of NCL reprints and the development of courses that used them. ‘We now have pass, honours and graduate courses in the two areas of Canadian and Commonwealth literatures,’ he explained, ‘and the NCL provides the backbone for our text prescriptions.’86 Course adoptions for such classes contributed greatly to the annual sale of NCL titles, which rose from just under 50,000 copies in 1963 to more than 96,000 in 1967. Reviews engendered by the series reveal, however, that while reviewers and critics were largely supportive of the NCL venture, the worth of individual title selections was certainly subject to debate. Nor were some commentators satisfied with the apparent preference for novels over other forms of literary writing. Moreover, reviewers varied in their willingness to concede to the series’ inclusion of certain titles for commercial purposes, though several were quick to recognize that the presence of some moneymakers would help to keep the NCL afloat. In the context of these reviews, doubts about the quality of some of the series’ titles occasionally provoked more general commentary about Canadian literary studies; such reflections often exhibited a tension between nationalist and aesthetic imperatives characteristic of Canadian literary studies at mid-century. Canadian publishers, for their part, kept an attentive eye on M&S’s paperback activities. Whatever struggles M&S endured

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behind the scenes, the steady appearance of NCL issues year after year proved an inspirtation to other firms. Some five years into the initiative, M&S’s competitors began to venture into the Canadian quality paperback field in a serious way. Though imitation may be a form of flattery, this compliment came at a cost to the NCL; the entry of other Canadian publishers into the quality paperback realm generated competition in the marketplace, undermined M&S’s ability to acquire paperback reprint rights to titles held by fellow publishers, and eliminated one steady seller from the NCL backlist. As the NCL entered its second decade, the series held an established place in the Canadian quality paperback market, but M&S was far from complacent about its position.

3 Establishment and Its Discontents, 1968–1978

During its second decade, the New Canadian Library took shape in a dynamic cultural context as a new generation of writers, publishers, book reviewers, and literary critics began to make its contribution to the creation, nurture, dissemination, and study of Canadian literature. By 1967, the year of Canada’s centennial, Canadian literary studies had a firm foothold in the country’s universities. Over the next ten years, that position was consolidated. Between 1967 and 1974, the proportion of anglophone universities offering at least one undergraduate course dedicated to Canadian literature increased from about 60 per cent to 100 per cent.1 Venues in which to publish scholarly articles about Canadian literature also proliferated with the emergence of the Journal of Canadian Studies (est. 1966), the Journal of Canadian Fiction (est. 1972), Essays on Canadian Writing (est. 1974), Studies in Canadian Literature (est. 1976), and Canadian Poetry (est. 1977). Even so, some academics felt the field of Canadian literary studies remained handicapped by a marginal institutional status; this conviction was an important impetus in the founding in 1973 of the Association for Canadian and Quebec Literatures. T.H.B. Symons, recruited in 1972 by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada to survey post-secondary teaching of Canadian materials in all disciplines, leant weight to this belief. The Commission on Canadian Studies ‘does not intend to contribute to the debate over the relative literary merits of Canadian writing other than to suggest that academic evaluation might properly follow rather than precede thorough study,’ Symons acerbically asserted in his initial report of 1975.2 To Know

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Ourselves, as this report was called, provoked post-secondary institutions across Canada into a period of cross-disciplinary assessment and curricular revision; in the country’s English departments, it encouraged further entrenchment of Canadian literary studies. In 1976, Northrop Frye squashed any lingering doubts about the legitimacy of pursuing the topic. ‘Canadian literature is here, perhaps still a minor but certainly no longer a gleam in a paternal critic’s eye,’ he proclaimed in his conclusion to the second edition of the Literary History of Canada.3 Steady increase in curricular use of Canadian materials, alongside the significantly larger post-secondary enrolment of the 1960s and 1970s, contributed to changes in the structure of the Canadian book publishing industry over the course of these two decades. In the realm of Canadian literary studies, of course, classes in the field opened up an educational market for quality paperback editions of literary works by Canadian authors; after 1967, such courses also encouraged publication of complementary pedagogical materials, such as brief bio-critical studies of prominent writers. In turn, a portion of those students exposed to Canadian literature went on to become conscientious buyers and borrowers of Canadian-authored titles after graduation, thereby expanding the general trade market for work by Canadian authors and supporting the creation of review journals like Books in Canada (est. 1971). The growing enthusiasm for Canadian writing inside and outside the classroom encouraged the founding of many new Canadian-owned publishing houses, such as Coach House (est. 1965) and New Press (est. 1969). The House of Anansi (est. 1967), another new firm, struck gold in 1972 when it published Margaret Atwood’s best-seller Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature, a book designed ‘largely for the benefit of students and of those teachers in high schools, community colleges and universities who suddenly find themselves teaching a subject they have never studied.’4 Atwood’s assertion that survival was the ‘central symbol of Canada’ proved controversial, and Malcolm Ross was one of those critics who challenged her take on Canadian literature. ‘I fear that Miss Atwood has taken Northrop Frye’s suggestive but elusive notion of “the garrison mentality,” expanded it, and bent it into a stiff, metallic, cup-shaped and capricious formula which is then clamped down hard on the wriggling body of

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Canadian writing,’ Ross wrote in his review of Survival. ‘Much is contained within the down-swept cup. More – much more – is left mangled or headless or untouched without.’5 For American publishers, the tremendous expansion of Canada’s post-secondary enrolment after 1960 held great allure, as the vast majority of course materials required to serve those students did not need to be specifically Canadian in content. Numerous publications created for the American college market could therefore be sold in Canada without incurring any further developmental costs. American publishers had traditionally tapped all levels of Canada’s educational market through agency arrangements with Canadian firms, but the potential volume of business after 1960, as well as a trend toward conglomerates in the American industry, encouraged the cancellation of agency contracts in favour of more branch plants north of the border. Once established in Canada, these American subsidiaries became aware of the growing domestic trade market for Canadian works, and the international interest in Canadian writing that was beginning to emerge. Their response was to set up local publishing programs to tap those readerships as well.6 The loss of agency sales of American educational and trade titles represented a significant financial blow for many Canadian publishers, although revenues had already been suffering for some time due to the habit of ‘buying around,’ in which many booksellers, librarians, and institutions engaged.7 In 1968 the Canadian book publishing industry suffered another blow when the Ontario Ministry of Education, the body that regulated the largest primary and secondary school system in the country, cancelled its textbook stimulation grants, which had required Ontario school boards to spend a set amount on textbooks per pupil. School boards in the province subsequently made substantial cuts in their textbook spending; they were supported in this action by the shift toward neo-progressivism among educators, a pedagogical approach that discouraged heavy reliance on textbooks.8 Foreign-owned subsidiaries, backed as they were by their parent companies, were better positioned to weather this change in policy than were Canadian-owned houses, though the British subsidiary Macmillan of Canada certainly suffered under it.9 For two of the country’s venerable Canadian-owned educational publishers, W.J. Gage and Ryerson Press, the policy change, in combi-

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nation with pre-existing internal difficulties, proved catastrophic. Sales in late 1970 transferred both firms into American hands. The sale of Gage and Ryerson shocked Canada’s cultural sector and sparked a controversy that led to the creation of the Ontario Royal Commission on Book Publishing in December 1970. Canada’s economic independence and cultural sovereignty had been hot political topics during the 1960s, with interest in these subjects buttressed by the nationalism engendered by the Centennial celebrations. The sale of these two respected Canadian publishing houses to American interests provided an issue around which preoccupations about Canada’s economic and cultural welfare could coalesce. Since Canadian-owned publishers had traditionally been the dominant producers of educational materials about Canada, many believed the sale of Gage and Ryerson boded ill for the future availability of curricular materials reflective of the country. The sale of Ryerson was taken particularly hard since the company had also earned a reputation as a dedicated publisher of original Canadian trade titles. The commission was given a three-part mandate: to examine the state of the Canadian industry; to determine the function of publishing in educational and cultural terms; and to assess the economic, social, and cultural ramifications of substantial foreign ownership.10 The commission’s findings and recommendations led to federal and provincial aid in the form of block grants and loan guarantees for book publishers. More immediately, the commission intervened with the Ontario government to rescue McClelland and Stewart from financial crisis. Unlike Gage and Ryerson, however, it was primarily M&S’s trade program that was at the root of the firm’s difficulties. The 1960s had been a good decade for M&S in terms of consolidating its reputation as a publisher committed to originating Canadian books. In 1963 the company had divested itself of most of its remaining agency lines in order to focus on its program of original Canadian trade books. During the decade, the firm significantly increased the number of Canadian titles it issued each year, and overall sales on its books were strong. However, the rate of expansion was so great that the investment tied up in the inventory was not offset by sufficient profits. Debt accrued. By 1967, Jack McClelland had reached his borrowing limit. He sought outside investors, only to balk at the last minute when it became apparent how much control he would

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give up if he signed the deal he had brokered. Then in 1969 the publisher managed to borrow a further $850,000 by having his new loans backed by two outside companies. This infusion of cash did not resolve M&S’s financial crisis, however, and by early 1971 the firm was faced with about $3 million in overdue, or about to be due, loans. Much to the distress of a cultural community already upset by the losses of Gage and Ryerson, in mid-February McClelland placed M&S on the market, indicating as he did so that selling to foreign interests could not be ruled out.11 The royal commission, just two months into its mandate, hurriedly prepared an interim report for the Ontario government in which it argued that M&S represented ‘an accumulated creative momentum in original Canadian publishing which could not quickly be replaced by other Canadian publishing enterprises should its program terminate or be sharply curtailed.’ While the commissioners acknowledged that ‘the firm’s present difficulties must be explained by the very scope of the program it ... mounted,’ they nonetheless considered ‘that program ... a national asset worthy of all reasonable public encouragement and support.’12 Acting on the commissioners’ recommendation, the Ontario government offered M&S a low-interest, long-term loan of almost $1 million.13 McClelland accepted the loan and removed his firm from the market. In an interview given in the wake of these events, McClelland reflected at length on his publishing house, and the significance of reprints in a healthy publishing program. ‘A publishing house feeds on itself,’ he explained, ‘and if you can take a sufficiently long-range view you do eventually achieve economic stability.’ Pointing to the ‘steady upcurve in sales’ of the M&S backlist as a significant measure in tracking his firm’s progress over recent years, he emphasized that a publisher’s reprint program provides stability because such titles demanded no further outlay in terms of editorial or design costs.14 An internal report compiled around this time recorded an increase in the firm’s backlist sales from 42 per cent of total sales in 1963 to almost 60 per cent in 1970. 15 The New Canadian Library, of course, represented a significant element of that backlist. Throughout the financial turmoil that plagued M&S during the late 1960s and the 1970s, Malcolm Ross, Jack McClelland, and M&S staff went about the business of planning and producing the

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annual groups of NCL titles, and introduced a new sub-series under the editorship of Dave Godfrey. Early in its second decade, the NCL was re-dressed in covers bearing abstract designs; much to McClelland’s despair, readers found them unattractive, and told him so. In addition, by the beginning of the 1970s, the list of NCL titles already in print had grown sufficiently large that managing and marketing the property became a source of concern for its publisher. As the decade unfolded, the selection of new titles also became increasingly difficult. Outside publishers continued to refuse M&S rights to their books, thus inhibiting the choice of titles McClelland and Ross could make for the series. At the same time, financial and promotional preoccupations at M&S, as well as the firm’s prospective re-entry into the massmarket paperback field, caused a divergence of opinion over what constituted appropriate additions to the series. Ross ended up on one side of the divide; McClelland and his editorial director, Anna Porter, on the other. All these issues came to a head by 1977, and led McClelland to conclude that the firm should halt new additions to the series with the release of the 1978 titles, and bring Ross’s tenure as general editor to a close. I The New Canadian Library entered its second decade with plans already afoot for the Canadian Writers Series (CWS). This subseries to the NCL was envisioned as a collection of slender critical volumes about Canadian authors that would be of assistance to students in Canadian literature courses. Professor and writer Dave Godfrey, who was a co-founder of House of Anansi and New Press, first proposed the idea to Ross in 1967, and it was under Godfrey’s supervision that the first twelve CWS volumes appeared between 1969 and 1971. The CWS had immediate competitors in Forum House’s Canadian Writers and Their Works and Copp Clark’s Studies in Canadian Literature; like the CWS, both these series were launched in 1969 with three or four titles. Overlap between the three ventures was an obvious concern. Indeed, by the time Alec Lucas’s CWS volume Hugh MacLennan appeared in 1970, the writer had already been addressed by Peter Buitenhuis in the Forum House series. Editorial and production difficulties affecting CWS titles behind the scenes proved an even greater

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obstacle, prompting Godfrey to resign his editorship in 1972. Five further titles later appeared under Ross’s supervision.16 The monetary commitment M&S made to the CWS, as well as the firm’s financial struggles of the late 1960s and early 1970s, delayed the launch of another venture originally slated as an NCL sub-series. In 1968, Clara Thomas, a Canadian literature specialist at York University, had proposed a reprint series that would include older titles that did not readily fit into the categories of poetry or fiction. Her idea eventuated in 1975 as the Heritage Books Series, an M&S venture entirely separate from the NCL that began and ended with its first two books, Ralph Connor’s Postscript to Adventure and Emily F. Murphy’s Janey Canuck. By the time this series got off the ground, many of the titles Thomas had originally envisioned for inclusion had already been reprinted by several other publishers.17 With the release of the fifteenth group of titles in the NCL’s Main series in 1970, a new cover design by Don Fernby was adopted (see illus. 3.1, p. 74), and printing of the series was transferred to the Toronto firm of T.H. Best. The archives offers no rationale for the change in covers, but Ross recalled that the initial design had come to be perceived as old-fashioned.18 The new covers were printed in bold colours and sported abstract images. As earlier titles in the series came up for reprinting, they were redressed in the new covers. Even before all the old covers had been replaced, however, it became apparent that booksellers, consumers, instructors, and students found the new cover art decidedly unappealing. ‘On one hand you are trying to educate the public and encourage an appreciation of Canadian literature,’ one reader summed up the situation for Ross in 1977, ‘and at the same time this tasteless assembly of covers is being displayed.’19 McClelland balked at the kind of financial outlay another new cover design would represent but, as early as the mid-1970s, did seriously consider pursuing the matter in the face of negative feedback. However, a third cover design would not be adopted until 1981, when the series came out of the three-year hiatus that followed Ross’s retirement as general editor. II By the early 1970s, a significant concern for M&S was how best to

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3.1 Four NCL volumes in the second cover design by Don Fernby. The design, which utilized a series of abstract images on the front covers, was introduced in 1970, the same year that the Toronto firm T.H. Best began to print the volumes. Two of the authors whose works are featured here, Gabrielle Roy and Stephen Leacock, had numerous books reprinted in the series. Ross’s The Lamp at Noon and Other Stories, as well as The Poems of Bliss Carman, were both original collections compiled specifically for the NCL. Malcolm Ross invited John Robert Sorfleet to put together the Carman anthology after Sorfleet criticized the general editor’s inclusion of abridged versions of Carman poems in another NCL volume, Poets of the Confederation.

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manage the NCL, an important but increasingly unwieldy publishing asset. In 1971 annual net sales of NCL titles stood at approximately $275,000, which represented about 8 per cent of M&S’s total net sales for that year.20 Even so, an internal study undertaken in 1971 makes it clear that concern existed over how to market more effectively a series that had grown so large. ‘Excellent novels are being lost in the corporate mass of the series and not receiving the promotion they deserve,’ the report asserted. Its author went on to speculate that the series might fare better if it were broken down ‘into divisions that can more easily be promoted in the appropriate places.’ Potential divisions included early nineteenth-century fiction, early twentieth-century fiction, contemporary fiction, and French-Canadian literature in translation.21 The NCL was not formally restructured as a result of this report. However, the concept of divisions it proposed apparently influenced M&S’s special NCL promotion of 1972, the ‘Great Canadian 5–Packs.’ Each pack grouped together five NCL titles on a thematic basis, which were then sold together at a discount. The options included the Humour Pack, the History Pack, the Poetry Pack, the Fiction Pack, the French Canada Pack, and a Special Starter Pack.22 Customers also had the option of constructing their own 5–packs. The advertising material produced for the event included a trench-coated, cartoon character whispering the phrase, ‘Psst!...Wanna Read a Canadian Book?’ (see illus. 3.2, p. 76). The figure was pictured slyly holding open one side of his coat to display five NCL titles. John Richmond highlighted this cheerfully sinister figure, the promotion, and the series in the Montreal Star. Although Richmond described the M&S promotion as ‘a bold move in Canadian book peddling,’ one of his readers strongly disagreed.23 The reader reported that he had examined the 5–packs, and found them wanting. To him there seemed to be no thematic unity in the titles bundled together; moreover, by being packaged in such a manner, it was impossible to leaf through the individual volumes. ‘I commend the publishers for their attempt to push this particular series,’ stated the reader, ‘but I do not think this method of marketing is good, and I would be surprised if they were successful.’24 In fact, M&S achieved mixed results from the promotion: of the twenty-eight pre-1972 NCL titles featured, eighteen showed

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3.2 This shifty-eyed character was one of the playful features of McClelland and Stewart’s ‘Great Canadian 5-Pack’ promotion of 1972. Inspired by the marketing savvy of the brewing industry, M&S bundled together NCL volumes on a thematic basis and sold them at a discount.

an increase over 1971 in number of copies sold. Differentials for those volumes ranged from roughly 300 to 6,900 copies.25 An internal evaluation determined that the promotion ‘was successful even though it did not satisfy our somewhat optimistic expectations.’26 Doubtless a major objective was to reduce NCL inventory in order to recoup some of the firm’s investment in the series as well as to reduce storage costs. The seventeenth group of NCL titles, which appeared in February 1972, was included in the ‘Great Canadian 5–Packs’ promotion. The release of these seven new NCL titles, as well as the promotion, encouraged John Robert Sorfleet, a specialist in Canadian literature at the University of New Brunswick, to assess

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the series for the Journal of Canadian Fiction. ‘Now that the series has shown the artistic strength and economic viability of Canadian literature, and now that the New Canadian Library can stand on its financial feet,’ asserted Sorfleet, ‘it is time for a more hardnosed appraisal of what the NCL has done and is doing to the popular conception of our literary heritage.’27 In his opinion, two focal points were necessary when critiquing such a venture: the selection of titles and ‘how those works chosen for inclusion are treated.’28 His focus thus established, Sorfleet argued that pre1900 titles, which constituted 19 per cent of the eighty-nine noncritical works then in the series, were poorly represented; in his view, they had also been shabbily treated since a number of them were issued in abridged form.29 Sorfleet then proceeded to consider the latest releases. As individual selections, Sorfleet found more to praise than condemn in the choice of five prose titles: Brian Moore’s The Luck of Ginger Coffey, Rudy Wiebe’s Peace Shall Destroy Many, Robertson Davies’ A Voice from the Attic, Hubert Aquin’s Prochain Episode, and Thomas Raddall’s Roger Sudden. However, four of these five titles had originally been published in the 1960s and were still readily available in other inexpensive editions; this circumstance left him puzzled over why they had appeared together in the same NCL issue. ‘When there are so many earlier novels which are unavailable, and when so many of the nineteenth-century reprints are inaccurate and inadequate editions,’ Sorfleet stated, ‘it might justifiably be asked why these particular contemporary works were selected for publication over pre-1960 volumes. Though the NCL series is an undoubted credit to the country, the publisher, and editor Ross, let us hope that distortion of our literary heritage does not become the equivalent debit that must be entered to balance the books.’30 The following year, George Woodcock revisited the topic of the New Canadian Library in Canadian Literature. His evaluation of the series in 1973 was far more positive than the one he offered in 1960, and he made a point of situating the NCL in relation to the emergence of Canadian literary studies as a field of significant scholarly concern. In Woodcock’s estimation, ‘the right reprint series coincided with the movement of interest that made it a success.’ From time to time, he noted, a title appeared in the series of which he did not approve. ‘But the point by this stage is not that

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the New Canadian Library sometimes brings out books not to the taste of all its readers,’ Woodcock asserted; ‘it is rather that it has always kept enough superb titles moving through its list to allow us a rambling personal choice among the other more marginal books – those products of talent never taking the plunge into genius – which form so large a proportion of our literature and which make it seem at times so tense a gamble.’31 Woodcock had expressed doubt about Ross’s critical abilities in 1960; however, by 1973 he ascribed to Ross’s selection of titles a distinct strategy. ‘Looking back over the long list of titles,’ Woodcock stated, ‘one realizes how carefully Malcolm Ross has arranged his choices in such a way that an interest in contemporary Canadian books would lead to an interest in the more neglected classics of our literature, and vice versa.’32 In Woodcock’s estimation, ‘the series would not have been so successful ... if it were not for the nationalistic trends that have created a deeper interest in Canadiana of every kind and have encouraged the phenomenal proliferation of studies of Canadian books in universities and schools. Still,’ he concluded, ‘a touch of special insight was needed to anticipate a development of this kind; indeed, there is no doubt at all that the New Canadian Library contributed a great deal towards the very situation from which it benefitted.’33 III The editorial method with which Ross pursued the series was more fluid than Woodcock suggested, but certainly more concerned with achieving balance among the titles of each issue than Sorfleet was able to credit. Neither reviewer ascribed McClelland with any particular editorial influence, which was short-sighted, given the important place Canadian literature held on the publisher’s regular trade list. After Anna Porter became M&S’s editorial director in 1972, she too became a prominent figure in the planning of NCL groups. Through the early 1970s, McClelland pondered just how much more expansion the NCL could realistically achieve, given the number of titles already in the series and the difficulties they were having in acquiring reprint rights to works originated by outside publishers. Early in 1972, he wrote Ross that he ‘would prefer, as a matter of policy, to see us eliminate new titles entirely or at

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least cut down to a very few in three or four years and start to include titles that are really of substantially less merit.’ In the same letter, the publisher suggested Ross reassess ‘titles [originally] published say more than 10 years ago in which we are still interested to see what advance planning we can do as far as rights are concerned.’34 In January 1973, McClelland also urged Ross to consider some non-fiction reprints for the NCL, works like Farley Mowat’s People of the Deer, a book with qualitative merit that would in no way encroach on the territory claimed by the Carleton Library.35 By 1973 the problem of obtaining rights had grown even more complicated than in the late 1960s. Publishers with their own quality paperback series remained disinclined to grant M&S reprint rights for NCL editions. In addition, M&S was now having difficulty in competing for those reprint rights that were up for grabs. Regular paperback publishers were typically offering authors a royalty of 10 per cent for paperback reprint rights, a percentage much higher than that offered by M&S for an NCL edition. In 1973 the firm made itself more competitive by increasing its standard author royalty rate on NCL titles to 6 per cent on the first 10,000 copies and 8 per cent thereafter.36 Authors or their agents then had to weigh the income potential of greater volume of sales on a lower-priced mass-market edition versus the NCL offer of a lower royalty rate calculated on the higher selling price of a quality paperback. In 1973 the firm was also coping with general increases in the cost of manufacturing books. However, by then most new NCL titles were being produced on an adequate margin, the prevailing ratio of list price to cost of manufacture standing at about four to one.37 Sorting out pricing, royalties, and permissions was McClelland’s responsibility. In general, Ross concerned himself with these matters only to the extent that they impinged on his ability to obtain particular titles for the NCL. However, the general editor had become particularly worried in 1972 when he learned University of Toronto Press (UTP) was about to launch a new series, Literature of Canada: Poetry and Prose in Reprint. In particular, Ross had misgivings about UTP’s interest in older novels. He feared duplication of the same titles across the two series and was perturbed to learn that the introducers of these volumes were to earn $250 for their efforts, at a time when penning an NCL

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introduction still paid only $100.38 Douglas Lochhead, the editor of the UTP series, had in fact conceived the venture ‘to fill the gaps in NCL and to reprint titles which were not as well known as those undertaken by NCL.’ Twenty-one volumes were issued in this paperbound series over the next several years, but poor sales brought it to an early close before all the projected titles had appeared.39 Ross believed that an integral part of his role as general editor was to keep an attentive eye and ear out for comments and suggestions made by academic colleagues. While Ross’s interactions with McClelland and his staff through the early months of 1973 acknowledged the publisher’s concerns and proposals, they also indicated that the general editor had taken heed of Lochhead’s initiative as well as Sorfleet’s review. Ross had ‘no objection to including a non-fiction piece from time to time,’ as the publisher proposed. However, he insisted that the well of Canadian literary titles on which they could draw remained far from dry. There is ‘still a wealth of material (fiction, poetry) in the 19th and early 20th centuries to consider,’ Ross told McClelland, and asserted that the demand for new reprints was mounting with the ‘enormous increase in university enrolment in Canadian literature courses.’40 McClelland had mixed feelings about Ross’s ambition to include a broad range of older titles in the series. On the one hand, books sufficiently old to be out of copyright certainly held appeal: no rights would need to be negotiated, and such works offered some counterbalance to M&S’s increasing reliance on its own backlist in its hunt for new NCL titles. On the other hand, McClelland was wary about the quality of the titles Ross had in view. He worried about the general editor’s ‘apparent willingness ... to include books of moderate quality because of historical importance’ and feared that advocates of such titles were motivated more by nationalist than qualitative criteria. ‘I feel personally that the academics have allowed the pendulum to swing too far in their belated recognition of Canadian literature and are now inclined to claim books of no substance simply because they are old and they are Canadian,’ McClelland recorded in a memo.41 Once aware of the publisher’s misgivings, Ross hastened to clarify his support for older titles. ‘No one is more aware than I of the pitfalls of a mere nationalistic approach to selection for

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NCL,’ Ross assured the publisher. ‘The earlier titles I have suggested are meant to meet a legitimate academic need for period pieces of some significance for courses at the university level that aspire to a comprehensive survey of major trends, cultural attitudes and historical relevance in a developing tradition. No title has been suggested lightly and most have been proposed with a view to requests made by people trying to get adequate material for their teaching.’ Ross added that such demands had been nurtured by the NCL itself. When the series was in its early days, Canadian literature courses ‘were presented as broad surveys of the whole literature,’ he explained. Now, and partly as a result of the impetus created by NCL, much more specialized courses are being introduced. Nineteenth Century Fiction, Colonial and Nineteenth Century Poetry, The Regional Novel, etc., etc. Such courses do not pretend that all items are of equal literary merit. There is an eye to development[,] change, cultural influences as reflected in our writing at various stages. In other words, Canadian cultural history is emerging and the people teaching it have to go beyond the obvious books in each stage of our development. Actually, our inability to respond quickly enough to this very real academic need brought the University of Toronto series into being and Loc[h]head may be on the point of stealing from us a market which we had created.42

University calendars bear out Ross’s comment about the diversification in Canadian literature course offerings that began to occur in the early 1970s. IV By the end of their exchange over older titles, McClelland had a whole new plan afoot, one that would increase, rather than decrease, the annual issue of NCL volumes for the next several years. In March 1973 the publisher notified Ross that, in order to support the firm’s projected 3-for-2 paperback promotion of the upcoming year, it would be necessary to undertake a much higher than usual NCL issue for 1974. McClelland speculated the number might be as high as twenty-four, but in the end the firm issued nineteen books in its nineteenth NCL group of January 1974.43

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Among that batch were some venerable titles, such as Robert Lowell’s New Priest in Conception Bay, first published in 1858, and Charles G.D. Roberts’s Heart of the Ancient Wood, originally issued in 1900. A sales analysis done after the event determined that the new group had definitely benefited from the promotion; however, Laurence Ritchie, M&S’s executive vice-president and general manager, credited that increase in sales to the obligation the firm had ‘imposed on booksellers to purchase a minimum of 4 copies of each of the new NCL’s.’44 Only a handful of the nineteen titles sold over 2,000 copies by year’s end, with two books by Margaret Laurence, A Bird in the House and A Jest of God, outstripping all other titles by a wide margin. The promotion was designed, in part, to encourage a quicker sale of the first printings of NCL titles, and thereby aid the firm’s recovery of its initial investment. McClelland would be sufficiently encouraged by the 3-for-2 promotion of 1974 to plan another for 1975. However, he was not able to confirm that plan with Ross until mid-1974. Nonetheless, in the face of two queries from the general editor in the summer of 1973 about his intentions, in late September of that year McClelland did encourage Ross to work up a tentative list of a dozen titles for the 1975 group.45 The projected size of the issue was of considerable concern to Ross since he felt it might be necessary to adjust the content of the final list depending on its proportions. ‘In other words, if we do another big batch it would not be unseemly to repeat some writers we had included in 1974,’ he clarified. ‘But if we are down to 8 it would surely not do to have 2 Richlers, a Grove, a Laurence, a Ludwig or a Raddall – all of whom appear in 1974.’46 McClelland acknowledged Ross’s editorial misgivings about issuing in 1975 further books by authors whose work had appeared in 1974 if the group of titles that eventuated was relatively small. Nonetheless, when the next ten NCL titles appeared in January 1975, among them were Frederick Philip Grove’s Our Daily Bread and Gabrielle Roy’s Windflower, books by two authors who had also had titles in the 1974 group. McClelland had specific reasons for including works by Roy and Grove in the 1975 group. The 3-for-2 promotions targeted the trade rather than the educational market, and included some M&S paperbacks from outside the NCL list. Consequently, from the publisher’s point of view, it was preferable that there be some

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titles in the 1975 group that would appeal strongly to booksellers and the general public. After the results of 1974 promotion had been analysed, McClelland told Porter that ‘if any of the major Canadian authors can be included in [the 1975 group], that would be helpful and this much pressure we must put on Malcolm. By this,’ he explained, ‘I mean names like Gabrielle Roy, Callaghan, Laurence, etc.’47 Roy fit the bill admirably, as her works generally did well in the English trade market. Moreover, as M&S was her publisher in English Canada, there was no difficulty with rights. McClelland’s preference for Grove had quite a different motivation behind it. The publisher had acquired the rights to several of Frederick Philip Grove’s titles and had a contractual obligation to get those titles into print in a timely fashion. Hence, he advocated NCL publication of Our Daily Bread for 1975.48 This 1975 group also included two other older works Ross was keen to see reprinted for the benefit of scholars and students: Laura Salverson’s The Viking Heart and Ralph Connor’s Glengarry School Days. The greater priority McClelland placed on trade appeal had made the selection of the 1975 titles more contentious than had been the case with earlier groups. The issue became divisive as Ross, McClelland, and Porter worked to sort out the 1976 group. The draft list for 1976 initially submitted by Ross included a number of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century works; the one drawn up by McClelland and Porter eschewed most older titles in favour of books published after 1950.49 When Ross reviewed the draft list prepared at M&S, he responded favourably to some of the suggestions on it but felt compelled to reiterate his longstanding concern about achieving some kind of balance between old and new, as well as tone, type, and region, in the preparation of each group. ‘[I]f we are to do only 10 we are badly overweighted with recent M and S books,’ he added, referring to the preference the publisher’s list showed for novels by M&S authors such as Rudy Wiebe, Margaret Laurence, and Brian Moore. In Ross’s view, publishing works like T.G. Roberts’s The Red Feathers and Sara Jeannette Duncan’s Cousin Cinderella would help redress the imbalance.50 In responding to Ross, Porter indicated that the firm was ‘irrevocably committed’ to a number of the titles on the list she and McClelland had prepared. When Ross asked for clarification on

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that point, McClelland told Porter to tell Ross ‘very simply that there is no choice; that these are valuable publishing properties and to retain the rights we must publish them and we must publish them in 1976. Although this isn’t quite true,’ the publisher added, ‘you know and I know that if we come out with [Philip Child’s] god’s sparrows and [Duncan’s] cousin cinderella in our Three is Free paperback offer next spring as new titles, we are absolutely screwed.’ McClelland also directed her to explain ‘that while we hate to lay some of these obligatory titles on him ... the ground rules have changed a bit in Canadian publishing. At the present time the New Canadian Library is the only paperback form that we have available; that we have some obligations to our authors – and to ourselves in order to keep the rights to the titles – and that this has changed, temporarily at least, some of the priorities.’51 Ross acquiesced in the face of these pressures, but he was not pleased.52 In the end, the thirteen titles issued in 1976, which represented the twenty-first NCL issue, included Matt Cohen’s The Disinherited, Rudy Wiebe’s The Temptations of Big Bear, Sylvia Fraser’s Pandora, Percy Janes’s House of Hate, and Gabrielle Roy’s The Road past Altamont, all titles to which M&S had reported itself ‘irrevocably committed.’ Three of these were on Ross’s original list for 1976. McClelland, in turn, agreed to reprint T.G. Roberts’s Red Feathers that year but resisted Ross’s advocacy of other early titles, such as John Galt’s Bogle Corbet and Arthur Stringer’s Prairie Wife, although Galt’s work did make it into NCL covers in 1977. The pressure McClelland applied to Ross during the mid-1970s was not motivated entirely by the 3-for-2 promotions. It was also caused by the firm’s plan to re-enter the mass-market paperback field in Canada. McClelland started to explore the idea around 1973. Part of that research included identifying M&S imprints with mass-market potential. As the firm worked out the arrangements for its own mass-market initiative through the mid-1970s, the publisher endeavoured more and more to put off entering into contracts with outside mass-market paperback houses. However, by the 1970s, paperback editions had become a regular part of the publishing cycle for many books first issued in hardback. Consequently, as M&S imprints went out of print in hardback, or a pre-existing paperback contract expired, the firm’s authors expected to see their books reissued in new paperback editions.

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Until the firm sorted out its own mass-market imprint, NCL publication provided M&S with an expedient paperback venue for its literary titles with mass-market potential; publication of such works in the series satisfied the demand of authors for paperback editions without imperilling the firm’s right to issue those books in a mass-market reprint in future on a non-exclusive basis.53 Authors also found it a satisfactory arrangement since there was a certain amount of prestige attached to having their books reprinted between NCL covers. M&S re-entered the mass-market in 1976 through the creation of McClelland and Stewart–Bantam, a company in which M&S held 51 per cent ownership, while its American partner controlled 49 per cent. The partnership was a by-product of the earlier sale of Bantam to IFI International, an Italian company. Under the Foreign Investment Review Act (FIRA), the Canadian subsidiary of Bantam could not simply change from one foreign owner to another without a review of whether it was in Canada’s best interest. FIRA gave its agreement on condition that Bantam formed a new company, one with a majority Canadian shareholder, whose operations would include the distribution of massmarket paperbacks of Canadian origin. McClelland took advantage of this opportunity to get a foothold in the mass market in Canada. Canadian-authored titles issued by McClelland and Stewart-Bantam appeared under the imprint of Seal Books. In 1977 and 1978 six titles already present in NCL were also reprinted in Seal under non-exclusive contracts. These were Margaret Atwood’s The Edible Woman and five of Margaret Laurence’s books: A Jest of God, The Stone Angel, The Fire-Dwellers, A Bird in the House, and The Diviners. Laurence had agreed to the Seal arrangement only after being assured that publication in these massmarket editions would not impinge on NCL sales to any great degree. The Seal editions, she was told, would be distributed through ‘mass markets outlets such as airports, drugstores and the like’ and therefore would not conflict with the NCL editions, which relied on ‘bookstore and academic sales.’ Not surprisingly, she was furious when she learned in 1978 that McClelland and Stewart–Bantam had circulated its Seal catalogue among the academic community. She pointed out to McClelland that because the Seal editions of her books sold for $1.95, while the NCL versions sold for between $3.95 and $4.25, a large-scale shift in

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educational purchasing to the former source from the latter could have a substantial impact on her income.54 Her concerns proved valid: after the appearance of Seal editions of Laurence’s books, NCL sales of several of her titles dropped dramatically. Indeed, the change in purchasing brought about by Seal contributed to a significant downward trend in the total number of NCL copies sold during the late 1970s (see figure B.1 in appendix B). Once Seal Books was launched, the immediate utility of the NCL as a convenient reprint forum for M&S’s more popular literary titles no longer held sway. As he worked through the NCL title selections for 1977 and 1978 with Ross and Porter, the restrictions on the series McClelland had perceived since the early 1970s once again became foremost in his mind. When the publisher confirmed the contents of the 1978 group with Porter in October 1976, he described the upcoming selection as ‘a moderately good list.’ However, he could not see much to look forward to in future, especially since he had never shared Ross’s conviction about some of the older titles they had been reprinting through the 1970s. ‘The days of the New Canadian Library as far as new titles are concerned are numbered,’ he told Porter. ‘I will have to give serious thought to the retirement of our friend.’55 The following spring, M&S made ‘a tentative policy decision’ to halt the addition of titles to the NCL. McClelland revealed this decision to Ross in a letter dated 29 March 1977. ‘The original concept for the New Canadian Library ... was that we should publish in a uniform series of paperback books, the great Canadian fiction classics, and that these would be published in each case with a suitable critical introduction. I think that objective has been successfully pursued,’ wrote the publisher, who then went on to explain the reasons behind his decision: For some time now ... it has been necessary to compromise. This series is no longer confined to the great Canadian classics. In fact, it is our concern that in its present status our new groups are made up of three categories of books – earlier works that are of academic historical interest but that do not really qualify as classics; works by M&S authors, some of them very contemporary and too recently published to be appropriately judged; and the odd contemporary work from other houses[,] but these are few and far between, because of increasing competition and even at that, they’re of

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questionable durability ... I think we are in the process of denigrating the importance of your early selectivity.56

Ross was not surprised by McClelland’s assessment of the situation. ‘The analysis you give of the present situation is exactly the same as mine and I have become increasingly worried about the series,’ he responded. ‘ ... I agree that further drift would tend to cancel out our earlier achievement.’57 The last group of titles issued in the series under Ross’s supervision appeared in January 1978, after which he retired as general editor.58 Net sales for the series that year were $433,000, constituting about 4.3 per cent of M&S’s total net sales for 1978.59 V The New Canadian Library entered its second decade as a leader in quality paperback publishing in Canada and as a primary source of texts for courses in Canadian literature. This fundamental position of the series did not alter over the next ten years. However, throughout the period between 1968 and 1978, Malcolm Ross, Jack McClelland, and Anna Porter, as well as other M&S staff, were far from complacent as they went about developing the series. M&S’s financial crisis of the late 1960s and ongoing monetary difficulties of the 1970s ensured that the NCL continued to be produced in a general context of fiscal constraint. In turn, increased royalty demands from authors, direct competition for reprint rights, and difficulties in acquiring rights to non-M&S titles placed limits on the breadth that the series could achieve. Nor did producing a visually appealing product prove a simple matter. In the late 1960s, readers and booksellers rejected the initial covers as old-fashioned but quickly proclaimed the modern, abstract design that replaced them as unattractive; at the close of the NCL’s second decade, re-dressing the series for a third time remained an unrealized objective. Through the series’ second decade, the selection of titles was influenced to a much greater degree by M&S’s larger business and promotional concerns than had been the case during the first ten years. The 3-for-2 paperback promotions of the mid1970s encouraged the production of more NCL titles but also made it imperative to include volumes of broader trade appeal.

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The firm’s contractual obligations also influenced the inclusion of titles in the series, particularly those arising out of McClelland’s desire to stockpile rights in anticipation of launching the firm’s second venture into mass-market publishing. Ross, for his part, remained firmly convinced that each NCL issue should offer as balanced a selection as possible. Within those groups, he wanted to include earlier works of Canadian literature for which he believed there was an emergent academic demand. McClelland was not convinced about the extent of the market for these older titles, or their qualitative merits. Once Seal was launched, and the old difficulties over acquiring rights to works originated by outside publishers again became paramount, McClelland decided to halt publication of new titles in the New Canadian Library.

Part Two Editorial Practices and the Selective Tradition

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4 Selection, Rejection, and Compromise

In the act of accepting or rejecting manuscripts submitted to them for publication, or by commissioning those that do not yet exist, book publishers play a powerful role in the cultural productions of society. Indeed, the process of selection that is integral to their occupation has given rise to the term ‘gatekeeper’ to describe their cultural function.1 The editorial interests of individual book publishers differ, however, and that circumstance makes an impact on the types of material they usher into print. Consult any guide designed for aspiring authors, and one basic point will always be reiterated: before submitting a manuscript to a book publisher, writers are told, make sure it fits the house’s ‘list.’ The past and present identities of individual houses are bound up in their lists, which at any given moment can be subdivided into smaller components such as ‘front list,’ ‘backlist,’ ‘spring list,’ or ‘fall list.’ The content of a publisher’s list plays a key role in situating a house within the book trade. The list reveals the broad categories of publishing in which a company engages, such as trade, educational, or scholarly publishing; it identifies the breadth and volume with which a publisher issues titles in those categories; and it indicates the degree of caution or daring with which a firm pursues its editorial mandate. When a book publisher reorients its editorial focus, as Jack McClelland did with McClelland and Stewart during the 1950s and 1960s, the house’s list will reflect that shift. McClelland’s decision to launch the New Canadian Library, despite the financial misgivings he harboured about the venture, was an important component of his firm’s midcentury reorientation.

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As the case of M&S demonstrates, the lists of publishers can be comprised of titles originated by them as well as of reprints of works first issued by other houses. For all the selectivity that characterizes original publication, it is an activity that does not constitute part of a selective tradition as Raymond Williams defines it; rather, original publishing contributes to what Williams refers to as the recorded culture of a period.2 When publishers reprint the works of outside publishers, however, or reissue works from their own backlists in the context of a reprint series, they do become participants in a selective tradition. Such reprinting involves publishers in a second level of selection, one whose criteria can be quite distinct from that which prevails in the case of original publishing. The method by which titles were chosen for the NCL during the Ross-McClelland years provides insight into a selective tradition at work on Canadian literature through the middle decades of the twentieth century. It is important to recognize, however, that the NCL was far from the only publishing initiative to be involved in that process. Other influential ventures of the period preceded and succeeded the emergence of the series. Those that appeared before the NCL’s launch included the University of Toronto Quarterly’s annual ‘Letters in Canada’ surveys, launched in 1935; A.J.M. Smith’s Book of Canadian Poetry (1943), the introduction of which established the terms ‘native’ and ‘cosmopolitan’ in Canadian literary critical discourse; Desmond Pacey’s Creative Writing in Canada (1952), which provided a full-scale survey of English-Canadian literature for the first time in some years; and Carl F. Klinck and R.E. Watters’s Canadian Anthology of poetry and prose, first issued in 1955 to serve as a classroom text for courses in Canadian or North American literature. By that time, Watters already had under construction A Check List of Canadian Literature and Background Materials, 1628–1950, an assignment he naïvely but gamely accepted in 1949 and which would not appear in its first edition until 1959, the same year that the scholarly journal Canadian Literature began publication under George Woodcock’s editorship. In 1956, Carl Klinck, in turn, got under way his mammoth collaborative research initiative, the Literary History of Canada, which hit the shelves in 1965. All of the individuals referenced in the above paragraph participated in various ways in the realization of the NCL. While Ross

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and McClelland represented the series’ principal architects, theirs was a publishing endeavour that was influenced by numerous others who at mid-century felt they had a vested interest in Canadian literature or its study. The involvement of outside individuals in the construction of the NCL is most evident in the allographic introductions that prefaced the majority of the texts issued in the series. However, the surviving archives make clear that Ross and McClelland both passively received and actively encouraged title suggestions from outside the firm. These suggestions, just like those put forward by Ross, McClelland, and M&S employees, funnelled through the series’ internal selection process. To achieve publication as an NCL volume, proposed titles had to meet – or overcome – critical considerations and financial concerns evinced by the series’ general editor or its publisher, as well as successfully run the gamut of practical considerations, such as copyright permissions and fees, which placed certain strictures on the NCL’s development. The outcome of the NCL selection process was not a single list, but several: first, there was the list of potential NCL titles, ever fluctuating in number and content; second, there was the list of published NCL volumes, increasing year by year as more books appeared in the series; third, there was the list of rejected titles, which mounted just as steadily behind the scenes. The archival record provides a clear sense of how the NCL selection process worked. However, it falls short in revealing precisely why each volume proposed was accepted or rejected. This gap is unsurprising, given that final decisions, particularly during the first decade, when Ross was a professor first at Queen’s and then at University of Toronto, were often made at meetings. Nonetheless, enough information does survive to provide a sense of the editorial and practical considerations that influenced the decisions Ross and McClelland made, as well as the critical preoccupations at play at mid-century among outside figures who shared their commitment toward the nurture and study of Canada’s literary heritage. I A flow chart of the NCL selection process during the Ross-McClelland years is readily derived from archival materials (see fig. 4.1, p. 95). In general, a title’s path toward NCL publication was

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marked by the following seven steps: (1) the proposal of a particular title; (2) a reading of the work by Ross; (3) the general editor’s formal recommendation of a book to M&S; (4) discussion between Ross and M&S; (5) scheduling of the title for publication; (6) the commission of an introduction; and (7) the title’s appearance in NCL covers. Those titles that did not survive the selection process tended to be rejected after a reading by Ross, or came to grief in the discussion stage with M&S. However, failure to gain permission from an outside publisher, or a request from an author to pursue alternative publication arrangements, could also lead to rejection. About one-quarter of the works proposed for the NCL ultimately appeared in the series (see appendix C). This figure encompasses book-length works that had previously been published by M&S or other publishers, as well as proposals for original anthologies. Ross wished to create a series that would be historically and geographically representative. Yet he never set down definitive criteria about what, in his view, constituted a title suitable for the NCL. Ross’s working definition must therefore be pieced together from various sources, such as the volume introductions he wrote, or comments he made in his correspondence or interviews. From these sources one discovers that he favoured titles for a range of reasons, including literary accomplishment, revelation of Canadian scenes, events, themes, or sensibilities, or historical significance in the development of a Canadian literary tradition. Ross was not explicit about the books in question, but he recalled that in the 1970s he rejected a number of titles proposed to him by Anna Porter because he felt they lacked literary merit.3 An idea of the national boundaries Ross drew around the series emerges out of his rejection of another title proposed to him by Porter, Ann Charney’s Dobryd. In responding to the M&S editor, Ross stated ‘this account of a Czeck concentration camp’ was not ‘a Canadian book in the NCL sense.’ Dobryd ‘is a good book,’ he acknowledged, [b]ut I can’t for the life of me see this book within the purpose and design of the NCL. Its inclusion would stretch our boundaries to the breaking point. I assume that Charney is now a Canadian citizen and may write, or may now be writing, from her experience as a Canadian. It may be

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Figure 4.1 NCL Title Selection Process Title is proposed to Ross.

Ross reads the book, or considers the proposal.

Ross rejects title.

Ross brings title forward for discussion.

Recommended title is discussed among Ross, McClelland, and M&S staff.

Tentative date for publication is established, and paperback rights to title are sought.

Ross finds an introducer for the title once rights to reprint title have been acquired.

Publication date is firmly established.

Publication of title.

Title is rejected.

Title is rejected because a) rights are denied, or b) author prefers alternative publishing arrangement.

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Editorial Practices and the Selective Tradition that there are good arguments for including Dobryd in NCL. Brian Moore’s Judith Hearne is not about Canada, for instance. But Moore wrote it here and he had a tremendous impact on novel-writing in Canada. Charney’s book is scarcely of this kind and it has not the same interest for students of literature as such. However, I would welcome a considered case for the place of such a book in NCL.4

Dobryd did not become an NCL title. Moreover, despite the inclusion of Judith Hearne in the series, Ross later resisted the addition of Moore’s An Answer from Limbo, a novel he described as lacking any kind of Canadian reference or sensibility, and which he reported was written after the Irish-born Moore moved from Canada to the United States.5 Ross did not, however, subscribe to the position that only those of Canadian birth could lay claim to the status of Canadian writer. In his introduction to Frederick Philip Grove’s Over Prairie Trails, he rejected ‘narrowly technical scruples’ about nationality, arguing that ‘Grove’s was no passport Canadianism.’ ‘He was not just a writer who happened to be writing in Canada,’ Ross explained. ‘He was a Canadian writer, wholly absorbed by the Canadian scene and by the pioneer drama of a diverse yet single people, wholly convinced that this scene, this people, could yield to the artist’s vision themes and values at once unique and universal.’6 One can conclude, then, that Ross’s working definition of an NCL title was a book with a Canadian setting, characters, or sensibility that also possessed literary qualities. This definition took in the works of foreign-born authors, as long as the book in question had been written in response to Canadian experiences, and the works of Canadian-born authors set outside the country, for such productions generally could be said to exhibit a Canadian sensibility by virtue of their authorship. Inclusion of titles that did not fit within this working definition, such as Moore’s Judith Hearne, could only be rationalized if they influenced the development of Canada’s literary tradition. II An on-going list of potential NCL titles was in a constant state of compilation from the late 1950s through the 1970s. It consisted of a compendium of suggestions put forward by a variety of people,

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including Ross, McClelland, M&S staff, professors, teachers, educational authorities, booksellers, book reviewers, writers (or their surviving spouses and children), tourism personnel, and members of the general public. M&S never went so far as to include a printed statement in NCL volumes that encouraged readers to write in with further title suggestions (something Pocket Books had once done). Nonetheless, as they networked with colleagues and clients, Ross, McClelland, and M&S salespeople always made it clear that suggestions were welcome – and considered. Ross entered into the NCL venture with a relatively scanty background in Canadian literature. Like many of his academic generation, study of Canadian literature had not been part of his formal scholarly training. In consequence, at the outset of his general editorship he adopted a consultative approach to compensate for gaps in his own knowledge.7 He found the practice effective, and so it remained integral to his editorial method throughout his tenure with the series. Academics engaged in Canadian literary studies were the most active group in putting forward title suggestions. Ross identified the individuals who contributed to the Literary History of Canada as a particularly notable resource, especially in the early years of his editorship.8 While many academics simply indicated titles that might be of interest, others went much further in their advocacy, variously providing their estimation of a work’s literary merits, its Canadian qualities, its value as a teaching text, its historical significance, or its marketability. When Douglas Spettigue contacted Ross in 1970 about an NCL edition of Grove’s Our Daily Bread, for example, he noted that the lack of a paperback edition of the novel had become an inconvenience when he taught his senior Canadian literature courses.9 Alison Hopwood, on the other hand, chose to emphasize the Canadian qualities and multiple market appeal of Laura Salverson’s The Confessions of an Immigrant’s Daughter, a title that never did appear in the NCL, though not for Ross’s lack of trying. Hopwood described Salverson’s book as an account of ‘immigration and adaptation to Canada by a non-English-speaking immigrant’ and asserted that it would be appealing to ‘the general reading public, students of Canadian history, culture, and literature, and of the women’s liberation movement.’10 Jay Macpherson’s recommendation of Howard O’Hagan’s Tay John similarly identified the book’s genre but also

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offered a brief, critical assessment and made quick reference to some of its reception history. Tay John’s ‘materials are those of naive romance,’ wrote Macpherson, ‘– the female lead is an international siren called Ardith Ardeola who appears in the Rockies & drives a priest to suicide, but once you’ve heard that you know the worst – it’s written with considerable restraint & a powerful sense of locality, and manages some beautiful effects, particularly in Part One and at the very end. I wouldn’t claim it’s a masterpiece, but [it]’s rather uncommon ... Tay John isn’t mentioned in the Can. Lit. Hist., & gets brushed off as “unsatisfactory” by McGillivray in “Letters in Canada.”’11 Carl Klinck stands out as the scholar who promoted specific titles most passionately and at greatest length. He wrote detailed reports in support of Rosanna Leprohon’s Antoinette de Mirecourt, a title that eventually made it into the series, and The Manor House of De Villerai, which did not.12 He did the same for The History of Emily Montague, a novel penned by the British author Frances Brooke. In the case of Brooke’s work, however, Ross prompted Klinck for a detailed report. Klinck’s initial correspondence with the general editor in December 1959 had stated simply that Ross would find ‘a few hours’ pleasant entertainment’ in the novel, and then added: ‘It is too good to be lost because of neglect on our part. It is full of the life of post-Conqeust Quebec and Montreal. It is as Canadian as Krieghoff, and probably for similar reasons.’13 Ross had been sufficiently intrigued to mention the title to McClelland, who requested more information. In January 1960, Ross related to Klinck that McClelland was ‘anxious to get a reasonably careful statement on (a) the value of the book and (b) its sales prospect ... Could you give me your own “plug” for the project, two or three paragraphs on the importance of the book, and some suggestion about its appeal?’ Ross thought Brooke’s work might prove saleable in both the educational and trade markets.14 Klinck responded by preparing a point-form, single-spaced statement more than two pages in length. His evaluation reflected on the style, form, and characterization exhibited by The History of Emily Montague. He allayed any concern caused by Brooke’s foreign status by asserting there was ‘no difficulty about the novel being or not being “Canadian,”’ as it was ‘written in Canada’ and was ‘about Canadian scenes and people’ and ‘interprets Canadian life.’ Klinck added that the book had a claim to ‘a very real

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priority’ as one of the earliest North American novels, and even within the wider field of English literature, it represented a relatively early example. The work also had extra-literary claims, since it could serve as an historical document that offered insight into ‘what it was like to live in the garrison city of Quebec.’ Its potential markets, according to Klinck, ranged from Canadian literature courses to public libraries and general readers, and might extend as far as readers in Great Britain and the Commonwealth.15 Klinck’s assessment impressed McClelland, and the title went forward for publication, only to be met with less than enthusiastic reviews.16 Sales of The History of Emily Montague proved small but steady year after year. III Whatever the source, once a title had been proposed for inclusion in the NCL, it was Ross’s job to read it. After he had read a book, the general editor could then reject the title outright, or he could bring it forward to M&S for discussion. When he made his recommendations, Ross was attentive to what he perceived as the wants of the communities served by the NCL and the fiscal and contractual concerns of M&S, balancing those issues against what he personally perceived as the literary and/or historical merits of a title. The case of Frederick Philip Grove, eight of whose works appeared in the series, illustrates this point particularly well. Ross was conscientious throughout his editorship about responding to requests from academics for more of the author’s titles. Through the mid-1970s, Ross also recognized the need to place more Grove titles in the series because M&S had entered a multi-book reprint agreement with Grove’s son, and the NCL was an obvious outlet for such reprints.17 However, Grove was not a particular favourite of Ross’s, a fact that the general editor revealed in 1973 when he advised M&S against issuing a previously unpublished work by the author. ‘Now my opinion is frankly that of a reader who has never responded with enthusiasm to any of the Grove novels,’ he explained. ‘I believe Grove has a place in the development of Canadian fiction and that his work should be studied (for historical reasons) in courses on Canadian literature. But this book adds nothing to what we already have,’ he concluded, ‘and I am doubtful indeed about its value for NCL.’18

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If Ross was attentive to the recommendations and requests of his academic colleagues, McClelland was considerably concerned with the views of writers, and particularly M&S authors. He was careful to forward to Ross title suggestions made by authors, who sometimes advocated the inclusion of books by writers whom they held in high regard, and at others promoted NCL reprints of their own books. Margaret Laurence, for example, lobbied for Adele Wiseman’s Crackpot, Percy Janes’s House of Hate, and original short story collections by Ernest Buckler and Sinclair Ross. McClelland generally responded with the information that the proposed title would be put to Ross, but made no promises about its future inclusion, explaining that the general editor had the right to reject any book proposed for the series. All of the works advocated by Laurence eventually appeared in the series, but Farley Mowat was unsuccessful in getting his father’s book, Carrying Place, into NCL covers. ‘It has much to be said for it – particularly in the “first half,”’ Ross told McClelland after he examined Angus Mowat’s book. ‘But I fear it falls apart in the war sequence in England. Motivation here is less than credible and the scenes are carried rhetorically rather than dramatically,’ Ross explained. McClelland replied that he agreed with Ross’s assessment but did not look forward to telling Farley Mowat that the title was unacceptable.19 McClelland’s position was more delicate when he had to deal with authors who were advocating the inclusion of their own books. Rudy Wiebe wrote a number of times suggesting an NCL edition of his novel Peace Shall Destroy Many, and then began to correspond directly with Ross after McClelland indicated (somewhat misleadingly): ‘We have the right of veto but it is not our prerogative to decide what shall be included.’20 Mordecai Richler took a more forceful approach to getting Son of a Smaller Hero in the NCL. In his case, McClelland was much more active in the discussion. Richler’s initial suggestion that Son of a Smaller Hero appear in the series arrived in April 1960 embedded in a letter that praised the NCL as a ‘wonderful gesture’ on the publisher’s part. McClelland replied that he had met with Ross and asked him to give Richler’s title another look.21 Not one to be put off, late in 1961 Richler reiterated his request. Declaring it a ‘disgrace’ that McClelland had not published Son of a Smaller Hero in NCL, he continued: ‘It is certainly better than most of the nation-

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alistic guff in the series. It has been more widely published, has a larger reputation, and it is a better b[oo]k. I want it in print again.’ ‘I am convinced but Malcolm Ross ain’t,’ replied the publisher. ‘It is well down on his list. However, we’re having some further readings and things could change.’22 The following summer, McClelland was able to report that the title would indeed appear in the series. ‘Congratulations! It’s time a title of quality was added to the New Canadian Library. Man does not live by Leacock alone,’ Richler responded. But McClelland’s enthusiasm was dampened when Richler then revealed that a Panther paperback edition was also pending. ‘Migod, we can’t win. Our book would not conflict with the Panther edition necessarily but it would sure as hell conflict with ours,’ he told Richler. ‘Did you ever try to sell something for a buck and somebody else is trying to sell the same product for half the price[?] I may be a nut but I’m not crazy. Mind you, this will only hold us back for a year or so. The sooner the Panther edition is on and off the market the better.’23 The NCL edition was then deferred to spring 1965. However, Richler instigated a second delay when he was offered a substantial advance by an American paperback house, which also wanted rights in the Canadian market. ‘I have decided that you are a real son of a bitch in the figurative sense,’ began McClelland’s scathing but humorous reply: For years you send me at least a letter a month saying when in hell are you going to publish son of a smaller hero in paperback. Finally, not because I believe we should publish [it in NCL], but simply to cut off the flood of letters, I agree. I plead with our editors ... Finally, they say, ‘Yes.’ We hire an eminent man of letters to write an introduction. We set the goddamn book in type. We’re about to go to press and then a letter comes in from the goddamn author saying, ‘Please, Jack, don’t publish son of a smaller hero. Some despicable Yankee firm has offered me $1,500’ ... all I can say is, ‘Thanks very much.’24

To salvage the situation, McClelland asked Richler’s agent to investigate the possibility of a shared-market arrangement with the American publisher. Though he knew the NCL edition would have limited sales initially because of this cheaper edition, McClelland wished to go ahead with a small print run because the

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type had been set.25 A deal was worked out, allowing for publication in spring 1966. The following autumn, Richler asked McClelland what the NCL edition of Son of a Smaller Hero was doing in terms of sales. ‘Anything?’ he queried. ‘At a buck seventy-five. Hell,’ McClelland replied acerbically, ‘What in God’s name do you expect? It’s already been available at $4.50 or whatever; then it was available at 75¢. Our edition is purely for prestige purposes – our prestige and yours. Don’t you love prestige?’26 IV As the foregoing exchange between McClelland and Richler reveals, the confirmation of each title in the NCL occurred after a negotiation among Ross, McClelland, and M&S staff, with circumstances outside the firm sometimes making an impact on the timing of a book’s appearance, or its exclusion from the series altogether. For much of the NCL’s first decade, annual meetings provided the forum for an exchange of views among those involved in making the final decision about NCL titles; it was during the course of these meetings that a consensus regarding future titles was often reached. By the time each meeting took place, McClelland or members of his staff had some familiarity with the titles Ross was bringing to the table. In the first six or seven years of the NCL’s existence, the firm even went so far as to have formal reader’s reports prepared for a number of titles up for discussion. M&S’s disinclination toward, or outright rejection of, a title recommended by Ross could be motivated by financial, market, or editorial considerations, or a combination of the three. A title’s length could be a cause for concern since it could make a book prohibitively expensive to produce in the NCL format. A viable market for NCL titles was a constant consideration, and the publisher certainly questioned the literary merit of some titles brought forward by Ross. All of these issues came into play with respect to Adele Wiseman’s The Sacrifice, a Macmillan of Canada title that was originally issued in 1956 and that Ross recommended as early as 1960. McClelland questioned its selection the first time in early 1961, describing the book as ‘much too recent to include, at least within the existing frame of the series’ and noting that it was ‘still readily available in the regular edition.’ In

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1964 he opposed the title on other grounds: at 130,000 words its length was problematic, while the publisher doubted it would find favour with English instructors because of its relative newness and because it was ‘not quite good enough’ in terms of literary quality.27 By the time the publisher did seek permission to reprint the title in the NCL, Macmillan refused M&S the rights and later published it in its own Laurentian Library. Both M&S and outside houses hesitated over having an NCL edition on the market while another edition of the same book was available. The Canadian branch of Oxford University Press delayed permission for an NCL reprint of Paul Hiebert’s Sarah Binks for several years because the book was still selling adequately in hardcover.28 M&S worried more about competing paperback editions; as quality paperbacks, NCL titles were priced higher than the mass-market editions typically produced by their competitors. At times, however, editorial concerns outweighed any financial misgivings about competing paperback editions. Such was the case with both Hugh MacLennan’s Barometer Rising and Gwethalyn Graham’s Earth and High Heaven. Ross’s consultations with colleagues in 1958 revealed widespread ownership of the MacLennan title as well as uncertainty about its literary merits; however, McClelland believed that they needed ‘to have Hugh MacLennan in our series if it is to be at all representative,’ and booksellers had assured the publisher there was still a market for the title, an assessment that proved to be correct. 29 In the case of Earth and High Heaven, a best-selling novel from 1944 that explored the issue of anti-Semitism, McClelland had initially held back on publication because of concerns about competition from other paperback editions. Rereading the book made him change his mind: he reported to Ross afterwards that the title should be included based on its ‘strong and important Canadian theme,’ though he judged the quality of Graham’s prose no more than adequate.30 Through the NCL’s early years, McClelland initiated in-house readings of titles about which he had market or qualitative doubts. Reader’s reports constitute a slim part of the archival record, but those that are available reflect an interesting interplay of market and qualitative concerns. Robert J.C. Stead’s Grain, for example, was a title strongly favoured by Ross. While still one of the firm’s educational salesmen, Jim Totton supported Ross’s

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interest in the title by noting that provincial educational departments were showing a strong interest in books about children growing up. In the formal reader’s report he prepared about Grain, however, Totton focused on the book’s literary qualities and setting, rather than its commercial value. ‘[A]s I read it I could not help but marvel at the care with which the author had recorded the lives of the people about whom he wrote,’ stated Totton. ‘The reader may, or may not, be satisfied with the conclusion of the plot – but that is true of many novels. I suggest it for serious consideration in the New Canadian Library on other grounds, i.e. the portrayal of an age, a country and it[s] people. The book is, of course, written in the style popular at that time but that is what we would expect and I think it no great defficiency [sic] in a book which is being re-issued.’31 Catharine Parr Traill’s Canadian Settler’s Guide was another title to receive a reader’s report. The title was proposed – and tentatively scheduled – for NCL publication as early as 1962. A reading of the book, which appears to have been undertaken at that time, characterized the work as ‘charming, delightful and completely fascinating to anyone interested in Canadian pioneer history.’ The reader found Traill’s prose ‘excellent ... with little of the pedantic floweriness so often met with in century old books.’ She then turned her mind to the matter of markets. ‘I do think that with the enormous upsurge of interest recently in pioneer days that this book would be a great asset to your Canadian Classics,’ noted the reader. ‘It occurs to me that if your sales department would be able to arrange some tie-in with Pioneer Village and Upper Canada village whereby this could be sold to tourists in the reconstructed village shops, you would have a captive market there.’32 Despite the reader’s endorsement, Canadian Settler’s Guide subsequently dropped out of sight for several years. Consideration of the title re-emerged in 1967 when McClelland asked Ross if there were any further Traill or Moodie works that might be considered since The Backwoods of Canada and Roughing It in the Bush had both done well. Ross consulted Clara Thomas, who was known for her expertise on Traill and Moodie, and together they agreed that the Canadian Settler’s Guide was a title to pursue.33 James De Mille’s A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder received the most intensive scrutiny on the part of internal readers. Indeed, the appearance of De Mille’s book in 1969 marked

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the culmination of years of combined and persistent persuasion on the part of Ross and the title’s introducer, R.E. Watters. Watters, it appears, first advocated the title to Hugh Kane as early as the mid-1950s, when the NCL was still in its planning stages. Watters followed up with a more formal suggestion to Ross in early January 1960. Over the succeeding year, De Mille’s book made it onto the list of potential titles, and by the end of January 1962, Ross had read the work and found it acceptable. At that point, it was tentatively scheduled for 1963 publication. As the title was unfamiliar to everybody at M&S, Ross forwarded a copy of the book to the firm for review.34 In-house assessments of the book diverged widely. In late February 1962, the NCL’s in-house editor, Claire Pratt (daughter of E.J. Pratt), reported positively to Ross: while she found the book had some faults, dullness was not among them. McClelland did not share Pratt’s enthusiasm. Indeed, if the firm did reprint the book, he felt it could benefit from a ‘great deal of cutting.’35 Further in-house readings were instigated. The responses muddied the waters further. ‘I am most surprised that Malcolm Ross should be so enthusiastic over this book,’ stated Diane Mew, another editor at the firm. ‘... After having read it I can understand why it has been allowed to lapse into obscurity.’ Mew found the writing ‘stodgy and old-fashioned, but without any period flavour,’ the story ‘wordy, repetitive and not very original,’ and the ship passengers ‘tedious caricatures, especially the doctor, who seemed just a self-opinionated ass.’ She described the work as ‘an irritating mixture of fact and fantasy,’ and concluded: ‘the book is not Canadian in content and would not seem to me to be up to the literary standards we are trying to maintain in the NCLs.’ Totton, on the other hand, advocated the title’s inclusion. He considered the book ‘an interesting sample of early twentieth century Canadian [sic] writing’ and significant for being a satire.36 Three further reports ranged themselves along Mew’s estimate. Among them was one by Hugh Kane, who professed himself ‘quite unable to think of any reason why it should be reprinted and, more particularly, why it should be included in the New Canadian Library. It must have qualities which were quite unapparent to me.’ While not as adamantly against the title as Kane, neither could Joyce Anne (‘Steve’) Rankin, an employee who worked on the promotion of the series, see it as an NCL title. ‘I suppose this is all right

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in a way but I don’t think it belongs in the NCL,’ she reported. ‘If Malcolm is hipped on the idea of representative regardless of quality I think he should be discouraged. My understanding was that NCL’s were books of lasting merit.’37 A subsequent meeting of M&S personnel resulted in the decision to exclude the title. However, Ross must have pleaded the case with McClelland, for in July 1962 George Woodcock was recruited to act as an outside arbiter.38 Woodcock did not recommend a reprint of the title. His criticism echoed those of several of the in-house readers: he found the book overly long, repetitious, and ‘tedious in parts.’ Its strength lay in its earlier section, which was ‘written in a spare yet vivid narrative style.’ Woodcock indicated that De Mille fell short of the achievements of authors he had tried to emulate. ‘De Mille is attempting what other writers like Swift and Samuel Butler did: to present a world in which our own social order and ethical values will be inverted and thereby presented for criticism,’ wrote Woodcock. ‘He does it less successfully precisely because his satirical gifts are less; moreover, the world he presents is not so convincingly self-consistent as theirs, largely because he is trying to bring together too many of the devices used by utopian-scientific romancers in his time.’ Woodcock went on to cite other authors whom he felt had influenced De Mille, including Arthur Conan Doyle and Rider Haggard.39 Ross provided Watters with a copy of Woodcock’s report, accompanied by the comment: ‘Here is George’s veto. I agreed to accept his verdict and am now stymied.’ ‘His verdict was what I expected, since I have long thought him to be more than a little rigid in his views of “popular” fiction,’ Watters responded. Watters then critiqued the critique. He revealed to Ross that Woodcock had built his case on somewhat shaky ground since neither Doyle nor Haggard had begun to publish until after De Mille’s death in 1880. ‘I do not know whether his knowing the correct dates would have changed Woodcock’s opinion or not,’ stated Watters, ‘but I should like at least to set the record straight, if only to show that Canadian writers must not be assumed to be always mere followers of examples set elsewhere. Whatever may be said of The Cylinder’s “literary distinction,” the work has much more originality than Woodcock credits it with.’ He closed by reiterating his belief that Copper Cylinder should be reprinted – in an uncut version.40

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Ross sent Watters’s letter to McClelland, noting at the top of it: ‘Jack: He scores a few points on Woodcock!’ McClelland acknowledged those points, but did not change his mind. ‘Quite apart from the fact that our readers generally were not impressed with it,’ he told Ross, ‘one of our chief reservations was on the matter of market ... The Woodcock opinion, for better or worse, seems to confirm our opinion. I’m definitely in favour of setting the book aside, at least for the present.’41 McClelland had left a little leeway for the title when he qualified his rejection. Certainly neither Ross nor Watters abandoned hope for De Mille’s book. Around 1966, Ross again began to suggest the title for NCL inclusion, and in the spring of 1968 the publisher finally agreed that the work might be reconsidered. He capitulated completely in mid-April of that year. ‘Having been subjected to another sales pitch on this by Reg Watters recently,’ McClelland wrote Ross, ‘and because you feel we should go ahead, let’s decide to do so.’42 When Watters wrote the publisher to acknowledge that decision, McClelland replied that he too was pleased the title was to appear in the series, but added: ‘I’m not confident that it’s going to make everyone wealthy, but it is a useful book and should be in print.’43 McClelland no doubt felt vindicated in his pessimism when sales during the first few years came in well under 1,000 copies annually. The book did somewhat better through the mid-1970s, by which time Woodcock had reversed his position and emerged as an advocate of the title.44 V Ross ultimately succeeded in including De Mille’s book in the series, but on other occasions he had to give in to resistance from M&S and abandon his championship of a title. M&S was predominantly a trade publisher of original, Canadian-authored works, an editorial mandate that carried with it a lot of financial risk and made an impact on how ambitiously the firm could pursue its publishing activities. Over the years, the NCL became an increasingly valuable property for M&S as Canadian literature courses became more prevalent, and certain titles in the series were chosen year after year by the instructors of those courses. Annual course adoptions, of course, were the reason why publishers associated the educational market with stability. The NCL was an

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4.1 Malcolm Ross in 1958. Photo by Milne Studios Ltd.

ever-expanding enterprise, however, and the sales of individual titles within it varied greatly. Some volumes in the series took years to recover their original investment. As publisher of the series, McClelland anticipated including some volumes in the NCL that were unlikely to turn a profit, but he had to impose a limit on their number. In consequence, the publisher could and did veto certain title suggestions advocated by Ross. Ross accepted the financial constraints of working with a trade house, but there is no doubt that it interfered with his ambitions as general editor. Original compilations, translations of French-Canadian works, and further prose titles he considered indicative of the historical development of Canadian literature all would have featured more prominently in the series had Ross’s preferences been given full reign. In addition, although Ross and McClelland speculated

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several times about the inclusion of anthologies of plays, financial concerns over permissions and market ultimately discouraged the realization of such volumes: the only play to appear in the NCL during Ross’s general editorship was Earle Birney’s Damnation of Vancouver, a work suggested by Porter because she had received repeated inquiries about the availability of the title.45 Original collections of poetry, short stories, and essays were much better represented than plays, but Ross ideally would have liked to issue more. For example, although he was enthusiastic in the mid-1970s about a proposal for an original collection of nineteenth-century sketches, Ross abandoned the title suggestion after market research by the firm proved discouraging.46 By that time, two original collections of criticism whose financial prospects were far more marginal had already appeared: John Sutherland’s Essays, Controversies and Poems and E.K. Brown’s Responses and Evaluations. In the case of the Brown collection, Ross had had the firm backing of McClelland, who well remembered Brown’s prominence as a critic and believed it would be prestigious, though certainly not profitable, to include a collection of the critic’s work in the series.47 Ross’s conviction that the NCL should include FrenchCanadian works in translation met no resistance from McClelland. Indeed, French-Canadian titles appeared in the series from the first year, and Gabrielle Roy represented one of the NCL’s most important authors in terms of reliable sales. Through the 1960s, the only editorial concern the publisher had about FrenchCanadian titles was avoiding the inclusion of more than one in each group since they tended, in general, to be slower sellers.48 In the 1970s, McClelland added the stricture that NCL editions should be confined to ‘the top books in this area’ already available in English translation.49 This second stipulation came about after Ross expressed interest in substantially expanding the French-Canadian content of the series, an idea that had taken hold after he received letters in 1972 from Professors Y.G. Brunelle and Philip Stratford, both of whom identified a need for additional teaching texts of French-Canadian works in English translation, including some lesser-known titles of historical significance.50 Despite McClelland’s stricture, two original translations did appear in the series during the 1970s, both at the instigation of M&S: Félix LeClerc’s Allegro, translated by Linda Hutcheon,

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and Antoine Gérin-Lajoie’s Jean Rivard, translated by Vida Bruce. Ross was delighted to include them in the series. Their publication was aided by Canada Council translation grants, a fact that adds to their anomalous status within the series.51 No other titles issued during the Ross-McClelland years received this kind of direct financial support, though after block grants to book publishers were initiated in the early 1970s by the Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council, the NCL as a whole likely experienced some general benefit from public funding. Brunelle and Stratford’s desire to see more historically significant French-Canadian works translated into English would have struck a sympathetic chord with Ross, who hoped that the series in its final form would contain a sufficient number of titles from various time periods to provide readers with a clear sense of how Canadian literature had developed. This objective was a practical manifestation of his belief that ‘a change in fashion is not necessarily a change in value.’ Throughout his tenure as general editor, Ross regularly recommended titles from the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, quite a number of them representative of genres that retained little standing with many mid-twentiethcentury critics. His ambition to see such titles included in the series became more acute in the early 1970s as Canadian literary studies consolidated its position, and specialized courses, particularly ones devoted to work produced before 1920, began to be offered in addition to survey courses. In these courses, Ross perceived a small but distinct market for titles that he had always felt should be reprinted if the series was to be true to the full range of past Canadian literary expression. McClelland often responded dubiously to these ‘historical’ title suggestions from Ross, wary about them on the grounds of both merit and marketability. Through the first fifteen years of the series’ life, the two amiably locked horns over the inclusion of such titles, without any particular discord arising from these confrontations. Negotiation over such titles was something of a game between them, and McClelland gave in to Ross’s persuasions sufficiently often to satisfy the general editor. The letter Ross wrote to Claude Bissell in 1960 to confirm the inclusion of Sara Jeannette Duncan’s The Imperialist hints at the by play between general editor and publisher. ‘Hurrah for Sara Jean[n]ette!’ wrote Ross. He then added: ‘Reg Watters ... will stand by to edit the [Cousin]

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Cinderella if your Imperialist goes well enough to convince Jack McClelland that a second Duncan book is feasible.’52 Despite repeated recommendations from Ross well into the 1970s, Cousin Cinderella never did appear as an NCL title. By that time, of course, the firm’s preoccupations over the 3-for-2 paperback promotions and the launch of Seal Books had caused battle lines over the issue of ‘historical’ titles to become much more drawn. As M&S became concerned with issuing more commercially viable books in the series through the mid-1970s, trade-offs arose around the inclusion of certain titles. For example, in order to get some of the older titles he favoured reprinted in the series, Ross agreed in 1973 to include Mordecai Richler’s Cocksure, though he considered it the author’s ‘poorest book – below his standards and theirs.’ An internal memo at M&S succinctly summed up the situation: ‘we are agreeing to some of the horrible historical titles that he wants to include in return for his agreement to accept this very important Canadian novel.’53 Ross got the last laugh on that particular negotiation: last-minute difficulties over rights excluded Cocksure from the batch, and the title did not appear in the series until 1986, long after Ross’s retirement.54 For all the tension of the mid-to-late 1970s, the only debate over a title to cause a true crisis in Ross and McClelland’s working relationship had occurred the previous decade. The book in question was Leonard Cohen’s Beautiful Losers, and the exchange it generated makes clear the level of authority Ross could wield as general editor. Beautiful Losers’s passage through the NCL publication process was unremarkable in its early stages. M&S had published the title in hardback in 1966 and subsequently granted Bantam an eighteen-month contract to reprint and distribute the title in mass-market paperback. Noting the fact that Bantam’s claim on the title would cease in December 1968, an M&S employee asked McClelland in January of that year whether the title might be used for the spring 1969 group of NCL titles. It was common practice for the firm to propose literary titles from the M&S backlist when they were about to go out of print in an earlier edition. McClelland responded initially that he thought it might be too early, but by June 1968, Beautiful Losers had been listed as a possibility for 1969 NCL release. Ross agreed to it tentatively at that point, but his sanction was only conditional as he had not yet had a chance to read the book closely.55 Ross passed a chaotic summer

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as he moved from University of Toronto to Dalhousie University in Halifax, so that it was late August before he was able to complete a thorough reading of the title. It was then that he wrote to say he did not wish the title to appear in the NCL and detailed his reasons. Ross’s initial letter has not come to hand, but McClelland’s response to it provides a sense of its content. Reporting himself ‘truly baffled’ by the general editor’s stance, the publisher acknowledged Ross’s ‘right to decide what shall not be included’ in the series but asserted that many reasons existed for adding Cohen’s book. McClelland then proceeded to defend and advocate Beautiful Losers. ‘Firstly it is certainly not obscenity for obscenity’s sake,’ he stated. ‘I know Cohen well and I know what the book means to him and I know what he put into it. I assure you, Malcolm, there can be no question about his integrity or his intention. It’s a serious, soul-searching work on his part. If it fails,’ he continued, ‘it fails not for the reason that you suggest, but because he didn’t quite execute his artistic intent.’ McClelland went on to note that ‘the preponderance of critical opinion has been in his favour,’ and that authors such as Margaret Laurence, Jack Ludwig, Earle Birney, and Mordecai Richler considered it ‘an outstanding piece of work.’ Moreover, the book had struck a chord with the younger generation, and Canadian sales in paperback to that point had run to about 50,000 copies. ‘I don’t claim that the sales necessarily mean anything,’ clarified McClelland, ‘but in the case of this book I do think they mean that the book has accomplished what the author intended it to accomplish. The younger generation identify with this book.’ In closing, the publisher noted that he had discussed the title with Totton, who hadn’t ‘the slightest concern about it doing anything but enhancing the reputation of The New Canadian Library in the schools.’56 Ross responded a week later, stating he had examined the book again and carefully considered McClelland’s point of view. However, he reiterated his refusal to include the title in the NCL and expressed his view of the book at some length: I don’t think the book is puzzling ... It is pretty obvious stuff – quite infantile in its thematic conception, & other[wise] pretentious and very self-conscious in its structural method, painstakingly and repetitively dirty in its imagery and detail. I suspect Cohen swallowed

Selection, Rejection, and Compromise 113 Norman O. Browne [sic] in a gulp and tried to do an adult-sick extravaganza on the persistence of infantile sexuality – the polymorphously perverse variation, of course, in that the innocence of childhood sexual play goes sick in the neurotic adult who cannot be liberated from his neurosis by a return to the perverse. Instead of sexual liberation – the joy of the body – you get disgust ... I would not doubt the anguish of Cohen’s intention. But the process of creation here is aborted. The anguish does not transform the matter into form and significance. The dirt merely piles up in contrived bins. The book is an artistic failure because there is no control or transcendence of the material. Cohen is overwhelmed by the stuff in the book. For this reason the effect is that of obscenity for the sake of obscenity – because one cannot so much as guess for what other sake the obscenity performs. This is what I mean by no artistic-control or transcendence. There is nothing here served by the obscenity – the sick, repetitive, compulsive, neurotic obscenity – of the adult playing infant. It is a very, very, sick book ... I feel very strongly about this. We haven’t had such a difference of opinion before in our years with NCL and I am most unhappy that this issue has arisen, partly at least through my own fault.57

In replying, McClelland acknowledged the strength of Ross’s objection and reiterated that he did not question his right of veto as general editor, though the publisher did think that there was ‘some distinction between right of veto and right to second-guess your own decision.’ He asked Ross to reconsider for a number of reasons. Cohen had already been told his book was to be included in the series, and the author was a friend of McClelland, one upon whom he looked with ‘admiration and, indeed, affection’ and one who ‘is also an extremely sensitive person.’ Beyond that, Cohen numbered among the ‘half dozen most important authors on our list commercially.’ On the matter of the literary merits of the title, McClelland stated he was ‘quite prepared to admit that you are far better qualified to make such a judgment ..., but I don’t think you are in a position to judge Cohen’s intent, his motivation or his justification.’ Picking up on Ross’s own advocacy of texts for reasons of historical significance, the publisher argued that on ‘the grounds of historical significance alone’ Beautiful Losers should be included. ‘Whether it is a great artistic

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creation or not remains to be seen and no one can be absolutely certain at this point,’ McClelland added, ‘but there can be no doubt about its importance in terms of Canadian letters.’ To resolve the issue, McClelland suggested the use of outside arbitration and proposed they seek the opinions of three individuals.58 Ross was not persuaded by McClelland’s arguments, and he had learned his lesson about the hazards of outside arbitration with De Mille’s book. The general editor sincerely regretted his ‘indefensible editorial blunder’ of not having read the text closely before offering his tentative agreement. However, he was unwilling to compound his first error by a second one of allowing the title to proceed to NCL publication. ‘My objection to the book is at once aesthetic, moral, philosophical and theological,’ he told the publisher. ‘It is also visceral. The book turns my stomach ... Therefore I cannot agree to a “jury.” I simply cannot in conscience put my name on that book.’59 ‘Migod you are an unreasonable man!’ responded the publisher. ‘I can’t think of anything fairer than my proposal for arbitration. I can only conclude that inwardly you recognize that you are really standing alone in left field (or maybe right field is more appropriate) on this one. A classic case of censorship to be sure.’ With the proviso that he would need to find some other way to satisfy Cohen and his agent, McClelland unhappily resigned himself to Ross’s decision. He then renegotiated the Bantam contract on Beautiful Losers, which allowed the matter of NCL publication of the title to be ‘buried at least for the present.’60 With only occasional rumblings, the matter remained at rest until after Ross’s retirement. However, as Ross wryly admitted, Beautiful Losers was the first new title issued in the series after he ceased to be general editor.61 VI Once a title had been confirmed for publication, to Ross fell the task of finding someone to introduce the volume. Ross functioned relatively autonomously in this realm. As general editor, he believed he should be the one primarily responsible for interacting with introducers and editing their work. On the odd occasion when an in-house editor encroached in this area, Ross was quick to clarify what he considered to be the parameters of their respective roles. ‘I believe that all important changes of style

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should be discussed between the General Editor and the “introducer” but that you should feel free to raise with me any or all points which concern you,’ he told one of the firm’s editors in 1961. In making this statement, Ross confirmed his practice of the previous several years. Such remained the working policy for the series over the next decade, and in 1972 the situation was formalized in a memorandum on ‘Editorial Procedures.’62 Ross and McClelland made the decision to include introductions early on. As volumes in reprint series often contained introductions or prefaces of some sort, their decision was hardly radical. Nonetheless, they did have a clear rationale for adopting the practice for the NCL. In the 1950s, relatively little critical material about Canadian literature was available. The introductions therefore ensured that students had recourse to at least one secondary source about each work. ‘I thought it would be useful [to include introductions] even for teachers,’ Ross recalled, ‘many of whom were teaching Canadian books for the first time and who had never studied Canadian literature.’63 In many cases, an NCL introduction was one of the earliest, and sometimes the first, piece of critical analysis to appear about a particular work. All but a handful of the 164 titles issued in the Main and Original series during Ross’s general editorship appeared with original, allographic introductions. Introducers were largely drawn from the academic community, but a number of introductions were penned by media personalities connected with books, such as Robert Fulford and Robert Weaver, or prominent writers such as Robertson Davies and Margaret Laurence. In his pursuit of appropriate introducers, the general editor kept an attentive eye out as he attended conferences, read journals, participated in thesis boards, and networked with colleagues. He did his best to match books with individuals, and, if a particular individual proposed a title that was subsequently slated for an NCL reprint, he was inclined to give that person first refusal on writing the introduction for the volume. As much as possible, Ross also tried to achieve a wide geographic and institutional representation in his choice of introducers. The latter initiative was undertaken ‘[t]o further our hopes of getting books adopted for Canadian courses’ at post-secondary institutions throughout the country.64 Ross gave those commissioned to write the introductions a

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relatively free hand. Beyond a limit on length, he generally offered little overt instruction on how the assignments should be ap-proached.65 Surviving correspondence does reveal, however, that direction was provided on occasion. ‘Our introductions are meant to be interpretive and critical with emphasis on theme[,] structure, pattern of symbol, tone etc. with plot detail used only for necessary illustration,’ Ross explained in one letter.66 He offered more specific suggestions to Vida Bruce, requesting that she place Antoine Gérin-Lajoie’s Jean Rivard within its literary tradition, and discuss its historical significance as well as its contemporary relevance.67 Philip Child and Ian Ross Robertson, who introduced, respectively, Raymond Knister’s White Narcissus and Andrew Macphail’s The Master’s Wife, were asked to include brief biographical sections in their introductions since the general editor felt these two authors were not well known to contemporary readers.68 Once he received an introduction, Ross was not shy about requesting a revision, or even intervening in the text himself. ‘I often had to get people to rewrite them,’ he recalled. ‘If they didn’t seem to me to get at the nub of the book, or open it up for the student to see what it was about,’ he explained, ‘I’d get them to change it.’69 Persuasion occasionally proved necessary when Ross set out to commission an introduction. Such was the case with Carlyle King, who, while pleased to be asked to introduce an NCL title, was dismayed by Ross’s choice of Martha Ostenso’s Wild Geese. In response, Ross acknowledged that Ostenso’s novel had ‘certain limitations,’ but he felt it ‘worth bringing back into print. Our aim is gradually to make available a workable variety of Canadian titles,’ he explained. ‘This one has a considerable claim,’ he added, because it ‘was the forerunner of a whole family of western Canadian novels and it is still ... quite readable.’70 Eli Mandel, who agreed to introduce Graham’s Earth and High Heaven after R.E. Watters turned it down, was hesitant initially but warmed to the title, much as McClelland had done. ‘The more I think about the book ... the better I like what she has done with it,’ Mandel confided to Ross. ‘I think now I can honestly recommend it and have no hesitations about doing so. I am particularly impressed by the contrast between general formulations of the anti-Semitic problem and individual experience,’ he noted, ‘something that is sharply realized throughout the book.’71

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Perhaps based on an early experience with the introduction he penned for Morley Callaghan’s Such Is My Beloved, which he allowed the author to read in typescript, Ross felt that introductions should not be previewed by writers whose books were to appear in an NCL edition. Ross had reluctantly revised his introduction to Callaghan’s book after the author indicated he found the opening section somewhat negative, and the main section too weighted in its discussion of religious symbolism. When Ross notified Callaghan of his revisions, he devoted some time to defending his original draft. ‘Most readers who pick this up in a store won’t look at the damned introduction!’ Ross exclaimed in his letter: I’m aiming at the university trade – at the people who say of you (a) ‘he’s just a short-story writer – capable of some warmth of feeling but with no theme big enough for the novel form’ – or (b) those others who see you through sociological eyes and therefore indict you for not solving ‘social problems’ ... Your work, if it is not to be missed or slighted, needs to be placed in its proper universe of discourse. That universe – a religious one, consciously or unconsciously – is not understood at all by most of our academic pals. The introduction is an attempt to introduce them to the universe of discourse in which the novel moves ... I want your work to be taken seriously and approached in the right key. The warmth and art of the story will elude no one.72

Ross’s letter to Callaghan makes it clear that through his NCL introduction, Ross wished not only to inform students but to persuade fellow critics about the meaning of the work and the worth of its author. Ross’s interaction with Callaghan over the introduction to Such Is My Beloved was anomalous during the first ten to fifteen years of the NCL’s existence. Then, in the early 1970s, established M&S authors began to receive copies of NCL introductions prior to publication, possibly due to a change of editorial personnel at the firm. Ross was horrified when he learned of the practice, since he felt it could inhibit the critical commentary of those commissioned to write the introductions. ‘I pick people who are favourably disposed to the particular book and writer but have always guaranteed freedom from that point on,’ Ross explained to

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McClelland in January 1973. ‘I fear that if news got around that our introductions were “vetted” by the authors,’ he added, ‘our credibility would dwindle.’73 McClelland did not view the situation in so grave a light, but acknowledged Ross’s concern. Noting he may have been inadvertently responsible for the change in practice, the publisher indicated he had no firm view to offer at that time. Nonetheless, McClelland felt that some benefit could be derived from authors previewing introductions, specifically that errors of fact could be caught and corrected prior to publication. While he conceded that the practice could risk the critical freedom of introducers, he felt that threat could be neutralized by making it clear to authors that changes other than to errors of fact would be left to the discretion of the introducer and the general editor.74 The publisher ultimately acceded to Ross’s position, but revised his own point of view in the summer of 1974 when he learned from a close friend of Gabrielle Roy that the author was upset with Mary Jane Edwards’s introduction to The Hidden Mountain, a title which had been issued in the NCL earlier in the year. McClelland read the introduction and then wrote Roy to assure her that it would be amended or dropped prior to the book’s next printing.75 In communicating his wishes to Ross, McClelland stated that he had never intervened in this area in the past since he had always believed that the introductions were strictly the general editor’s business. In the case of Edwards’s introduction, however, McClelland wished to see a change. ‘I suggest this is not because Gabrielle is an old and dear friend,’ he wrote, ‘but because the principle is wrong. I am unalterably opposed to interference with free critical opinion of our books. I am also opposed as a publisher to limiting the potential of a major work with a substantially unfavourable critical introduction. It makes no publishing sense.’76 In his response to McClelland, Ross endeavoured to respect the concerns of all parties. The Edwards introduction would be dropped, he agreed, and he himself would write a new one. At the same time, Ross defended Edwards’s citation of earlier criticism in her essay, though he conceded she perhaps could have dealt with it more positively. ‘I have always assured my “introducers” that they are free to raise critical questions and to avoid hagiography!’ he explained, adding that it was a ‘liberty’ he had attempted

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to keep ‘under control by selecting people I know to be sympathetic to the writer concerned,’ an approach he had followed when he commissioned Edwards. Nonetheless, he would be more vigilant in future, he assured the publisher. ‘It would not do to emasculate the essays. But I shall insist that critical points whenever made are made in such a way that the author is not offended. We have, on the whole, managed to do this ...’ McClelland’s reply acknowledged both the ground yielded by Ross and the general editor’s scholarly concern for the critical freedom of his introducers; he agreed that the introductions had to have critical weight and that their track record, on the whole, had been good.77 In its entirety, this exchange is interesting for what it reveals about the accountability each felt to authors and introducers respectively. After the situation with Roy was resolved, the publisher proceeded with greater caution with respect to the introductions, directing the in-house editor to be on the lookout for anything that might cause serious distress to an author.78 The firm also reverted to the practice of showing authors copies of the introductions prior to publication. VII Malcolm Ross’s position as general editor placed him at the centre of the title selection process, a location that allowed him to serve as a liaison between the NCL’s publisher and the academic community that represented such a significant market for the series. In his twenty-five-odd years of work on the series, Ross considered more than 700 titles or title proposals, confirmed the issue of over 180 books in discussion with M&S, and supervised the introductions to about 160 volumes in the Main and Original lines. His consultative approach in relation to title suggestions and his recruitment of introducers from the professorial ranks ensured a participatory interest on the part of Canadian literary academics in the success of the series. Although he clearly had a working definition of an NCL title and entered into the venture with an ambition to produce a series that would be geographically and historically representative, Ross welcomed – and in his early years as general editor certainly needed – the input of colleagues to aid in the realization of his vision. At the same time, his position as general editor quickly familiarized him with the practical

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realities of Canadian publishing and the necessity of compromise in his negotiations with McClelland and his staff. During an interview in 1973, Ross commented that the NCL was not yet ‘as satisfactory’ as he would like. ‘The idea [of the NCL],’ he explained, ‘was to get a balance between early, middle and late writing, representing the various periods in the growth of Canadian literature in order to give a reasonable representation of major writers and of the various literary kinds – fiction, poetry, theatre, and so on ... The balance at the moment is not yet wholly satisfactory. One thing to remember, of course, is that it’s been done by a commercial firm without subsidy and it was always important to be able to make at least a margin of profit so that the series could continue.’79 Limitations set on Ross’s vision, of course, arose out of the refusal of outside publishers to allow access to certain titles, as well as the constraints imposed on the series by M&S.80 However, had profit been the primary god to which McClelland bowed, it is unlikely that he would have taken on the series at all. Indeed, the archival record indicates that the publisher sanctioned the inclusion of quite a number of titles that seemed to him to lack commercial viability or qualitative weight because Ross favoured their reprinting on historical grounds, or because the general editor argued that their compilation and publication would help to address a gap in the available literature. In terms of the general breadth of the series’ coverage, Ross was most notably thwarted in the case of plays, which never achieved any kind of recognizable standing in the series, and in a wider representation of FrenchCanadian works, in part because McClelland was, in general, opposed to undertaking original translations for the series. In his interview of early 1973, just on the cusp of the more intense commercial pressures M&S would bring to bear on the series through the mid-1970s, Ross still felt capable of envisioning a near future in which prevailing imbalances within the series had the potential to be ‘redressed.’ ‘We’re now going to move back and pick up more of the 19th and early 20th century books in the next two or three years,’ he told his interviewers. ‘And, I think, by the time we’ve got up to 150 titles, the plan will have worked out pretty well.’81 While something less than a complete realization of his ambition for the NCL came to pass by the time of his

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retirement in 1978, Ross had nonetheless by then accomplished a great deal toward ‘get[ting] together a library, and hold[ing] together as a library, books which would otherwise have disappeared or got beyond the reach of students.’82

5 On the Matter of the Source Text

In 1968, American textual critic Fredson Bowers drew attention to the difference between practical and scholarly editions. ‘The best modern practical editions,’ he explained, ‘present to a broad audience as sound a text ... as is consistent with information that may be procurable through normal scholarly channels and thus without more special research than is economically feasible.’ A definitive edition, on the other hand, represents ‘a unique creation of scholarship in which, ideally, the profit motive does not enter, at least as a governing consideration affecting principle and method.’ Indeed, definitive (or scholarly) editions often require such extensive research that they take years, and substantial funding, to complete. Bowers privileged the definitive edition over the practical and believed that the only ‘hope of scholarly reward’ attached to preparing a volume of the latter category ‘must be that the practical text has indeed been made good enough so that it offers a significant contribution to student welfare.’1 Bowers would have categorized the New Canadian Library titles issued between 1958 and 1978 as practical texts. All were produced within a short time frame, often in less than a year. Only about 20 per cent of the titles issued in the Main and Original lines were subject to scholarly intervention beyond the introductions commissioned to accompany them. For Malcolm Ross, and other Canadian literary specialists of his generation, the most pressing concern in the 1950s and 1960s was getting Canadian works back into print in an inexpensive and functional format suitable for classroom use. The series as a whole was envisioned by Ross as a ‘contribution to student welfare,’ and he was far from

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the only mid-century advocate of Canadian literary studies to see it in that light. ‘I had always been committed to the principle that students of literature must read literary works,’ wrote Carl Klinck in his memoirs, ‘but as a teacher of Canadian literature I was frequently confronted with the fact that copies of required books were simply unavailable ... It became part of my program, therefore, to use every means to bring books and students together. The New Canadian Library series ... was a notable aid to all of us. It was my duty and pleasure to respond to requests for the editing [of several titles] and the writing of introductions.’2 The editorial practices that underpinned the production of NCL volumes – as well as quality paperback reprints sold by McClelland and Stewart’s Canadian competitors – went largely unremarked from the late 1950s through the early 1970s. That situation changed dramatically over the course of the 1970s as Canadian literary studies further consolidated its position within the academy, and the number of individuals devoted to the field increased. By the mid-1970s, the reliability of all Canadian literary reprints in circulation became an issue, and calls for full-scale endeavours of textual scholarship began to be voiced. At the National Conference on the State of Canadian Bibliography in 1974, former University of Toronto Press editor Francess G. Halpenny noted the lack of sustained bibliographical and textual scholarship underpinning existing reprints of Canadian literature.3 Rare books librarian Richard Landon, in turn, identified the need for more Canadian bibliographic activity, indicating that the ‘ultimate goal must be the production of scholarly editions of major Canadian writers, properly edited, which will establish the texts as nearly as possible as the author wrote them.’4 By 1976 members of the Association for Canadian and Quebec Literatures, too, were advocating the idea of scholarly editions.5 A major outcome of this concern came about in 1979, when the Centre for Editing Early Canadian Texts (CEECT) was established at Carleton University under the direction of Mary Jane Edwards. Halpenny qualified her criticism of mid-century reprints by reflecting on the context in which they were produced. As she phrased it at a prior conference in 1972, the task of the early critics was ‘to assert and reveal the literary integrity and inspiration of the whole corpus.’6 Members of the generation of Canadian

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literary specialists who found their professional feet in the 1970s were not always so willing to recognize the conditions under which their scholarly forebears had worked. Consequently, despite the status of NCL titles as practical texts and despite the modesty of their aim, the series received some harsh criticism about the editorial treatment of texts, most particularly the abridgement of a number of nineteenth-century titles. When he reflected on this phenomenon in his memoirs, Klinck noted that, when the NCL began, ‘no decision was made ... to regard these books as definitive scholarly texts. If they were so regarded,’ he explained, ‘the lack of rival editions laid this higher, but unannounced, value upon them.’7 Surviving archival materials reveal a great deal about the editorial practices that prevailed in the production of individual NCL titles during the Ross-McClelland era. The method of selecting and emending source texts was, in fact, subject to some variation. Individuals with the potential to make an impact on the final texts included in-house editors and proofreaders, the publisher, the general editor, introducers, and authors. As a corpus, the 164 titles that made up the Main and Original lines of the series between 1958 and 1978 break down into five distinct groups, each of which bears separate consideration: first, titles reprinted in their full length, and edited by McClelland and Stewart’s in-house editors and proofreaders; second, original collections of Canadian literary materials; third, pre-1900 prose titles reprinted in their full length, but subject to editorial intervention by a scholar, as well as internal editors and proofreaders; fourth, pre-1900 prose titles that were abridged; and fifth, works that underwent authorial revision. I The various individuals at McClelland and Stewart who served as the NCL’s in-house editor were the ones responsible for choosing and emending the majority of the texts on which NCL editions were based. Once a title was selected for publication, it was typically the duty of the in-house editor to acquire a copy of the book that would serve as the basis for the NCL edition. Reading and correcting the selected text, as well as reviewing the proofs of the NCL edition of the title, also fell to the in-house editor (or

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delegate), a de facto policy that was in place from the outset but which was formalized in the editorial guidelines of 1972.8 The primary motivation behind the in-house editor’s examination of the text was the correction of typographical errors and the imposition of house style. Neither the general editor nor the introducers were expected to undertake these tasks, which were largely perceived as proofreading. Once a title reached the proof stage, in most instances the publisher only wished Ross and the introducer to examine, and to correct, errors in the introduction. Under this protocol, the in-house editor nonetheless welcomed information about errors present in a text that may have been noted in passing by the general editor or the introducer. For example, Glen Shortliffe, the scholar who introduced Roger Lemelin’s The Town Below, alerted Malcolm Ross to ‘lapses in idiom and mistaken translations of particular words’ in Samuel Putnam’s English translation of the novel, the source text for the NCL edition. Shortliffe subsequently identified a series of small corrections, and the in-house editor ensured they were made.9 In the early 1960s, it was suggested that the in-house editor might also contact authors or original publishers to inquire about known errors before an NCL volume went to press.10 Such action occurred in the case of some titles, but it is not evident that it was a consistently applied policy. Certainly, no mention of this procedure was outlined in the editorial guidelines of 1972. II Original collections, a category that included short stories, essays, and poetry, appeared in both the Main and Original series. Such titles represented the most common reason for involving an outside party in editorial work on an NCL volume. In general, the introducers of these volumes, some of whom had proposed the collection in the first place, took on the task of selecting the literary or critical content. While they consulted with Ross and McClelland to varying degrees during the selection process, these individuals held primary editorial authority over content. Restrictions imposed by the general editor and publisher typically related to the availability of reprint rights and their attendant costs, as well as limitations on length. For example, when approached to compile a collection of Charles G.D. Roberts’s

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stories, Alec Lucas, a professor at McGill, was invited to make his selection from books on which M&S held an option. Upon learning of Lucas’s choices, Ross examined the selection and deemed it to be ‘excellent,’ after which The Last Barrier and Other Stories went into production.11 In the case of Duncan Campbell Scott’s In the Village of Viger and Other Stories, Stan Dragland, a professor at the University of Western Ontario, was asked by Ross simply to ‘draw on the best stories,’ ‘aim at both variety and balance,’ and stay within 192 printed pages, since only a small market for the book was anticipated. It was Dragland who decided to use all of the original Viger stories, with a further six stories, added to round out the volume.12 Page limitations and permissions costs could make an impact on content, and occasions did arise when general editor and publisher intervened in a volume editor’s textual choices. Selectivity was a particular challenge for those compiling essay collections. Ross and McClelland’s interventions were most overt in relation to the two early essay collections edited by poet and professor A.J.M. Smith, Masks of Fiction and Masks of Poetry. Both titles were issued as NCL Originals. Smith was initially asked to compile a single volume of critical essays by Canadians, but both Ross and McClelland felt misgivings when they reviewed Smith’s draft table of contents and realized it included criticism not focused on Canadian literature. ‘Do we want the book to tie in mainly with Canadian literary studies, or do we want a more general attempt to represent the development of criticism in Canada?’ was their overriding editorial question.13 Ross discussed the situation with Smith, who then narrowed his focus to essays on Canadian literature. McClelland found the new plan fine editorially, but still had economic concerns. He counter-proposed that, with minor adjustments, the first two sections of the projected title could constitute a volume on its own, one dealing solely with prose, while the third section could form a second volume, with Canadian poetry as its focus. ‘Fortunately, the division into two volumes seems logical enough, although this is obviously not our real reason,’ McClelland explained to Ross. ‘... If we do the book as presently planned it will comprise about 84,000 words which, as you know, is longish for the New Canadian Library format. Quite apart from that,’ he added, ‘we have a considerable permission fee problem ... it would make a lot of sense if this amount could be cut in half and applied to two

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volumes.’ Smith found the change of plan acceptable if the prose volume could be augmented by several essays in order to achieve ‘completeness, usefulness, and structural unity and balance.’14 McClelland and Ross agreed. The publisher and general editor’s dual concern for a Canadian focus and financial constraint similarly led to the exclusion of essays on American literary criticism from E.K. Brown’s Responses and Evaluations, although the volume’s introducer and editor, David Staines, was the first to express doubts about including the American material.15 The most remarkable negotiation over volume length and content occurred in relation to W.H. Drummond’s Habitant Poems. Its editor, Arthur L. Phelps, proved highly selective. Asked to choose a sufficient number of poems to fill 140 printed pages in the NCL format, Phelps submitted an outline of only 22 poems that would fill no more than 50 pages at 30 lines per page. McClelland and the series’ in-house editor, Claire Pratt, concurred that the selection would have to be expanded and set 108 pages of poetry as the absolute minimum for the volume.16 Phelps had pondered ‘how to get at an essence’ of Drummond and ‘frame it’ properly before he made his selection. Consequently, although he was amenable to adjustments in how he had grouped the poems, he strenuously resisted the idea of expansion. ‘Dammit,’ he wrote Pratt, ‘– we’re going to drown Drummond again in his own plethora. How are we going to double? ... Titillate the taste with quality, don’t drown it in mediocrity. Drummond recalled for the general public happily can be managed within the scope of about 20 pieces. Draw ’em up – tempt the eye of the reader with ’em, by God you’ve done Drummond a good turn. Print too much of him and you have sunk him ...!’17 Taken aback by this impassioned response, McClelland and Pratt rethought their position. ‘You sounded so distressed,’ Pratt told Phelps, ‘that we were persuaded to agree with you. We shall keep the script down to the 22 poems of your choice and spread them out and augment them with indexes etc. in order to make a book of 128 pages.’18 Pratt did just that, but even with all her diligent padding, the volume weighed in at only 110 pages. The series of poetry anthologies issued within the NCL’s Original line deserve to be treated collectively, for over time they took on a sub-series designation of ‘Poets of Canada,’ while the editorial approach adopted by Malcolm Ross for the first volume, Poets of the Confederation, made an impact on subsequent titles. From

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the time he generated the first list of potential NCL titles in the mid-1950s, Ross championed an anthology of nineteenth-century Canadian poetry. He envisioned a volume that would emphasize Bliss Carman, Charles G.D. Roberts, Archibald Lampman, and Duncan Campbell Scott, poets he believed had been inadequately represented in earlier anthologies. However, he also speculated about including a smaller sampling of poetry by Marjorie Pickthall, Francis Sherman, Theodore Goodridge Roberts, Isabella Valancy Crawford, George Frederick Cameron, and William Wilfred Campbell.19 Concerns over the cost of permissions and the length of the volume likely factored into Ross’s final determination to include only the first four poets in the anthology. McClelland was not averse to an anthology that included all ten poets, but he had warned Ross that Ryerson Press controlled the rights to both Roberts’s, as well as Sherman and Campbell. The publisher had also stated a preference for a book that did not exceed 224 pages if Ross could ‘still do a good job and give a good coverage.’20 In the end, the four poets Ross did choose to emphasize received about 25 to 35 dedicated pages in the anthology, which ran to 144 pages in length. Ross derived his text for Poets of the Confederation from five earlier anthologies of the poets’ work, including Sir Charles G.D. Roberts: Selected Poems (1955), edited by Desmond Pacey, and The Selected Poems of Bliss Carman (1954), edited by Lorne Pierce.21 In these earlier two collections, certain lines of poetry had been dropped or deliberately omitted. Ross was certainly aware of Pierce’s abridgement of a number of Carman’s poems, but he opted to reproduce those versions for two reasons: first, he could see Pierce’s rationale for excision (a lack of ‘structural control’ in the longer poems); and, second, by reprinting some poems abridged, he was able to present a ‘greater range of [Carman’s] tone’ through more examples of the poet’s work.22 What troubled Ross more during Poets of the Confederation’s initial compilation was correcting bibliographical errors found in the source texts, particularly the Pierce edition of Carman’s poetry.23 In the early 1970s, after the abridged poems present in Poets of the Confederation became a point of criticism, Ross successfully petitioned M&S for a revised edition to correct the situation.24 John Robert Sorfleet’s condemnation in 1972 of the abridged poems was likely the primary catalyst. In the new edition, Ross inserted dropped lines

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from the Roberts poems and replaced most of the abridged Carman poems with other, complete poems from the poet’s oeuvre.25 Ross’s decision to provide in Poets of the Confederation a substantial amount of material on a limited number of poets influenced the structure of other titles included in the Poets of Canada subseries. In preparing Poetry of Midcentury, 1940–1960 and Poets between the Wars, Milton Wilson recalled receiving from Ross ‘no special advice ... either as to approach or as to inclusions,’ but the editor did look to Poets of the Confederation as a model. Emulating the structure of the earlier volume appealed to Wilson, for ‘the idea of avoiding the conventional anthology pattern of including many poets with few poems by each and instead giving each poet a full representation struck me as especially needed and especially fresh as an approach to the more recent and more cluttered poetic scene.’26 In turn, Eli Mandel’s introduction to Poets of Contemporary Canada 1960–1970 stated the volume had followed its ‘predecessors in the principles of selection, limiting itself to the representation of a few poets in depth.’27 While Wilson and Mandel embraced the strategy of representing a limited number of poets in Poetry of Midcentury and Poets of Contemporary Canada, both still included more poets than Ross.28 Wilson focused on poets who, with one notable exception, had matured between 1940 and 1960. He gave greater space to five (Margaret Avison, Earle Birney, Irving Layton, James Reaney, and Raymond Souster) whose work first appeared in the 1940s and continued to be published throughout the 1950s. Another five (Leonard Cohen, Jay Macpherson, Kenneth McRobbie, Alden Nowlan, and P.K. Page) whose publication was largely confined to one of those decades received fewer pages.29 Including ten poets in Poetry of Midcentury meant more time, effort, and expense for McClelland vis-à-vis permissions, but the publisher encouraged a greater representation of poets for this volume, convinced that it was unfair to reprint too large a number of poems from just a few poets of this period when their work was ‘already readily available to students in fairly inexpensive editions,’ ones which provided the poets with better remuneration.30 Reviewer Robert Weaver considered Poetry of Midcentury ‘an admirable anthology in most respects’ but found the inclusion of McRobbie eccentric, and the absence of A.J.M. Smith, F.R. Scott, and A.M. Klein problematic.31 In his introduction, Wilson had

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rationalized the omission of these three poets, claiming they had ‘first made their mark in the twenties and belong in an anthology of an earlier poetic generation.’32 Wilson made good on that assertion when he compiled Poets between the Wars, which featured the three aforementioned poets as well as Dorothy Livesay and E.J. Pratt. Perhaps in response to the earlier criticism, he did not limit his selection to poems produced during those years, claiming that the volume was a ‘generation anthology’ rather than a ‘period anthology.’33 When Weaver assessed this second volume, the reviewer regretted the absence of W.W.E. Ross and Raymond Knister but, nonetheless, asserted that the volume’s focus on a limited number of poets had ‘some great advantages in an anthology,’ primary among them significant space for Pratt, ‘that expansive narrative poet who is the despair of editors with limited space.’34 When Mandel compiled Poets of Contemporary Canada, he emulated Wilson’s Poetry of Midcentury by opting for ten poets whose earliest publications largely occurred between the volume’s terminal dates (1960–70). Mandel avoided going over ground already covered by Wilson’s volume and devoted roughly the same amount of space to each poet. Of his ten, only Cohen had appeared in a previous ‘Poets of Canada’ anthology, a decision the editor supported with the assertion that ‘in Leonard Cohen’s work the sensibility of the sixties finds not only its most elegant but its most representative voice.’35 Mandel found developing an editorial rationale that suited the volume’s terminal dates, while respecting the coverage of the earlier anthologies, no simple task. The critic settled readily on Milton Acorn, Margaret Atwood, George Bowering, Gwendolyn MacEwen, and Al Purdy. ‘Acorn and Purdy, though writing in the fifties, really established themselves in the sixties’ and remained ‘influential, admired, active writers’ in the seventies, Mandel explained to Ross. Atwood was an exciting new and accomplished poet. Bowering and MacEwen, in turn, were award-winning writers exhibiting ‘continuing development.’ In determining the remaining poets, Mandel considered Dennis Lee, Joan Finnigan, bp Nichol, Lionel Kearns, Doug Jones, Victor Coleman, Phyllis Webb, and Miriam Waddington, but in the end, he selected John Newlove for the ‘assurance and proficiency of Black Night Window and his poem “Pride,”’ Joe Rosenblatt and Michael Ondaatje for their range and ‘technical

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experimentation,’ and bill bissett because he was ‘the most neglected poet on the scene – scarcely noticed “officially,” despite four Canada Council awards.’36 Editors of original collections put significant thought into their selections, but their efforts did not typically extend to a careful review of multiple versions of texts. A notable exception was David Sinclair, who edited another ‘Poets of Canada’ volume, Nineteenth-Century Narrative Poems, which reprinted long poems by Isabella Valancy Crawford, Oliver Goldsmith, Joseph Howe, William Kirby, Alexander McLachlan, and Charles Sangster. After compiling the manuscript, Sinclair told Ross that ‘these poems posed more textual problems than the casual observer might suspect.’37 A brief comment in his introduction, as well as his notes on each text, provide a sense of Sinclair’s editorial effort. In his notes, the editor offered information about variant versions, indicated the source texts he had selected, and provided a rationale for emendations and corrections that were made to them. Influenced by the touchstone of ‘authorial intention’ that animated the textual critical practices of his day, Sinclair sought out versions of the poems that were published during their authors’ lifetimes. In the case of Sangster’s ‘The St. Lawrence and the Saguenay,’ Sinclair eschewed two reprints of the poem found in anthologies, noting that their editors had ‘tended to make slight changes in the excerpts they presented,’ and instead took as his base text the initial 1856 version, reprinting it with ‘as few changes as possible in Sangster’s inconsistent use of capitals, and with silent correction of some place names.’38 Sinclair extended his greatest editorial effort toward Crawford’s ‘Malcolm’s Katie,’ producing what he described as ‘a new edition ... based on the text of the poem which appeared during the author’s lifetime.’39 Despite all his editorial efforts, Sinclair’s volume was barely reviewed at the time of publication. Sinclair was further discouraged when University of Toronto Press issued a facsimile edition of Crawford’s Collected Poems, and thus perpetuated dubious editorial interventions made by the volume’s original editor, John W. Garvin. ‘I sometimes wish I’d simply put out facsimile copies of all those things instead of laboriously editing them,’ Sinclair confided to a colleague in 1973. ‘Does anyone know I solved cruces in MK ...? Everyone will no doubt go on quoting the Garvin text, now more ready-to-hand from the U of T reprint.’40 Fifteen years

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later, I.S. MacLaren acknowledged Sinclair’s treatment of all the poems, noting his ‘very impressive uniform editorial policy of printing the earliest reliable edition of each poem,’ and citing D.M.R. Bentley’s statement that Sinclair’s version of ‘Malcolm’s Katie’ represented an ‘‘‘honourable exception” in a long line of corrupt and incorrect editions.’41 In preparing the volume, Sinclair’s only obvious divergence from prevailing textual critical practice was to include an extract of Kirby’s ‘The U.E.: A Tale of Upper Canada,’ which represented about a quarter of the length of the original long poem. Limitations of space underpinned this decision to abridge, and Sinclair was careful to insert ellipses into the text to indicate where excisions had occurred.42 III David Sinclair was exceptional for the rigour with which he applied textual critical principles in the preparation of an NCL volume. Scholarly intervention of various kinds also made an impact on other pre-1900 works reprinted in NCL editions. Such intervention was evident in several ways: first, in a concern for the source text that was to be used for the reprint; second, in an interest in augmenting the selected text with other textual material strongly related to it; or, third, in a preference for including some scholarly apparatus beyond the standard introduction to situate the title historically, or otherwise facilitate its comprehension by present-day readers. Clara Thomas, for example, specifically recommended Charles G.D. Roberts’s translation of Philippe-Joseph Aubert de Gaspé’s Les Anciens Canadiens and championed, with Anna Porter’s staunch support, the inclusion of the French notes of Aubert de Gaspé’s original work, the only material in French to appear in an NCL volume. She was dismayed, however, when the published work was issued with the English title, Canadians of Old; worse, Roberts’s name appeared on the cover, making it look as if he, rather than Aubert de Gaspé, was the author.43 Further pre-1900 titles of particular note for their editorial treatment were Thomas Chandler Haliburton’s The Clockmaker, Thomas McCulloch’s The Stepsure Letters, and Frances Brooke’s The History of Emily Montague. Robert McDougall put a great deal of effort into choosing and emending the base text from which the NCL edition of The Clockmaker was produced. Approached initially for his opinion of a pre-

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existing Haliburton compilation, McDougall responded that he found it ‘useless’ for teaching and recommended a new collection. After some research, McDougall decided a reprint of the first series of The Clockmaker would be best since in his view it represented Haliburton’s most accomplished and appealing work.44 To establish the base text for the volume, McDougall compared several different editions before settling on the American Riverside Classics edition of 1871, which he described as ‘the most satisfactory text available, from the point of view of the modern reader.’ He conceded that Richard Bentley’s second English edition of 1837, which unlike the Riverside edition was issued during the author’s lifetime, was ‘about as close as one can come to Haliburton himself.’ However, McDougall found the American text ‘superior’ on grounds of paragraphing of speeches, punctuation, and spelling. Even so, he favoured modifying the base text in several ways: by replacing American spellings with British; by incorporating some of the italicization that appeared in the Bentley edition; by including Sam Slick’s letter to Joseph Howe; and by substituting the advertisement in the American text with the ‘original, “Advertisment,” dated Halifax, December, 1836.’45 Ross agreed to these editorial interventions, and McDougall subsequently submitted his marked-up text to Claire Pratt, who in turn worked ‘through it for inconsistencies and minor points in style without, of course, altering the text,’ and then sent it on for typesetting.46 After he examined the resultant proofs, McDougall responded with two pages of explanations and/or corrections for the printer, but assured Pratt that ‘[o]n the whole the text seems to me a good one, and I like very much the editorial approach you have adopted.’ At McDougall’s request, the full original title – The Clockmaker or, The Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick, of Slickville (First Series) – appeared on the title page (but not the cover) of the book, and a ‘note on the text’ was included on the copyright page.47 While he suggested the note read, ‘This reprint of The Clockmaker is based on the American edition of the First Series published by Houghton, Mifflin and Company in 1871,’ what ultimately appeared was simultaneously more informative yet misleading: ‘The source for this reprint is the edition published under the Riverside Classics by Houghton, Mifflin and Company of Boston in 1871. The text was chosen by virtue of its clarity in paragraphing, punctuation, and other points in style.’48

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The search for a base text for Thomas McCulloch’s The Stepsure Letters was much less arduous, but additional textual material and scholarly apparatus were similarly added. This NCL volume was atypical since it involved three outside academics, all of whom were affiliated with the University of Toronto: philosopher John Irving, librarian and poet Douglas Lochhead, and prominent literary critic Northrop Frye. Irving initiated the NCL edition in 1959 after he came across the Blackadar edition of 1862, which had collected and reprinted as Letters of Mephibosheth Stepsure the first series of sketches issued in the Acadian Recorder during 1821–2.49 Irving had consulted Frye, who seconded the idea of an NCL reprint. In fact, Frye turned down an offer to write an NCL introduction to a Frederick Philip Grove novel but was enthusiastic about producing one for The Stepsure Letters, stating he would ‘prefer to write on Canadian Humour than Canadian Humourlessness.’50 Since Irving considered the work a ‘discovery’ that revealed ‘who inspired Haliburton,’51 he recommended that the letters be issued with more supporting apparatus than the standard introduction. Irving nominated himself to write a biographical sketch, and Lochhead to provide a bibliographical note.52 While the volume was being put together, Lochhead found a further run of six Stepsure letters in the Acadian Recorder of 1823. These responded to criticism that had been provoked by the original series. In consultation with another M&S editor, Pratt made a selection from this new material and added it to the manuscript of the NCL edition, along with a letter from one of the major critics, ‘Censor.’53 The letters reprinted from the Blackadar text were not checked against the original series of letters from the Recorder, however, since Lochhead believed that the book’s publisher had reprinted all of the first series, something that in later years was discovered to be incorrect.54 The NCL edition itself suffered a crisis at the proof stage because the editor assigned by Pratt to go over the volume prior to typesetting took ‘a little more on herself in making editorial changes than she should have done.’ According to Lochhead, this editor ‘modernized all the spelling, thus doing away, in other words, with the dialect which forms a part of the letters,’ and in the process taking ‘the whole steam and texture out of the series.’ To rectify the situation, Pratt corrected the proofs from the Blackadar edition, convinced that ‘in a book of

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this nature it is most important to adhere to the source.’55 Concerns about saleability and ease of pronunciation for booksellers and readers led M&S to simplify the title to The Stepsure Letters, an editorial intervention sanctioned by all of the academics involved with the book.56 More complex editorial intervention marked the production of the NCL edition of Brooke’s The History of Emily Montague. In the case of this work, volume editor Carl Klinck did not suggest that extra material be added to the central text; however, he did participate in the selection and emendation of the base text. For practical reasons, Klinck adopted the 1931 Graphic edition of the novel as his physical working text, but from the outset he regarded the 1784 Dodsley edition, issued during the author’s lifetime and available in his own university library, as ‘the authoritative text’ on which he would base the NCL volume. For the NCL edition, Klinck also recommended an accompanying scholarly apparatus of notes, a chronology, and a bibliography – ‘all designed to give the reader useful data without intruding too much upon the space and style’ of his critical introduction. McClelland had no objection to a short bibliography but discouraged the idea of notes, convinced they would be intrusive.57 Klinck himself later suggested dropping the chronology. In addition to Klinck’s introduction, the volume that eventuated would include only a brief bibliography and a substantial note on the text. The preparation of the NCL text of Emily Montague proved a painstaking task that engaged the energies of both Klinck and Pratt. Klinck’s initial comparison of the Graphic and Dodsley texts revealed few obvious discrepancies. However, he did identify eleven places in the text that he felt mid-twentieth-century readers might find objectionable, although he qualified this concern by noting that he had ‘asked the reader for tolerance’ in his introduction, and had himself ‘lived with the passages long enough to think that they are consistent with everything else and therefore printable.’ Pratt duly examined the passages in question, but found no particular offence and felt there was no need to intervene. In her view, the book reflected ‘the style and attitude of a writer in that period,’ and she was not inclined ‘to go into censorship.’58 Pratt felt far more concern for inconsistencies she encountered in the Graphic edition of the text. Consequently, she advocated

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that she and Klinck establish an editorial policy on how it would be emended for the printer. Klinck acknowledged that an editorial policy would be wise, and together they agreed to retain archaic spellings, add French accents, favour British spellings over American, and be consistent about the presence or absence of hyphens in particular words that could be spelt either way (e.g., to-morrow/tomorrow).59 With this policy established, Pratt proceeded to emend the Graphic text, which she then sent to Klinck for examination, explaining in her accompanying letter that she had ‘come up against many peculiarities’ that she hoped he would be able to resolve when he consulted the Dodsley edition.60 In the end, Klinck compared the emended text with the 1784 Dodsley edition, as well as the original issued by the same publisher in 1769.61 He subsequently sent Pratt a list of corrections based on this comparison, including some reversions that went against the editorial guidelines they had initially established. For example, he recommended that the letter u should be removed from words like ‘honor’ and ‘color’ as ‘these had no part in the original.’ In addition, he felt Pratt ‘should not be too eager to insert capital letters to begin more or less broken sentences after interrogation and exclamation marks (? !),’ for he believed ‘there was often method in Mrs. Brooke’s apparent carelessness in these matters – especially since she was reproducing the freedom of personal letter-writing.’ ‘Similarly, although the [comma, colon, and semi-colon are] not used strictly according to our rules,’ he added, ‘I do think that certain conventions were fairly standard and special uses were often significant for meaning.’62 Pratt apparently heeded Klinck’s concerns regarding capitalization and punctuation, but retained the added u in words like ‘colour.’ She consulted with Klinck again when the proofs arrived from the printer.63 The note on the text that appeared on the copyright page of the book went into some detail about their editorial interventions and concluded with the comment: ‘The flavour of the eighteenth century has been easily preserved in a text which required no modernization for the reader of our day.’64 IV Abridgement of pre-1900 prose titles is the editorial intervention for which the NCL of the Ross-McClelland era is most well known

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and most often criticized.65 Eight of the seventeen pre-1900 prose works issued in the Main series of the NCL were abridged: John Galt’s Bogle Corbet, Antoine Gérin-Lajoie’s Jean Rivard, Anna Brownell Jameson’s Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada, William Kirby’s The Golden Dog, Susanna Moodie’s Roughing It in the Bush, Gilbert Parker’s The Seats of the Mighty, John Richardson’s Wacousta, and Catharine Parr Traill’s The Backwoods of Canada. Moodie’s and Richardson’s books were abridged by Carl Klinck, Jameson’s and Traill’s by Clara Thomas, Kirby’s by Derek Crawley, and Parker’s and Galt’s by Elizabeth Waterston. Vida Bruce reduced the size of Gérin-Lajoie’s two-part novel when translating it for the NCL. Financial anxiety on the part of M&S was the compelling reason for these abridgements. The cost of producing lengthy titles was a serious concern for the firm by late 1961. Of the aforementioned titles, all but Traill’s book were of substantial size in their full length. Ross was never happy about abridging texts, but as general editor he was given the choice by M&S of issuing these works abridged or not at all.66 With the support of Klinck and R.E. Watters, Ross did, in fact, successfully resist M&S’s preference to reprint abridged editions, respectively, of Frances Brooke’s The History of Emily Montague and James De Mille’s A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder.67 In the case of Brooke’s work, McClelland remained convinced that the book could be ‘improved for the modern reader by some judicious cutting’ but yielded in the face of Klinck’s opposition and Ross’s own ‘uneasy feeling’ about abridgement.68 McClelland’s invocation of ‘the modern reader’ was interesting since it implied a secondary reason for abridgement beyond the primary one of expense. Several editors of abridged NCL editions similarly made reference in their introductions to modern readers or modern taste as part of their rationales for abridgement. In advocating an uncut version of Brooke’s eighteenth-century work, Klinck distinguished the book from a ‘padded nineteenth-century novel,’ for which ‘the cutting process might be easy and the results salutary.’69 This comment provides some insight into why Klinck subsequently agreed to abridge two other titles for the NCL when he so adamantly refused to consider it in the case of Emily Montague. In relation to McClelland, one could speculate that deference to modern taste served as a deterrent to abridging twentieth-century

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works. It is more likely, however, that he was less inclined to suggest cuts to titles whose authors were still living. Criticism of NCL abridgements has focused on the impact the practice makes on the ‘integrity of the author’s work.’70 W.H. New argued in 1972, for example, that abridgement risks ‘introducing new inaccuracies or distortions of style and intent.’71 Literary criticism based on abridged texts is thus built on shaky foundations. While certain scholars have gone so far as to identify specific cuts, and indicate interpretive gaffes that have arisen as a result of abridgement, the editorial practices and rationales pursued by those critics who did undertake NCL abridgements have been left largely unexplored. This disregard has obscured editorial objectives that were an integral part of the abridgement process for these individuals. Carl Klinck was the first scholar to abridge a nineteenth-century prose title for the NCL. The work in question was Moodie’s Roughing It in the Bush. Klinck began by making a careful survey of editions to determine differences among them. At the behest of the publisher, the 1923 M&S edition provided the physical working text, but Klinck emended it with reference to earlier editions of the book.72 During the initial stages of production, M&S made no request for abridgement, although Pratt’s and Ross’s review of the 1923 edition suggested that the illustrations, advertisement, and two introductions (they thought both were added after the original publication of 1852) present in that edition could be dropped.73 It was Klinck, unprompted, who suggested the first significant excisions. After his survey of editions, he proposed eliminating all the material supplied by J.W.D. Moodie (Susanna’s husband), which he considered ‘irrelevant and as detractions from Mrs. Moodie’s own central position in the various sketches.’ He was also ‘of two minds’ about retaining all the poems penned by Susanna. His research had revealed that more poems appeared in the 1852 edition than in the 1923 working text. ‘The 1852 edition clearly shows a desire to present, not only her prose sketches, but also her Canadian poems drawn from the pages of The Literary Garland,’ he explained to Claire Pratt. ‘The poems are earlier than the sketches and represent her development. Some of them were also very popular,’ he added. ‘If we leave them out, we leave out part of her and part of her Bush experience. On the other hand, many of these are very poor as poems.’74

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On the heels of receiving this letter from Klinck, M&S decided substantial abridgement of Roughing It in the Bush would be necessary for financial reasons. Hugh Kane, who by late 1961 was worried about heavy financial losses connected with lengthy NCL titles, recommended that Moodie’s work be cut by almost half.75 After receiving this news, Klinck decided that poems already excluded from the 1923 edition would remain so. Further abridgement, he determined, would be realized through the excision of more of Moodie’s poems, some of her sketches, and all remaining material in the 1923 edition written by her husband. Klinck also opted to use the subtitle ‘Forest Life in Canada,’ which had appeared in the 1871 edition, but chose the quotation from the title page of the 1852 edition, as well Moodie’s original introduction of that year.76 In his own introduction, Klinck provided a brief publishing history of the work in its British, American, and Canadian variations and ‘attempted to make a fairly natural apology for cutting down the text to the point required by the publishers.’ His introduction rationalized the cuts in terms of the expectations of a contemporary reading public and a ‘paperback era that calls for still smaller books, if they are to be read from cover to cover.’ He noted which of Moodie’s sketches had been omitted, and then added: ‘Care has been taken to maintain the balance of the original, and to enhance the unique effect by concentration.’77 Years later, Moodie specialist Michael Peterman asserted that Klinck’s abridgement, in fact, made a dramatic impact on ‘the balance of the original’ and substantially influenced the critical understanding of Moodie’s work throughout the 1970s and 1980s, since it was the abridged volume upon which most critics based their interpretations. In Peterman’s estimation, Klinck ‘was able to shape the book to meet his vision of it as a kind of “apprenticeship novel” in which the author “did not pour out her confessions” but rather “dramatized her vision of herself.”’78 When Klinck abridged Wacousta five years later, he exerted a similar level of editorial effort. As a novel, rather than a series of sketches interspersed with poems, Wacousta represented a trickier proposition for abridgement. On the other hand, more bibliographical information about the work did exist, and Klinck availed himself of this material when he researched the various editions of the title. He settled on the 1924 Musson edition as his base text after his investigations indicated it represented a

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complete version of the novel. Klinck’s formal proposal, which suggested excising about 24 per cent of the Musson edition, was accepted by Ross and Joyce Anne (‘Steve’) Rankin, who was by then serving as the in-house editor.79 After he finished marking up the Musson text for the printer, Klinck requested that a reader at M&S examine the abridged version to ensure it retained narrative sense, asked that the usual editorial reading of the printer’s copy be done on the Musson edition ‘to correct errors in spelling etc.,’ and indicated a willingness to check such errors against the original 1832 edition. When he began the process of cutting, Klinck considered Wacousta an ‘unnecessarily long book,’ but by the time he finished marking up the Musson text, he lamented the necessity of abridgement. ‘Shoot me if you will,’ he wrote Ross, ‘but my soul rebels at using a tomahawk and scalping knife on a lively fictional unit. Could you not afford to print the whole thing?’80 M&S, however, did not change its position. When he penned his introduction to Wacousta, Klinck chose to reiterate the idea of a shift in reading taste as a supporting argument for abridgement. ‘Omissions have been made chiefly where Richardson presented a major happening from several points of view,’ he explained: It was no doubt craftsmanship on his part, in keeping with popular taste of his time, to offer a scene of violence and then to add a reminiscent chapter exploiting, through emphasis upon some other characters, the heavy load of sentiment which the direct narrative could bear. His need for transitions, for rhythmic patterns of action, and for characterization of romantic types must be conceded. These aspects are indeed abundantly illustrated in what remains after one has cut out passages of prolonged anguish, especially the emotional ordeals of Charles De Haldimar and of the fainting heroines whom he resembles.81

A note on the text confined itself to stating: ‘A minimum of rewriting of transitions, always based on Richardson’s own words, has been introduced where portions of the story have been omitted in the interests of abridgement. Certain changes in paragraphing and punctuation,’ it clarified, ‘have also been made, but without alteration of the sense of the original.’82 Klinck’s

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additional editorial interventions included two pieces of scholarly apparatus: a chronology of Richardson’s life, and a brief reading list. The NCL abridgement of Wacousta was not, in fact, quite the one Klinck originally planned. After his marked-up text of the Musson edition arrived at M&S, it underwent significant changes. When Rankin examined Klinck’s excisions carefully, as he had requested, she noted difficulties in the continuity of the narrative, and sent him a list of ‘suggested restorations’ and ‘compensatory cuts’ that ran to three single-spaced, typed pages. These adjustments were approved by Klinck, a circumstance that identifies Rankin as another significant editorial hand in the abridgement of Wacousta. When Klinck later began to read the galleys of the volume, he ‘found it a hopeless task to reconcile [the] punctation [of the NCL edition] with that of the original,’ and hence the reference to changes in punctuation in the note on the text. A miscommunication between Klinck and the in-house editor also resulted in the retention of the sixth chapter of the Musson edition, something Klinck discovered only when he read the first fifty pages of the NCL galleys. M&S refused to cut this chapter so late in the production process, citing a tight schedule.83 To add insult to injury, ten years after the release of the NCL edition, Klinck learned that the Musson edition on which he based his abridgement was, in fact, an incomplete version of Richardson’s novel. This information came to light when Douglas Cronk undertook a textual critical analysis of multiple editions of Wacousta, and discovered the Musson edition represented an abridgement with a complex textual history. In Cronk’s estimation, the NCL edition ‘incorporates errors and alterations spanning five editions and drops over 40,000 words of the original text.’ Cronk also credited Klinck’s poor view of De Haldimar, which led the editor to excise certain passages dealing with him, to an earlier abridgement in which De Haldimar’s characterization had been severely undermined.84 The same level of documentation does not exist for NCL abridgements undertaken by Bruce, Crawley, Thomas, and Waterston. However, what is available reveals similar editorial preoccupations and practices. It is evident, for example, that Crawley, Thomas, and Waterston were told how much of the text to

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cut, but were otherwise given a free editorial hand in choosing their base texts and determining their excisions.85 It is also clear that Waterston, Bruce, and Thomas consulted more than one edition of the books they were editing before deciding on the base text from which to make their abridgements. For The Seats of the Mighty, Waterston selected the text in the collected edition of Parker’s work since she ‘believed that to be the author’s choice of edition.’86 Vida Bruce utilized two versions of Jean Rivard that had appeared during Gérin-Lajoie’s lifetime.87 She worked primarily from the original periodical versions of the novel, but during the course of abridging and translating Rivard’s two-part work, Bruce ‘eliminated many, but not all of the passages’ that Gérin-Lajoie had excised during his revision, ‘as well as other repetitive passages’ of her own choosing ‘to make the novel more readable.’ Bruce also augmented Gérin-Lajoie’s footnotes with some of her own and included an appendix that identified differences in the author’s first and second versions of the work.88 Thomas’s editorial practice diverged in her selection of base texts for Jameson’s Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada and Traill’s The Backwoods of Canada. In the case of Jameson’s work, Thomas used the 1839 Wiley and Putnam edition, which was issued during the author’s lifetime, as her base text and maintained the ‘spelling and usage’ found in it.89 For Traill’s work, however, the base text was the M&S edition of 1929, published some thirty years after the author’s death. The selection of this text was probably a matter of convenience for the publisher, who would have had a copy of this edition readily to hand. With the obvious exception of her excisions, Thomas requested the Traill text be set ‘as is’; however, further interventions were instigated by an M&S copy editor, who removed lengthy chapter titles and eliminated certain ‘excesses’ of punctuation.90 In later years, Thomas recalled that in abridging Traill’s and Jameson’s works she searched ‘for a narrative line ... I wanted to give readers “the story,”’ she explained. ‘So the extraneous things didn’t get [left] in.’91 In her introduction to Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada, Thomas contextualized her abridgement of Jamesons’s work in relation to prior abridgements. By emphasizing the ‘summer rambles’ portion of the narrative because of its revelation of Canadian life, she explained, she perpetuated an editorial approach adopted by her predecessors;

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however, she also diverged by exhibiting more concern for the work’s feminist aspects. By way of example, Thomas indicated that ‘certain ... passages considering the position of women in pioneer and in savage life have been included,’ and then added: ‘The “woman question” was one of the preoccupations of all of her writing and, reasonable, even conservative, as her remarks seem to us, this facet of Winter Studies and Summer Rambles drew more critical comment than did any other aspect of the work.’92 Watertson’s abridgement of Bogle Corbet similarly emphasized the Canadian portions of Galt’s novel. Like Thomas, she was careful in her introduction to explain her abridgement in terms of the complete work since she wished to make the point ‘that Galt had more than a Canadian story in mind when he created the whole of Bogle Corbet.’93 Waterston did speculate about including portions of the text from the first and second volumes of the novel, which were primarily set in Great Britain and the West Indies, but in the end she opted to reproduce only the Canadian sections of the three-volume work, most likely because of the Canadian emphasis of the NCL. Her decision to abridge in this manner has since been deemed sensible by several international critics.94 The NCL edition was constituted from the last nine and a half chapters of the second volume and the third volume of the full work.95 In their introductions, several of the editors identified a linear, fast-paced narrative, one more in keeping with the taste of ‘modern readers,’ as a guiding editorial principle behind their abridgements. Crawley, who was required to cut The Golden Dog almost in half, argued that ‘Kirby’s romance lends itself to cutting.’ ‘Often the author will spend whole chapters on details of feasts, social entertainments and the niceties of decorous conversation,’ he explained. ‘At times a character is brought in who has almost no relevance to the main story lines ... sticky love scenes between Amélie and Pierre and some scenes involving Angélique’s flirtations have been reduced or struck out. Where possible the historical details not directly related to characters and events in the story have been reduced.’96 Like the excisions Klinck made to Wacousta, Crawley’s cuts to The Golden Dog suggest an editorial concern for the central action of the plot and downplaying of the sentimental aspects of the genre of the historical romance. Waterston correspondingly streamlined The Seats of the

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Mighty. She noted in her introduction that Parker had fleshed out the historical event on which his story was based ‘into a form pleasing to his own times.’ ‘[I]n his enthusiasm,’ she explained, ‘he sometimes pushed the story beyond amplitude into flabbiness; the present edition has excised some gobbets of bathos–for example, reveries intoned to a bird in a cage.’97 Waterston did not explicitly invoke ‘the modern reader’ in her introduction, but she did refer to changes in taste. In an article published some years later, Waterston explained in greater detail that her reduction of ‘some twenty thousand words’ for the NCL edition was ‘not merely a response to the series format, but also a recognition that repetitive and sentimental passages had made it unpalatable to modern taste.’ She cautioned, however, that ‘excised elements remain important as indicators of Parker’s methods.’98 The overall impact of NCL abridgements upon Canadian literary criticism is a difficult thing to measure. Endnotes in articles about these abridged titles demonstrate a growing critical awareness through the 1970s and 1980s of how abridgements had the potential to make an impact on critical interpretation. Even so, some critics still preferred to use the NCL editions, suggesting that the perceived shortcomings of the abridged titles were a source of debate among the academic community of the day. John Moss, for example, felt his argument in ‘Canadian Frontiers: Sexuality and Violence from Richardson to Kroetsch’ (1973), for which he relied on Klinck’s edition of Wacousta, to be ‘fully corroborated’ by the 1832 London edition of Wacousta. David Stouck, in turn, preferred to reference the abridged NCL edition of Roughing It in the Bush for ‘“Secrets of the Prison House”: Mrs. Moodie and the Canadian Imagination’ (1974) because of ‘its availability to most readers.’99 Availability was certainly a key concern for those involved in abridging titles. When she reflected back on her editorial work on both Bogle Corbet and The Seats of the Mighty, Waterston recalled that the research she ‘did in connection with them was not bibliographical, but critical, an effort to place and evaluate the works in light of the authors’ full production and the times in which the books were published. On the whole,’ she stated in 1999, ‘ ... I am still very proud of the editions, as part of a series that permitted a great break-through in Canadian studies. When I first taught, from 1945 on, students had to use whatever books had survived in

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libraries. Most popular and well-loved books (like The Seats of the Mighty) had been read to pieces and discarded.’100 V In turning to twentieth-century works that were reprinted in the NCL, a new dynamic arises: certain volumes can lay claim to the status of authoritative texts since they were subject to intervention by their authors, or had authorially sanctioned changes made to them by editors. Such a claim is immediately evident for original collections such as The Poems of Al Purdy or George Woodcock’s Odysseus Ever Returning, where it was the author who selected the material that was reprinted. However, other forms of authorial intervention or sanction also marked the production history of NCL reprints issued during their authors’ lifetimes. Sometimes these modifcations were instigated by editors and, at other times, by authors. Changes proposed by editors included the deletion or modification of textual or visual materials. Hugh MacLennan was pleased that the publisher wished to omit from the NCL reprint the original introduction to Each Man’s Son. ‘It was put in at the request of [the American publisher] Little, Brown on the ground that nobody in the States had ever heard where or what Cape Breton is,’ MacLennan explained to Claire Pratt.101 Paul Hiebert was equally enthusiastic about dropping the ‘awful pictures’ from Sarah Binks, illustrations that had been produced by J.W. McLaren for the original edition. M&S suggested this excision after being tipped off that Hiebert disliked the illustrations. The publisher was not able, however, to fulfil a request from Hiebert to have Vesuvious’s speech set ‘in something resembling verse’ because typesetting had already been done.102 For a similar reason, Ethel Wilson did not manage to have the NCL reprint of Swamp Angel made from the American edition of her novel, which she preferred because it included two extra chapters. By the time Wilson contacted M&S with her request, the reprint based on the British/Canadian version was already through the press.103 However, this ambition would be realized in 1990, when a new NCL edition was issued after the relaunch of the series under David Staines’s general editorship. The texts of Sinclair Ross’s three NCL volumes were all subject

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to some revision. During the preparation of As for Me and My House, Pratt wrote the author to say that while reviewing the work for the printer she had found ‘a few spots in which ... there might be some ambiguity’ and proposed a number of ‘minor changes.’ Her suggestions focused on insertion, deletion, or changes in prepositions and conjunctions, but she also identified one sentence where she felt greater clarity could be achieved by modifying its structure.104 The author agreed to some of Pratt’s changes outright, offered alternatives to others, left one query for the editor to resolve because he had no copy of the original book to hand, and, in two cases, favoured leaving the text as written.105 A comparison of the two editions indicates that Pratt respected his preferences. In the case of Sinclair Ross’s other two NCL titles, Sawbones Memorial and The Lamp at Noon and Other Stories, it was the author who initiated changes.106 Modifications were more numerous in the case of The Lamp at Noon and Other Stories, an original NCL collection compiled by Robert Weaver and introduced by Margaret Laurence, but on which the author was consulted.107 After reviewing Weaver’s selection, Ross proposed some textual changes that he felt did ‘not alter the mood, characterization or situation in any of the stories.’ His interventions were partly intended to make the chosen stories work together better as a collection. The author’s changes were accepted by Weaver and McClelland, and the publisher also agreed to provide the author with a copy of the galleys to review.108 Critic Morton Ross later argued that some of the author’s revisions made a significant impact on how the stories could be read.109 The NCL policy on authorial revision was inconsistent. Morley Callaghan was discouraged from making any changes to More Joy in Heaven before it was reprinted.110 However, Milton Wilson accepted a revised poem from Dorothy Livesay for Poets between the Wars.111 M&S also agreed to use the text of The Damnation of Vancouver preferred by Earle Birney. The text published in NCL covers was the one Birney had revised and adapted for the stage, rather than the earlier radio-play version that had been published in 1952 by Ryerson Press.112 Edward Meade’s Remember Me holds a unique place in the textual history of the series, as it went through a major authorial revision before being issued in NCL covers (see illus. 5.1, p. 147).

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5.1 Edward Meade’s Remember Me holds a unique place in the series. Before it appeared in NCL covers, the title underwent a full-scale revision by its author that reduced its length by more than 25 per cent.

The Winnipeg-born Meade, who served as a platoon commander during the Second World War, wrote the initial version of the novel during his military service. The first edition appeared in England in 1946, and was followed that same year by a condensed version in the Montreal Standard.113 The Reprint Society of Canada subsequently issued a hardback edition in 1949. McClelland first suggested Meade’s novel at an NCL meeting in 1961. After reading the book, Malcolm Ross decided it was a good prospect, and so the firm opened negotiations for rights.114 When he learned of M&S’s interest, Meade wrote the firm to say he was ‘pleased to be

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noted’ and assured the publisher that ‘if there are any changes that would improve the original edition or any co-operation that I can offer, please let me know.’115 Likely with Meade’s statement in view, Ross reread the title and decided that some revision would be advisable. ‘The London war material is arresting and the rather nostalgic Canadianism is appealing,’ Ross told McClelland. ‘However, the dialogue rather frequently sounds mawkish and awkward, the opening scene is badly over sentimentalized, and so on. My hunch,’ he concluded, ‘is that some cuts and some tightening would greatly improve the book.’116 Several months after Ross’s communication with M&S, and apparently without any prompting from the publisher, Meade again wrote the firm, stating he would appreciate its opinion on the ‘advisability of shortening the text of the original edition by deleting some passages which may be said to bear the mark of over-writing, and which are superfluous.’117 At that point, editor Diane Mew was brought into the proceedings as an internal reader. Mew was dubious about the work’s prospects for revision. She found the book overwritten, repetitious, and lacking in characterization; she doubted there would be much left once the ‘pruning’ was done. ‘In all, this seems too personal – and in places too banal – to become in any way a Canadian classic,’ she stated.118 In replying to Meade’s letter, McClelland indicated there was agreement that the book might benefit from some revision. ‘We do feel that there is some over-writing and that there are some passages that are extraneous to the story itself,’ the publisher explained. He went on to suggest that Meade would be the best one to make changes. To that end, he requested the author mark up a copy of the existing edition, which could then be examined by M&S.119 Meade agreed and, in reviewing the book, found much that could be omitted. ‘It is really the first reading of it, for me,’ he explained to McClelland. ‘The story was originally written piecemeal overseas, mailed chapter by chapter to my wife in Canada who typed it, and, after the first eleven chapters, when Fabers decided to publish it, the chapters were sent directly to them from Canada.’ When Meade submitted his marked-up text to the publisher, he indicated that his cuts were ‘mainly in the areas of overwriting and strengthening the story line,’ and then added: ‘I think this is pretty much the version of the novel that would have

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originally appeared if I had had the opportunity of re-reading it before publication.’120 Meade’s revision met mixed reviews in-house, but Pratt’s assessment of it was very positive. Once the book reached the proof stage, the author was provided with a copy to examine, an acknowledgment that the title’s production process followed more closely that of an original publication.121 Meade’s revision was indeed extensive. He cut more than 25 per cent of the original Faber text. His omissions, which ran the gamut from the removal of single words to whole sections of chapters and two complete chapters, can be categorized in several ways. First, he excised extraneous descriptors and, presumably concerned with overwriting, removed portions of sentences that served to reiterate points already made. Detailed passages of army life and troop movements were also pared back, rendering the NCL edition much less documentary. Perhaps in his bid to strengthen the story line, he excised several exchanges of dialogue, though at least one of these augmented an on-going theme of the story, a comparison between Canada and England.122 That cut reflected a general imperative to rework the story along a ‘show don’t tell’ edict. To that end, narrative reflections on O’Roarke’s character, as well as more general contemplations on the fate of soldiers and humanity as a whole, were dropped. However, the one scene Meade actively rewrote, rather than cropped or eliminated, pursued the opposite tact. His revision of the sex scene between his protagonist O’Roarke and the character Barbara has the latter articulate a rationale for their actions. Meade toned down the sexual explicitness of the scene, and changed Barbara’s actions and reactions: in the NCL version, she is less sexually aggressive and subjects O’Roarke to no verbal reprisal for his impotency.123 In general, the thoroughness of Meade’s revision of the work preparatory to its appearance in the NCL ensures that Remember Me inhabits a unique place in the bibliographic history of the series. VI Titles issued in the New Canadian Library during the RossMcClelland era represented practical texts produced with classroom use in view. Rapid production, and no scholarly intervention beyond a critical introduction, characterized the bulk of

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NCL reprints. In most cases, it was left to the in-house editor to select and proofread the source texts on which NCL reprints were based. Nonetheless, sufficient exceptions to this rule occurred that surviving archival materials, as well as the NCL editions themselves, can yield valuable information for book historians, bibliographers, or textual critics studying the publishing histories of particular titles. In the corporate mass of the series, the editorial treatment of original compilations and pre-1900 works emerges as particularly significant since they often involved intervention by external editors. These individuals variously selected, augmented, emended, or abridged source texts in preparation for NCL reprints. Their editorial activities rarely conformed to prevailing ideals of textual critical practice; however, most were guided by a clear editorial vision of their own design, one which Malcolm Ross and Jack McClelland encouraged them to pursue within certain fiscal, temporal, and spatial constraints. Ross and McClelland always remained willing to consult with external editors as they prepared their NCL editions, but it was rare for them to impose their editorial opinion on external figures commissioned to do such work. However, in-house editors such as Claire Pratt and Steve Rankin demand much more recognition for their editorial influence in the production of certain pre-1900 titles. Individuals commissioned to edit pre-1900 texts exhibited a consistent concern for embellishing their source texts with scholarly paratextual elements beyond the standard NCL introduction. Additions such as bibliographies, chronologies, and notes were perceived as important aids to a reader’s comprehension of older works, particularly if that reader happened to be a student. This kind of scholarly intervention in NCL reprints has been overshadowed by the criticism engendered since the 1970s over the abridgements to which eight of the series’ nineteenth-century prose titles were subject. These titles, of course, encouraged the production after 1979 of CEECT’s scholarly editions. However, given the shift among textual critics during the last twenty years ‘from a concern with authorial intention to an interest in the collaborative or social aspects of text-production,’ the NCL’s abridged editions might yet come into their own as a topic of study.124 Even so, concern for authorial intention should not be dis-

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carded from future consideration of NCL titles. As the archives make clear, some volumes issued during the Ross-McClelland era do have a claim to the status of authoritative texts. While the information to be gleaned varies from title to title, it is clear that some authors interacted with Ross, McClelland, and M&S editors as their books were prepared for reprinting. Those interactions occasionally led to revisions of the source texts on which the NCL editions were based, a fact that needs to be noted by textual scholars and literary critics. Indeed, in addition to being perceived as a component of the series as a whole, each NCL reprint issued between 1958 and 1978 should be located within the history of each particular title’s critical, curricular, and public reception over time and place, and in the guise of a variety of editions.

6 Canonical Conundrums

Canadian literature had a small curricular presence in Canada’s universities as early as the 1920s, when post-war nationalism encouraged the creation of half or full courses in the topic at Dalhousie, Mount Allison, Queen’s, Western, and Manitoba. Far more common in the interwar period were courses that paired Canadian with American literature. Since Canadian works usually represented a much smaller part of the material covered, these courses have been viewed as evidence of regression in the curricular claims of Canadian literature after 1930. In Sarah King’s estimation, however, they were a strategic innovation on the part of advocates of the academic study of Canadian literature: the link to American literature, whose value had been sanctioned by university English departments in the United States, facilitated, rather than undermined, Canadian literary studies.1 Even so, in the interwar period there remained English professors who, while interested in Canadian literature, could not countenance its addition to the regular curriculum; instead, they supported the subject outside the academic milieu by engaging in activities like public lectures and book reviewing. King credits the separation of Canadian from American literature after the Second World War to several factors: university expansion, which allowed English departments to grow and thus their course offerings to diversify; an increase in graduate programs, which produced individuals with a greater knowledge of Canadian literature; and devitalization of ‘earlier passionate debates about the content and status of English studies generally,’ which ‘produced a greater general acceptance of disparate ap-

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proaches and different subject areas.’2 A point of methodological commonality in all forms of English studies was the conviction that students should read literary texts, not simply be told about them. In consequence, textbooks sufficiently diverse or numerous to support the work of independent courses in Canadian literature became vital after the war if the subject was to be studied separately. Carl Klinck and R.E. Watters responded by developing Canadian Anthology with Gage. Malcolm Ross, of course, convinced Jack McClelland to launch the New Canadian Library. The overriding canonical significance of the NCL does not reside in the specific titles that it encompassed; instead, it rests in the fact that the series was targeted, from the outset, at the educational market as well as the general trade. That decision facilitated greater teaching and research in the field of Canadian literature, particularly at the university level. By doing so, the NCL helped to secure a stronger position for Canadian literature relative to British and American literature, and ensured that in future academic consensus would play a more substantial role in the valuation of Canadian literary works. Literary critic Carole Gerson has contended that four principal factors have played into the canonization of early Canadian literary works since they entered the university classroom: timing, topicality, imprint, and ‘cultural Darwinism,’ the last of these being a ‘struggle for textual survival’ in light of ‘the limited space for early works’ on the curriculum and their individual adaptability to shifting critical preoccupations.3 Most of the titles to which Gerson refers were first published prior to 1920, but her thesis can be applied to post-1920 works as well. Her explication of the issue of imprint is particularly consequential since she makes the point that a publisher’s visibility and geographic range of distribution can affect whether an in-print or reprinted title comes to the attention of instructors, thus making the book a potential candidate for course adoption.4 Adoption of a title, however, still remains contingent on the other factors she identifies, and should a book not be – or cease to be – topically relevant in relation to prevailing critical paradigms, or should its publication be out of sync with those preoccupations, or should it illustrate those concerns less effectively than another title, then there is a good chance the book will languish unpurchased in its publisher’s warehouse. These are important considerations that can be applied to

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interesting effect in relation to the canonical claims of individual NCL titles. A superficial examination of the content of the series of the Ross-McClelland years readily disqualifies the NCL of that era as a canon in and of itself. Numerous titles had no claim to canonical status at any point in the series’ life, while a number of titles highly valued by the academic community between the 1950s and the 1970s, such as W.O. Mitchell’s Who Has Seen the Wind, Hugh MacLennan’s Two Solitudes, Robertson Davies’ Fifth Business, and Alice Munro’s Lives of Girls and Women, were notably absent from it. When the list is analysed more deeply, it becomes evident that during the twenty years between the launch of the series and Ross’s retirement, certain titles were largely ignored, others experienced a surge and then decline of interest, and still others established or consolidated a claim to canonical status. Surviving sales figures illuminate these trends, as does the volume of criticism that preceded and succeeded the issue of individual titles in NCL covers. Indeed, it is evident from the NCL that a publisher’s series can provide a useful ‘sample’ of titles whose purchase and critical treatment offer a window into the workings of the ‘selective tradition’ detailed by Raymond Williams. Ross and McClelland brought a remarkable number of Canadian literary works back into print, an undertaking aided by individualistic title suggestions put forward by a variety of people committed to the conservation, sale, teaching, research, or nurture of Canadian literature. It was educators, and, in particular, university professors, who collectively refined that selection to form a discernible – albeit fluctuating – canon. They favoured some NCL titles much more than others and turned to the reprint series of competing publishers to cover perceived gaps among the NCL’s offerings. In 1977, as he brought the first phase of the NCL’s development to a close and began to speculate about the future direction of the series, McClelland identified the academic community as the obvious source for a definitive list of the most important Canadian novels. With his usual promotional flare, McClelland decided to frame his research in the form of a conference – the Calgary Conference on the Canadian Novel – making the generation of the desired list an integral part of the proceedings while being discreet about his own motivations. Much to his surprise, and Ross’s horror, McClelland stirred up a

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controversy among the academic community rather than excited a cheerful consensus. Though its compilation was contentious, the Calgary Conference’s attendant list of ‘significant Canadian novels’ nonetheless provides an important snapshot of the canonical preferences of the Canadian literary academy in 1978, particularly since the titles were ranked. The story behind the conference, which is detailed in this chapter, reveals the conflicting imperatives of publishers, professors, and funding bodies, and thus emphasizes a need to look beyond the immediate academic context when exploring the issue of canonization. I The allographic introductions that prefaced the majority of works issued in the NCL are a significant source of insight into the canonical claims attributed to individual titles at the time of their publication in the series. NCL introductions satisfied the basic criteria of the allographic preface identified by literary theorist Gérard Genette in Paratexts: that is, to recommend a work, and to promote and guide its reading; to provide information about a title’s creation, publication, and situation within an author’s oeuvre; and to offer some biographical background about the author.5 However, many NCL introductions challenge Genette’s assertion that an attribution of high value is integral to the recommendatory function of the allographic preface.6 Like many of the reviews highlighted in previous chapters, volume introductions, most of which were written by professors, often exhibited critical ambivalence about the aesthetic merits of Canadian literary works. Introducers certainly addressed ideas of permanency and durability; however, there was substantial concern to note artistic limitations. Among the most dramatic cases was Jan de Bruyn’s introduction to Frederick Niven’s The Flying Years. The critic asserted that, ‘in all respects, the book lacks depth,’ and then went on to enumerate those shortcomings: they included a failure to offer ‘new and penetrating insights into human character or concerns,’ characters who do not develop ‘beyond the superficial external manifestations of personality,’ and a plot ‘entirely devoid of suspense and climax.’7 What rescued the title for de Bruyn was ‘the charm of the book, its wholesome humanity, its generous and sympathetic outlook, its candid acknowledgement of man’s

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deficiencies, and its optimistic support for the best human traits, and finally, its marvellous feeling for the land and for the native people who possessed it before civilization subdued its mystery.’8 Sales figures suggest that other academics shared de Bruyn’s misgivings, rather than agreed with him about the title’s strengths. Although over 1,600 copies left the warehouse during its first year in the series (1975), a figure likely aided by the distribution of complimentary copies to professors, between 1976 and 1979 The Flying Years averaged annual sales of only 134 copies.9 Even those who argued a significant place for a title in the history of Canadian literature could express themselves in less than glowing terms. Robert McDougall, for example, noted that ‘satire and humour ... combine to make [T.C. Haliburton’s] The Clockmaker a book well worth keeping in print’ because ‘it was, in fact, by far the most credible piece of writing to be produced in Canada for many years.’10 Philip Child’s introduction to Raymond Knister’s White Narcissus, in turn, addressed both the book’s historical significance and its artistic limitations. He established that ‘nothing quite like White Narcissus, with its combination of a psychological approach to the main characters with a realistic and yet poetic treatment of the Ontario rural scene, had appeared before in Canadian fiction,’ and then went on to note the strengths and weaknesses to be found in it. ‘Because it was original and experimental and because it was Knister’s first novel, it pays forfeit in certain weaknesses in plot and, related therewith, in the characterization of Richard and the Lethens,’ Child explained. ‘But these weaknesses are redeemed by his success in describing farm life and manners and by his splendid talent for catching with simple and vivid words in which realism and poetry are present but not at odds, the landscape of his homeland which he knew so well.’ Despite these redemptive qualities, in the end Child could state only that, while the book ‘was certainly a real achievement,’ it was ‘not a major one.’11 By contrast, John Grubb placed Sheila Watson at ‘the forefront of Canadian literature’ for writing The Double Hook, Allan Bevan judged Rudy Wiebe’s The Temptations of Big Bear ‘a major work of fiction,’ and John Moss and Clara Thomas respectively designated as ‘classics’ Matt Cohen’s The Disinherited and P.J. Aubert de Gaspé’s Canadians of Old.12 Despite the ‘classic’ designation placed on Cohen’s and Aubert de Gaspé’s works by their introducers, both experienced very modest sales.

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As McDougall’s and Child’s assessments suggest, locating NCL titles within a chronology of Canadian literary history and achievement was a significant critical preoccupation, one that was encouraged by the enduring perception at mid-century that Canadian literature was still in the process of coming of age. In his introduction to Thomas McCulloch’s The Stepsure Letters, Northrop Frye similarly communicated a progressive view of Canadian literary history by recovering McCulloch’s work yet qualifying its worth in comparison to the later efforts of Thomas Chandler Haliburton. He identified McCulloch as ‘the founder of genuine Canadian humour,’ and then added that it ‘was inevitable that Haliburton’s more brilliant and highly coloured satire should have pushed McCulloch’s into obscurity.’13 Sales figures for the two books suggest that others concurred with Frye’s assessment. With the exception of its first year of publication, when it sold over 1,500 copies, The Stepsure Letters lagged far behind Haliburton’s The Clockmaker in annual sales.14 So, too, did Frances Brooke’s The History of Emily Montague, despite Carl Klinck’s proclamation that it was ‘the first Canadian novel, and indeed the first American one.’15 Sales figures for the three volumes support Gerson’s assertion that limited space forces professors to choose between early titles when designing their courses. Poor sales of McCulloch’s and Brooke’s books notwithstanding, both carried enough academic weight at the end of the 1970s to be selected by the Centre for Editing Early Canadian Texts (CEECT) for reprinting in scholarly editions. A collective reading of NCL introductions additionally demonstrates that at mid-century many Canadian critics favoured realism as a mode of Canadian fictional expression over earlier forms. Carlyle King’s introduction to Martha Ostenso’s Wild Geese exhibited this preference most overtly, adopting the pejorative sobriquet of the ‘Sunshine School of Canadian Fiction’ to denote the predominant literary method in Canada during the 1920s, against which he contrasted Ostenso’s novel. ‘In a novel of the Sunshine School,’ King stated, human nature is fundamentally noble and Rotarian morality always triumphs ... At the worst, people make some dirty faces at one another, but before the end of the book the tears are wiped from every eye and most of the characters live virtuously ever after. This

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cheerful and dishonest tradition obviously was of no use to [Ostenso] who proposed to make the chief female character in her book a seventeen-year-old girl, as wild as a bronco and as vivid as a tigress, who runs into a clearing in the bush, strips off all her clothes, and presses her breasts against the good earth. Later on, Judith throws a hatchet at her father’s head, uses the language of the barnyard in rebuking her elder sister, and glories in the fact that she carries her lover’s child within her body. At the end we are told she is ‘very happy’ with Sven in Winnipeg. These things do not happen in a well brought up Canadian novel.16

M.G. Parks’s introduction to Frederick Philip Grove’s Fruits of the Earth similarly exerts a preference for realism: ‘Fruits of the Earth is a realistic novel, most obviously in the sense that it consistently avoids the sentimentalizing and falsifying of experience which characterized the typical Western “romance” of Grove’s time.’17 Not all introducers were as overt as King and Parks in distinguishing realism from earlier forms of Canadian fiction, but a critical preoccupation with noting the presence or absence of sentimental elements indicates that such positioning was going on at least implicitly in many other introductions. Because of this critical climate, those commissioned to write introductions for titles that did not readily fit the realistic mould faced evaluative difficulties, particularly, though not exclusively, if the book in question fell within the rubrics of historical romance, local colour novel, or regional idyll. Distancing the title from its usual categorization, finding realistic elements, or making clear the historical specificity of a genre were three means introducers used to address this issue. Ross Beharriell, for example, accepted a local colour designation for Ralph Connor’s The Man from Glengarry but insisted that the author’s approach was indeed realistic, describing it as ‘the realism which springs from the local-colourists desire for scientific accuracy.’18 Clara Thomas identified Catharine Parr Traill’s The Backwoods of Canada, Susanna Moodie’s Roughing It in the Bush, and Anna Jameson’s Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada as ‘a significant trilogy of feminine report.’19 Even Carl Klinck qualified his pleasure in The History of Emily Montague, noting that Brooke’s wit helped ‘to keep the eighteenth century alive after didacticism and sentimentality have done their worst,’ and explaining that the

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‘pathetic and moralistic were the marks of literary achievement’ in her day.20 In the mid-1970s, a younger critic, Martin Ware, challenged the critical preference for realistic novels. In his introduction to T.G. Roberts’s The Red Feathers, Ware stated that one of the reasons why Roberts’s work would be unfamiliar to readers was because ‘we have for a long time allowed ourselves to be swayed by a vogue of naturalistic realism (one soon due for an eclipse) that has imposed tight reins on our imaginative freedom ... The modernists in their aggressive determination to clean the slate had little patience with any of the work produced in the vigorous flush of romantic optimism, and were scarcely prepared to accept such work, even on its own merits.’ In his view, it was time ‘to reclaim The Red Feathers as a work of genuine imaginative power and originality, one which deserves its place in the corpus of Canadian literature.’21 Poor sales after its first year in NCL covers suggest that Ware was unsuccessful in establishing such a place for The Red Feathers. However, his comments did anticipate future critiques of the modernist influence on the Canadian literary canon.22 Ironically, the modernist preference for realistic fiction in the decades immediately following the Second World War was aided and abetted by an element of romantic nationalism: the belief that Canadian literature was still in the process of becoming effectively granted contemporary critical preferences greater aesthetic legitimacy. As Jonathan Kertzer has explained, in the context of English Canada, the organic model of romantic nationalism had proved ‘attractive because it excused social and literary faults as well as provided for their amelioration,’ a circumstance that had allowed certain critics to ‘trace a detailed parallel between the growth of the nation and a succession of literary styles and genres, each an improvement on the previous one.’23 August J. Fry, who in 1988 problematized such historical progressivism in literary criticism, identified the 1950s as the decade in which it was understood that Canadian writers ‘appear[ed] to catch up and join the marching throng of literature in English,’ leaving critics free ‘to describe it in our customary terminology.’24 However, Northrop Frye’s conclusions to the first and second editions of the Literary History of Canada and a cluster of articles by a younger generation of critics, which began to appear in the mid-1970s and demanded that Canadian literature be critiqued using methods applied to

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other literatures, with less emphasis placed on insights it might provide into the nation’s psyche, suggest a transitional moment closer to 1970.25 Whereas at mid-century Canadian literature was still perceived by critics as something in need of nurturing into fullness, by the 1970s it was presumed to exist. This presumption marked a sea change in the critical perception of Canadian literature. II In recent decades, international critics have placed increasing emphasis on the role of the classroom and scholarly publication in shaping literary canons. Among the most prominent is John Guillory, who insisted in Cultural Capital (1993) that discussion about literary canons needed to shift from the politics of representation toward greater consideration of ‘how the institutional site of canonical revision mediates its political effects in the social domain.’26 In the Canadian context, David Arnason has argued that the literary academy ‘largely establishes the canon, and through its power of canon-formation, curriculum development, authentication of texts and teachers, secondary analysis, and control of venues, it exerts a powerful force on the literature of the country, and on our cultural definitions of value, reputation, and achievement.’ Moreover, in his view, the ‘universities and high schools of Canada are the biggest market we have for Canadian literature. A Canadian writer who does not end up being taught is unlikely ever to prove more than an historical footnote. Any writer who is dead and whose work is not part of the canon, that is to say not studied in schools by a sufficient number of students to make the reprinting of his or her work worthwhile,’ he adds, ‘will simply vanish into the dustheap of Canadian Literary history.’27 Arnason offers a comprehensive survey of the forces at work in canon formation. Of these forces, which are the more powerful? Is the classroom a more important venue in canon formation than the scholarly journal? Does consistent availability of a title indeed equate to canonical status? Does what constitutes a sufficient number of sales vary from publisher to publisher, or book to book, or is it a stable figure? And, finally, what is the relationship between the educational market for a book and the demand for it in the general trade? The New Canadian Library of the Ross-

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McClelland years offers an opportunity to explore some of Arnason’s assertions about canon formation since the series format defines a specific group of works, each of which can be differentiated by its record of sales, as well as the volume and the nature of the attention paid to it. The first of Arnason’s points to qualify is that consistent availability of a work is a hallmark of canonical status. Availability of a title is certainly a prerequisite, but, as Gerson has pointed out, it is no guarantee: matters of timing, topicality, and imprint also come into play. In conceiving the NCL, Ross and McClelland established a basic principle (in keeping with the concept of the ‘quality paperback’) that all titles in the series would remain in print. They viewed the NCL as a long-term venture and knew such constancy would be important in establishing the series’ credibility with instructors. Nonetheless, the volume at which individual NCL titles were purchased varied greatly. Of the 164 titles that comprised the Main and Original lines, almost 46 per cent sold at an average rate of less than 1,000 copies per year, and just over 13 per cent averaged sales of less than 500 copies per year. Granted, low sales do not necessarily equate to a lack of canonical status. A number of those books which comprised the group of poorest sellers had some claim in that regard: of the 22 titles in this category, two – Raymond Knister’s White Narcissus and Gilbert Parker’s The Seats of the Mighty – made the Calgary Conference list of 1978, while two future CEECT titles, Thomas McCulloch’s The Stepsure Letters and Rosanna Leprohon’s Antoinette de Mirecourt, as well as a translation of the well-established French-Canadian work, Antoine Gérin-Lajoie’s Jean Rivard, fell within this group.28 At the opposite end of the spectrum, the 9 titles (approximately 5.5%) averaging sales in excess of 5,000 copies per year were represented by only six authors, with Margaret Laurence the most dominant among them.29 Drawing a rigid correlation between sales and canonical status is also hampered by the fact that the NCL was targeted at two audiences: the educational market, which was divided into the categories of elementary–high school and post-secondary, and the general trade, whose outlets sold to the public. In general, annual sales figures do not indicate where the market for each title lay, but one document from 1971 does identify educational sales relative to total sales for that year.30 Most of the differential

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between the two would have been absorbed by sales to the trade, with libraries and wholesalers responsible for the remainder. Given that these statistics were compiled before the M&S paperback promotions of the 1970s, one can speculate that this breakdown is representative of the educational market relative to the trade and others markets when extraordinary promotional efforts were not at play. According to this document, in 1971, when the series comprised 85 titles in its Main and Original lines, 52.4 per cent of NCL sales were obtained outside the educational sector, with 41 of the books doing so at a rate of more than 60 per cent. Such figures caution against assuming that educational sales are the only kind that keep a title in print. All thirteen of the Stephen Leacock titles published in the series by 1971 sold better outside the educational market, eleven of them at a rate of more than 80 per cent.31 The total sales of those eleven in 1971 averaged 1,197 copies, suggesting that it may have been the steady purchase of Leacock titles by the general public, rather than a huge annual turnover on each title, that made them such a valuable part of the series in Jack McClelland’s eyes. A similar situation prevailed in relation to titles by Thomas Raddall and Gabrielle Roy. Three of Roy’s works, Where Nests the Water Hen, Street of Riches, and The Cashier, were significantly more popular outside the classroom. Their sale to noneducational outlets in 1971 averaged more than 1,900 copies. These three works by Roy, as well as one of the Raddall titles, The Nymph and the Lamp, would be included in the Calgary list of 1978, but in 1971, at least, it appears the public, rather than the educational sector, held these works in higher esteem. Another surprise revealed by this breakdown is that a number of nineteenthcentury works – Anna Jameson’s Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada, Catharine Parr Traill’s The Backwoods of Canada and the Canadian Settler’s Guide, and the William Dunlop compilation, Tiger Dunlop’s Upper Canada – also did much better with general readers, a phenomenon that might be explained by a niche market for these books in museum gift shops and other heritage venues. Most puzzling perhaps is that in 1971 George Woodcock’s collection of critical essays, Odysseus Ever Returning, made 75 per cent of its sales in the trade market, although this phenomenon may have been due in part to professors and teachers making individual purchases from trade outlets.

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Of the 47.6 per cent of the NCL’s market residing in the educational sector in 1971, the elementary–high school category claimed 17.93 per cent and the post-secondary 29.67 per cent. The statistical significance of the post-secondary market as a potential site of canon formation increases if one considers that fewer students enrol in literature courses at the post-secondary level, yet this sector absorbed substantially more books. On the other hand, the regular school system is the place where many students first encounter Canadian literature, and their experiences with it there can influence course selections they make at the post-secondary level. On that basis, it is worth noting that the sales breakdown of 1971 reveals distinct purchasing patterns on the part of the elementary–high school market versus the postsecondary. Earle Birney’s Turvey, Ted Bodsworth’s Last of the Curlews, Morley Callaghan’s More Joy in Heaven, W.H. Drummond’s Habitant Poems, Gwethalyn Graham’s Earth and High Heaven, Stephen Leacock’s Literary Lapses, Brian Moore’s Judith Hearne, Gabrielle Roy’s The Tin Flute, and Robert J.C. Stead’s Grain all did significantly better in the elementary–high school market, though all but Stead’s book found even more sales outside the educational sector as a whole. Those titles with much greater appeal at the post-secondary level included Sheila Watson’s The Double Hook, Frederick Philip Grove’s Fruits of the Earth, Margaret Laurence’s The Stone Angel, Mordecai Richler’s The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Ernest Buckler’s The Mountain and the Valley, Morley Callaghan’s Such Is My Beloved, Sara Jeannette Duncan’s The Imperialist, Thomas Chandler Haliburton’s The Clockmaker, Stephen Leacock’s Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich, MarieClaire Blais’s Mad Shadows, Susanna Moodie’s Roughing It in the Bush, Ringuet’s Thirty Acres, Sinclair Ross’s As for Me and My House, and the poetry anthologies edited by Malcolm Ross and Milton Wilson. Only three of these works – Such Is My Beloved, Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich, and Mad Shadows – experienced greater sales outside the educational market. Such strong distinctions in purchasing patterns suggest that differing, albeit overlapping, canons were at play in the two educational systems, a speculation that might be explored further by undertaking a comprehensive comparison of course syllabi, but which would also have to take into account stated course objectives and lists of sanctioned titles established by school boards

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and provincial educational authorities, as well as notions of what was considered ‘teachable’ and ‘suitable’ in both educational milieux. Given that all of the noted titles preferred by elementary and high schools appeared in the NCL seven to thirteen years before 1971, one might infer that high school instructors – or those who had authority over their choices – tended to select titles to which they themselves had been exposed as university students. A greater correlation between the purchasing patterns of elementary and high schools and members of the general public, who themselves may have been encouraged to purchase works by authors like Leacock, Callaghan, and Roy because they had read titles by them while secondary or post-secondary students, could suggest a shared sense of the canon that was no longer in sync in 1971 with ideas about the canon prevailing at the post-secondary level. Because professors were no doubt more aware of shifts in critical thinking than high school teachers and had greater freedom to modify course lists when alternative titles became available in inexpensive paperback editions, the canon of Canadian literature at the post-secondary level could function as a more fluid entity. The academic canon of Canadian literature between 1958 and 1978 can be traced to some degree by a quantitative examination of scholarly criticism. If one accepts the contention that published criticism is a signal of canonical status, then many NCL authors immediately fall by the wayside. Of the 110 creative writers represented in the series, 50 (45.4%) were the dedicated subject of between zero to two scholarly articles over that twenty-year period.32 A correlation exists between NCL titles by thirty of these authors and average annual sales of less than 1,000 copies, but this figure does not effectively deal with poets bill bissett, George Bowering, Jay Macpherson, Alexander McLachlan, Kenneth McRobbie, John Newlove, P.K. Page, Joe Rosenblatt, and Charles Sangster, who were the subject of little or no scholarly articles but whose work appeared in anthologies that sold in excess of 1,000 copies annually. It is also evident that scholarly articles alone offer only a limited sphere for canonical assessment, since the lack of journal literature during the period about William Dunlop, Jacques Godbout, Germaine Guèvremont, Anna Jameson, Jay Macpherson, John Newlove, Martha Ostenso, P.K. Page, Gilbert Parker, Ernest Thompson Seton, and Adele Wiseman was coun-

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tered to varying degrees by their being the focus of monographs or theses.33 Moreover, while it is fairly easy to dismiss writers like Patricia Blondal, Selwyn Dewdney, Hubert Evans, or Edward Meade of much of a canonical claim during these years, the same cannot be said of others in this group of fifty: novelists Henry Kreisel, John Marlyn, and Laura Salverson had their work discussed in the context of theses on general themes; poets Milton Acorn and George Bowering had established reputations and were celebrated in the commercial press; and nineteenth-century writers Rosanna Leprohon and William Kirby would soon make it onto the CEECT list. Volume of criticism in relation to sales correlates much more effectively when dealing with authors who had at least one NCL title that sold on average more than 2,000 copies annually. Of the 19 prose writers and 14 poets to fall within this category, only Paul Hiebert engendered very little criticism in any form. If the figure for annual average sales is increased to 3,000, then Margaret Atwood, Margaret Avison, Earle Birney, Marie-Claire Blais, Ernest Buckler, Morley Callaghan, Leonard Cohen, Frederick Philip Grove, A.M. Klein, Margaret Laurence, Irving Layton, Stephen Leacock, Dorothy Livesay, Hugh MacLennan, Susanna Moodie, Alden Nowlan, E.J. Pratt, Al Purdy, James Reaney, Mordecai Richler, Sinclair Ross, Gabrielle Roy, A.J.M. Smith, and Sheila Watson emerge as the NCL authors with the strongest canonical claims between 1958 and 1978. James Reaney is the significant anomaly on this list; most of the criticism about him related to his playwriting rather than his poetry, but it was his poetry that was present in the NCL. Robertson Davies, in turn, does not make this list because the books for which he was most celebrated were not in the series. Most significant is the virtual absence of writers who began publishing before 1900, but when the sales cut-off is reduced to 2,000 copies, Bliss Carman, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, Archibald Lampman, Charles G.D. Roberts, and Duncan Campbell Scott become players. The list of authors noted above, with its heavy emphasis on writers who started to publish after 1930, will likely hold few surprises for those familiar with the post-secondary teaching of Canadian literature between 1958 and 1978. Of greater interest is the rise, fall, or consolidation of the reputations of particular authors and specific books during this period, and the role of the NCL in the

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process. Examining sales figures and surveying criticism provide insight into the phenomenon, but definitive conclusions based on these sources are difficult to reach for several reasons: first, as already noted, annual NCL sales figures reflect the combined purchasing of the educational, trade, and other markets, the patterns of which could be quite different; second, increases in sales can be related, in part, to a general expansion in Canadian literature courses during the 1960s and 1970s; and third, scholarly avenues of publication about Canadian literary criticism remained quite restricted for much of the period. From its launch in mid1959 until 1972, when the first of four new journals focused on Canadian literary criticism made their debut, Canadian Literature represented the primary vehicle for Canadian literary criticism, although the university quarterlies continued to publish occasional articles as did the Journal of Canadian Studies after its appearance in 1966. While, on the one hand, the proliferation of Canadian critical journals in the 1970s can be ascribed to the general expansion of the field of Canadian literary studies, on the other, the launch of these publications may have been tied to the perceived editorial limits of Canadian Literature as a critical forum. In any case, through the 1960s, scholarly publication on individual Canadian authors, in either article or monograph form, was so restricted that it is extremely difficult to discern trends quantitatively without bringing unpublished theses into the mix. In addition, thanks to the surveys of Canadian literature, which began to appear in the 1880s, proliferated in the 1920s, and continued more modestly through the ‘1930s and 1940s, culminating in Desmond Pacey’s Creative Writing in Canada in 1952, some NCL authors had greater opportunity to accumulate critical recognition before 1958 than others.34 Less well known but also illustrative of critical opinion is the list of ‘350 Outstanding Canadian Books.’ Published in Canadian Author and Bookman in 1948, this list comprised all of the initial selections made by a committee of eight charged with the task of drawing up a ‘list of the one hundred best Canadian books’ for UNESCO.35 With respect to NCL authors who first published prior to 1958, a review of the surveys, coupled with an examination of the long list prepared for UNESCO, make it clear that for many writers and titles in the series, inclusion in the NCL represented just one more incidence in a long history of recognition. Books such as

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Frances Brooke’s The History of Emily Montague, Thomas Chandler Haliburton’s The Clockmaker, Anna Jameson’s Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada, William Kirby’s The Golden Dog, Stephen Leacock’s Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, Susanna Moodie’s Roughing It in the Bush, John Richardson’s Wacousta, and Catharine Parr Traill’s The Backwoods of Canada had generated much interest among surveyors, whose works would have been consulted by Ross and other Canadian literary specialists of his generation. Moreover, many of these older titles had regularly appeared in a miscellany of reprint editions, some of them well after the turn of the twentieth century. The appearance of these books in the NCL in the late 1950s and 1960s reaffirmed their position in Canadian literary history, while classroom use of them – the most important site for transmitting the canon in the 1960s, given the limited opportunity to publish criticism – gave them ongoing currency. Similarly, certain poets and novelists who began to publish between the 1920s and the 1940s, such as Earle Birney, Morley Callaghan, A.M. Klein, Dorothy Livesay, Hugh MacLennan, Gabrielle Roy, F.R. Scott, and A.J.M. Smith, entered the NCL with established reputations and critical momentum; the inclusion of their work in the series was an affirmation of that status, one that consistent criticism and reprinting of their work through the 1960s and 1970s helped to maintain. The NCL’s influence in consolidating the reputations of individual titles was much greater than its capacity to establish them. Relatively few works, among them Thomas McCulloch’s The Stepsure Letters, James De Mille’s A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder, and Sara Jeannette Duncan’s The Imperialist, stand out from the mass of the series in this regard. Among the early surveyors, Archibald MacMechan was the only one to identify McCulloch’s satirical letters, to single out A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder as De Mille’s ‘best book,’ and to declare that Duncan’s novel stood out ‘from the vast desert of well-intentioned mediocrity known as Canadian fiction.’36 Though the NCL editions of De Mille’s and McCulloch’s works never sold in substantial numbers, after their reprinting in the 1960s, the reputations of these two books and their authors became established in the Canadian literary tradition, their modest sales exhibiting a steady increase that peaked in the mid-1970s, while critical commentary about these books and their authors became more pronounced

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through the late 1970s and early 1980s. The reputation of Duncan and her novel followed a similar trajectory, though the volume did enjoy a notable rise in sales in the mid-1960s, while its growth in sales in the 1970s considerably outstripped De Mille’s and McCulloch’s works, possibly because of The Imperialist’s crossdisciplinary appeal to students of literature, women’s studies, and history, its reputation having been made among the last community after Carl Berger praised it in 1970 in his seminal work of Canadian intellectual history, The Sense of Power.37 Among authors who began their publishing careers much closer to the NCL’s launch in 1958, Sinclair Ross and Ernest Buckler were the only two whose reputations grew substantially after their books appeared in the NCL. Although both authors would be additionally represented in the series by other of their works, the focus of critical interest resided primarily in two novels reprinted early in the life of the series: As for Me and My House and The Mountain and the Valley. Ross’s As for Me and My House gathered some critical repute before its inclusion in the series: it made the long list for UNESCO, and the work was critiqued briefly by Pacey in Creative Writing in Canada and at greater length by Edward McCourt in The Canadian West in Fiction.38 However, the book had sold poorly in its original edition of 1941, and when Sinclair Ross first learned that M&S wished to reprint the novel, he was gratified the firm even considered it ‘worth resurrecting’ since he himself had ‘written it off as a failure,’ though he conceded there were ‘a few good things in it.’39 In the introduction to the NCL edition, Roy Daniells began by stating that introducing As for Me and My House gave him ‘a feeling of privilege and pleasure which may seem excessive for a book so unfamiliar to the Canadian public.’40 The reprinting of Ross’s novel as one of the NCL’s first four titles, alongside Callaghan, Grove, and Leacock, writers with well-established reputations, gave the work an initial boost, but sales figures and its critical history after its NCL appearance both suggest As for Me and My House only took a firm canonical grip around 1965, a position which it would still enjoy forty years later.41 By contrast, Claude Bissell claimed in his introduction to The Mountain and the Valley in 1961 that Buckler’s novel of 1952 had already ‘firmly established itself as a Canadian classic.’42 If so, it achieved that status through book reviews and word of mouth, for the novel entered the series

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without much evidence of a critical history; it was published too late even to be covered in Pacey’s survey of 1952. The work’s critical reception after its NCL reprint suggests that it took almost a decade to establish a firm canonical claim, with sales figures for the title rising dramatically after 1969. In the late 1990s, The Mountain and the Valley still placed among the top fifteen most taught works on post-secondary courses in Canadian literature.43 Most works of pre-1958 vintage that came into the NCL with little or no critical reputation did not gain substantial ground. Klein’s The Second Scroll and Birney’s Turvey, a book Pacey had simply described in passing ‘as widely read,’ did make notable progress, but their authors’ strong reputations as poets no doubt facilitated that reception.44 By contrast, novels by Luella Creighton, Selwyn Dewdney, Hubert Evans, and Edward Meade generated no critical interest and few sales after their publication in the NCL. Edward McCourt, Henry Kreisel, and John Marlyn fared somewhat better. Although sales of McCourt’s Music at the Close and The Wooden Sword were always meagre, his work did provoke the occasional critical article and was incorporated into theses on general themes. Kreisel’s two books, The Rich Man and The Betrayal, generated less criticism, but commanded a small but steady sale. John Marlyn’s work was covered in general theses only, but after 1971 enjoyed a substantial increase in sales, a change that might signal course adoption at the secondary level. Gerson has identified the 1960s and 1970s as formative decades in establishing the academic canon of early Canadian literary titles.45 However, the critical response to NCL authors, viewed in conjunction with the sales figures for their work, suggests that the 1960s was the more definitive decade for books originally published before 1920. Older titles reprinted in the NCL in the 1970s did not do nearly so well. While the critical discussion present in surveys published prior to the NCL’s launch was typically more slender or less positive for these books, professors teaching Canadian literature during this decade seem also to have been less willing to give these titles a chance, a conjecture that is supported by a review of a limited number of course lists from the 1970s. Ralph Connor’s The Man from Glengarry, reprinted in 1960, enjoyed a steady sale, but his Glengarry School Days, issued in 1975, sparked less interest. Francis W. Grey’s The Curé of St. Philippe, which was not mentioned in any survey, generated no criticism and

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experienced dismal sales after its reprinting in 1970. Robert Lowell’s New Priest in Conception Bay suffered the same fate when it was issued in 1974, despite having been identified in 1961 as the ‘first Newfoundland novel.’46 Gilbert Parker’s The Seats of the Mighty garnered mixed reviews from the early surveyors and enjoyed a healthy reprint life into the first decade of the twentieth century, but after its NCL publication in 1971, its sales rarely exceeded 500 copies annually, and it generated no criticism before Ross’s retirement. Rosanna Leprohon’s Antoinette de Mirecourt, which had been sparsely treated by the surveyors of the 1920s and was not mentioned at all by Pacey, fared even worse than Parker’s novel in terms of sales and criticism after being reprinted in 1973. The subsequent appearance of The Seats of the Mighty on the Calgary Conference list and the inclusion of Leprohon’s novel in CEECT are surprising under these circumstances. However, the specialists in pre-1900 Canadian literary works who compiled the CEECT list likely had a broader view of early Canadian literature, and invested a greater critical worth in genres such as the historical romance, than did most Canadian literary specialists, who evinced more interest in works published after 1930, by which time the realistic novel had gained currency. Indeed, the success of Thomas Raddall’s only realistic novel, The Nymph and the Lamp, relative to his three historical novels also reprinted in the NCL, suggests that even mid-twentieth-century works were affected by this bias. A critical preference for realistic novels combined with a progressivist view toward Canadian literature’s historical development made an impact on the academic reception of early realistic works. While Mazo de la Roche’s Delight, Raymond Knister’s White Narcissus, Martha Ostenso’s Wild Geese, and Robert Stead’s Grain, all originally published in the 1920s, were recognized as significant early examples of Canadian realistic fiction when they were issued in the series in the 1960s, they were overshadowed by Grove’s Settlers of the Marsh, which was also reprinted in that decade. Between the late 1920s and the NCL’s launch, Grove’s entire oeuvre had accumulated a critical profile that none of the other four authors enjoyed.47 By 1958 his reputation was established as the representative author of early Canadian realistic fiction, a view of him that was perpetuated in the course selections of the 1960s and 1970s, though one of his later novels was often

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chosen to represent him. In the late 1970s, a flutter of critical interest emerged around de la Roche, Knister, Ostenso, and Stead, but by then Grove’s position had been consolidated. Because the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s were similarly viewed by critics as decades in which the Canadian realistic novel was still reaching its maturity, books originally published during these years were treated with the same kind of selectivity, a circumstance that encouraged the canonical triumph of authors like Callaghan, Ross, and Hugh MacLennan over other of their contemporaries. Moreover, like Grove, Callaghan and MacLennan had the practical benefit of having multiple titles available in paperback reprint editions, an advantage when designing course lists, since it allowed instructors some variety while still covering these authors. Of course, in the case of Callaghan and MacLennan, in particular, it also meant purchasing some titles from Macmillan of Canada’s Laurentian Library, rather than the NCL. NCL authors whose publishing careers began contemporaneously with the venture’s launch, or after it was under way, typically entered the series on the strength of prevailing critical opinion. Through the mid-1970s, McClelland and Stewart’s contractual obligation to make paperback arrangements for some of its own authors also made an impact. Quite a few contemporary writers were represented by multiple titles in the series, some of which proved distinctly more popular than others. However, relying on NCL sales figures as a measure of canonical achievement for authors such as Marie-Claire Blais, Margaret Laurence, Brian Moore, Mordecai Richler, and Rudy Wiebe, or as a means of identifying the relative critical positions of their individual books, is particularly tricky. Writers like these commanded a significant trade market during the 1960s and 1970s, while mass-market editions of their work often competed with the NCL’s quality paperback format, a circumstance of which instructors sometimes took advantage. Moreover, through the mid-1970s, M&S’s paperback promotions favoured the addition of contemporary authors to the NCL’s list. Laurence’s sales figures are so skewed by these various factors that it is impossible to obtain clear evidence of the canonical ranking of her novels in the 1970s without turning to the scholarly criticism and course lists of the day. The important difference between contemporary titles and older works published in the NCL was that instructors were much more familiar

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with the former than the latter when they entered the series. They had often seen book reviews, read the titles in hardcover, and been privy to the whole experience of their initial public and academic reception. Indeed, some of the contemporary titles that entered the series in the 1970s, such as Matt Cohen’s The Disinherited, Robert Harlow’s Scann, Adele Wiseman’s Crackpot, and Rudy Wiebe’s Temptations of Big Bear, had made their publishing debut within the previous five years; as such, their rapid inclusion in the NCL could simply be considered part and parcel of their initial critical reception. By the late 1990s, many of these titles fell out of academic favour, finding no place on any course in Canadian literature offered at the post-secondary level in the country.48 III The ‘list of [one hundred] significant Canadian novels’ prepared for the Calgary Conference on the Canadian Novel of February 1978 is an activity related to the NCL of the Ross-McClelland years that can be considered overtly canonical in its intentions.49 The idea originated with Jack McClelland, rather than Malcolm Ross, as has been commonly believed. Past criticism and study have focused on the ballot and the events of the conference. However, much of the story played itself out in the months preceding the public circulation of the survey. In the history of the NCL of the 1958 to 1978 period, the Calgary Conference and its attendant ballot represented a culmination of the tension that had been growing between McClelland and Ross during the preceding five years as the publisher’s and the academic’s opinions diverged over the selection of new additions to the series. When he wrote Ross in March 1977 to announce the end of new titles for the NCL, McClelland indicated he wished not only to close off the series in its original incarnation, but also to reconfigure the existing complement of titles into a more manageable publishing property.50 To the latter end, he proposed reducing the series to one hundred titles and transferring what remained into a second, newly created quality paperback series, one ‘which would be redesigned in a different format and which would include a far broader range of contemporary and historical fiction and probably non-fiction.’ McClelland thought this secondary series might continue to use ‘New Canadian Library’ as a title,

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while the set of one hundred adopted a new name along the lines of ‘The Canadian Classic Library,’ a designation clearly suggested for promotional cachet. ‘For marketing and promotion purposes, you would have in one series the 100 great works of Canadian fiction,’ McClelland explained. ‘The selection itself would act as a guide to high school and even college teachers, who seem vastly uninformed about Canadian literature.’ Ross expressed no great enthusiasm for McClelland’s new plan, and disliked the idea of the NCL brand being given over to a secondary list. Nonetheless, he agreed to discuss the matter with the publisher and his staff. McClelland subsequently acceded that they should ‘retain the name New Canadian Library for the basic list and find a new name for the carry-on series.’51 Once settled on the idea of a one-hundred-volume, standard set of Canadian classics, determining precisely what would be contained within this series became McClelland’s abiding concern. The publisher envisioned a collection of one hundred novels, rather than any other literary genre; moreover, he believed that a number of the titles that should be included in such a series might not yet be among those in the NCL, a circumstance that posed a difficulty. To establish a list of one hundred titles, McClelland suggested several possibilities. These included: Ross choosing the titles personally; his chairing a committee charged with the task; or his making a survey of ‘a selected group of experts.’ Once the list was determined, the new venture could be launched ‘as a major event, at an appropriate Canadian university,’ held in conjunction with Malcolm Ross’s official retirement as general editor.52 Ross had misgivings about the basic series being dedicated entirely to novels, and expressed concern for ‘“classics” like Roughing It in the Bush, some of our critical essays, and some of the volumes of poetry (all part of our original plan for a Canadian Library).’53 However, at a meeting in June 1977, novels were confirmed as the sole genre, a decision that immediately created problems over selection, just as Ross had anticipated. ‘We decided tentatively that we could retain only one Leacock. i.e. Sunshine Sketches because it is the only book that comes close to being a novel,’ McClelland later recorded. ‘We decided to eliminate the literary curiosity as novel. In short we are going for the big ones and major authors and not necessarily looking for variety,’ he

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explained. ‘... We retained EMILY MONTAGUE not only because it is a key novel historically, but because it is not a bad novel in its own right. But other books that are fairly key in the study of Canadian literature would be eliminated on the grounds of quality.’ During this meeting, eighty-five novels from the existing NCL were provisionally selected, while another fifteen titles, not currently in the NCL, were proposed.54 Despite this tentative list, McClelland found himself in the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand, he felt it would be an advantage for marketing purposes to ‘have some sort of peer group selection or approval rather than just a single voice’ behind the selection; on the other, he could not ‘afford to be impractical enough to find that in the opinion of people we ask [that] the NCL selections have been all crazy’ and that there was a need ‘to go out and get another 50 titles.’55 After due reflection, it was decided that Ross should send their working list to ’12 or 15 people (friendly experts)’ who would be asked ‘to comment on the list, [and] to suggest additions if they think additions should be added, etc.’ This action, they believed, would ‘test the water’ in terms of the consistency of their collective view with those of outside educators. If consistency was evident among the responses, then a more extensive survey could be undertaken in advance of the conference, which they had by then determined would be held at the University of Calgary, the institution that had recently acquired Ross’s personal papers. McClelland felt the results of the survey could be analysed at the conference, but in no way would M&S be bound to act on the results, nor did McClelland plan to publicize the reason behind the activity.56 McClelland saw the proposed survey as a pragmatic means of establishing a consensus among educators and critics about what texts should appear in a standard NCL set comprised of one hundred Canadian novels. This exercise was not one in which Ross would have engaged of his own initiative, but the consultation process did offer a means of assessing his general editorship of the series.57 When Ross sent out his initial test ballot at the beginning of August, it included a cover letter that identified the NCL explicitly. ‘As editor of NCL I am anxious to have at this point an appraisal of what we have done,’ the letter explained, ‘especially with the novel.’ Then, hinting at things to come, it continued: ‘Perhaps it is appropriate that during our twentieth anniversary

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we should carefully reconsider our selection of what we have believed to be the most significant and representative novels available to us.’58 Differences arose between Ross and McClelland as they proceeded to the next stage. McClelland believed that the test ballot had ‘served its purpose well in giving ... us guidance on how we should proceed.’ However, some adjustment of its form was now required. He reported that there was a need to ‘proceed with great care and caution’ because he had discovered ‘crocodiles in the swamp.’59 The crocodiles were apparently funding bodies unwilling to support a conference focused on the concerns of only one Toronto publisher. In a subsequent letter, McClelland explained more explicitly: ‘in order to raise funds in Alberta, it became necessary to make [the conference] a University of Calgary project in its entirety and also to drop the New Canadian Library as a stated focus because it introduced commercialism, impeded fund raising and impeded co-operation from other people in the book industry.’60 McClelland’s determination that there should be no mention on the final ballot of publishers generally, or the NCL specifically, supports this contention, but from a business point of view it also suited his purposes since he did not want to show his hand too soon. ‘We don’t want them [professors] worrying about, or speculating about, the New Canadian Library, what its plans are, what books might be dropped, whether rights are available to books that might be wanted, etc.,’ he explained.61 Further impetus to make a broader survey also came from the conference organizers at the University of Calgary. ‘When the Conference Organizing Committee was designing the structure of its sessions, the decision was made to define a more specific and wider corpus of novels than the incidental delimitation of theme papers could provide,’ one of the organizers, English professor Charles Steele, later recalled. After it learned that Ross ‘was interested in evaluating, by means of polling educators, book reviewers, and literary critics, the efficacy and utility of the implicit canon of Canadian fiction established by his New Canadian Library series,’ Steele explained, the committee asked him to construct a poll according to more general interests, a request to which Ross generously agreed.62 In fact, Ross was quite discomfited by the shift to a broader survey when he learned of it from McClelland.63 ‘There is a certain

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tang to being involved in the choice of 100 books for a particular purpose – NCL,’ he wrote the publisher in October 1977. ‘But 100 books for “Canadian Unity” is less compelling I suspect. Why not 200? or, if masterpieces are the choice – 20 – or 10? I am not sure “100” means much in terms of “participatory excitement” if it is a merely arbitrary figure.’64 In the end, the final ballot contained a list of two hundred novels, from which conference delegates were asked to choose one hundred, ranking each as ‘Major,’ ‘Significant,’ or of ‘Secondary Importance.’ Those who did not find a favoured novel among the list of two hundred were invited to write in the title. In addition, they were asked to draw up a second list, indicating their choices for ‘the ten best Canadian novels yet written,’ and a third list, to be comprised of ‘the ten Canadian works of literature of any genre (including literary criticism)’ that they considered ‘most indispensable to the study and appreciation of our national literary heritage.’65 Ross’s letter of October was simultaneously wrong and prophetic in its speculations. The ballot generated a great deal of ‘participatory excitement’; indeed, it became the focal point of the Canadian literary community’s initial foray into debate about the Canadian literary canon. On the other hand, Ross’s misgivings about generating a list of one hundred novels without a specific articulation of purpose proved well founded. To a portion of the academic community, it appeared that the general editor was engaging himself – and them – in an overt act of canonmaking. Writers, in turn, articulated mixed feelings. Prior to the conference, Sylvia Fraser supported the idea. ‘It’s a list that will foster recognition for our writers,’ she told a reporter. ‘Millions of Canadians will be surprised to know there’s a hundred worthwhile Canadian novels.’66 Margaret Laurence, by contrast, questioned the undertaking even before the ballot went out. Privy to the reason behind McClelland’s desire for a ballot, she encouraged the publisher to maintain the NCL in its current state ‘and cut out all this fancy business of selection and demotion and consultative ballots ... It would solve a lot of complications,’ she argued, ‘and would certainly be far less confusing for the teacher and the general reader ... I am not trying to criticize you ... I am truly concerned about the NCL and the vital role it has played in the teaching of Canadian literature. I would not want to see that role endangered or diminished.’67

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McClelland acknowledged Laurence’s concerns but did not share her point of view.68 Instead, he forged ahead with the ballot, which in November went out to more than five hundred people. In January 1978 the neutral media reports of the autumn gave way to negative criticism as the ballot became the focus of attention.69 In the Globe and Mail, book reviewer William French noted that scholars and authors had borrowed ‘a technique from the sports world’ and were currently pondering ‘the improbable task’ of compiling a list of one hundred Canadian novels, and described it as a ‘popularity contest organized by Malcolm Ross.’70 However, it was Bronwyn Drainie’s piece on CBC Radio’s Sunday Morning that cast serious aspersions on the undertaking and Ross’s involvement in the process. After Drainie’s program aired, Ross reported to McClelland that he, Ross, had been characterized as a man who had ‘opened up Pandora’s Box of anger, gossip and controversy’ and that the ‘broadcast was severely edited and much of what I had to say was cut.’71 Drainie also solicited comments from other members of the literary community, some of whom voiced negative opinions of the ballot.72 Ross had the opportunity to address his critics publicly prior to the conference on Eric Friesen’s CBC Radio show of 10 February. In an effort to counter those who had accused him of ‘trying to impose a fixed and definitive canon of one hundred novels on an innocent public,’ one from which ‘many a worthy novelist’ would be ‘excluded, banished, deprived of a public, starved,’ Ross explained that he had been asked ‘to solicit a list of one hundred novels which could be used to illustrate a discussion of various critical problems.’73 Enumerating the potential benefits of the ballot, he added: The list should indicate at least the range of books now in general use. It may well reveal gaps and omissions in our teaching & our reading. It will probably contain titles which are little known but which should be known. I hope it will encourage publishers to make available books now out of reach. I hope it will encourage a wider interest in French Canadian books in English and English Canadian books in French. I hope it will make all of us more aware of the diverse regional values which should inform and enrich the Canadian imagination. But the list is tentative and merely experimental ... whatever the

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results of the ballot they will be subjected to rigorous scrutiny at the Conference in the light of the major critical issues before the Conference. I hope that from the discussion and debate we will gain a more secure sense of what is really first class in our fiction and of what is important to us in assessing our own cultural development.74

Despite Ross’s pre-conference effort to defuse criticism of the survey and clarify his own intentions, the ballot proved a major source of controversy at the event, which took place from 15 to 18 February 1978. The conference, which had begun, in part, as a retirement celebration for the general editor, ended up being the ‘most painful experience’ of Ross’s career.75 The several lists, which were compiled using the ballots of the 140 respondents, were made public on the final day of the conference. In introducing them, Ross repeated his statement from the Friesen show, and then added that he personally had been engaged by the survey process because of his past editorship of NCL: he was curious to know how many of his selections for the series would survive the ‘scrutiny’ of the delegates.76 Two of his fellow panellists, Henry Kreisel and W.J. Keith, both advised caution in approaching the list that had been compiled. ‘I am, however, prepared to approve moderately, without taking it too seriously, the tentative drawing up of such a list,’ stated Keith. ‘... [S]ome such evaluation, some such list, is going to be made anyway, and let us not deceive ourselves about that. If we as critics of and commentators upon literature do not make our presence felt, do not stand up to be counted, then the list is going to be made up by others whom I would be even more reluctant to see making it.’77 In the discussion period afterward, ‘a profound, general unease with the entire list-making exercise was expressed.’ Canadian literature, someone stated, had been done a ‘very great disservice’ by the list; others questioned its ‘potentially damaging authority.’ Eli Mandel, it was noted, ‘forcefully dissociated himself completely from what he terms “a genuine Canadian document,” both “balanced” (symmetrical) and “unbalanced,” a “blue paper,” “anonymous,” and “prepared in a very Canadian way, by a committee.”’78 Contemporary newspaper accounts noted that the list generated much commentary among attendees. Opinions ran the gamut. Mordecai Richler assessed it as ‘amusing,’ while Sylvia Fraser, in a dramatic reversal, asserted that it was ‘as though the

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writer were a criminal, and we’re here to receive our judgments.’79 In reflecting on the Canadian literary goings-on at Calgary, one journalist argued that the idea of the poll was not ‘all bad’ even if it was not ‘all good.’ ‘[I]t makes the public aware that at least 100 novels have been written by Canadians,’ he explained; ‘it has brought the subject to debate and, best of all, it has provided Canadians with a literary shopping list that they, for the most part, probably didn’t even know existed.’80 McClelland might have deemed this particular reporter a soulmate in a cosmos where there were few. While Ross had found the conference a dreadful experience, the publisher considered it a success. In late February, McClelland referred to it as ‘a great Conference. A great tribute to you. A great tribute to the degree to which Canadian letters have moved ahead in the last 25 years.’81 That just over seventy books on the final lists had come from the M&S camp – though not all of them had been reprinted in the NCL – no doubt had something to do with the publisher’s enthusiasm.82 However, McClelland was not oblivious to the opinions of others. ‘Obviously there are a lot of people who think that it wasn’t [a success] and who think the whole Conference was wrong,’ he acknowledged to Mordecai Richler in a letter of the same day: I have been trying to peddle Canadian books for over 30 years and I am completely convinced that given a few years for the results to show, that Conference will have done more to ensure the use of the right Canadian books in the schools and colleges than any other single event that has occurred in the 30-odd years. The thing that a lot of purists fail to recognize is that the teachers in our highschools and the teachers and critics in our universities – what an inept bunch they are – really don’t know a goddamn thing about Canadian writing, what is important and what isn’t important. Teachers desperately need guidance. The list, imperfect as it is, indicates how desperately it is needed, but it is a start.83

McClelland’s comments to Richler implicitly touched on what he would make explicit in an exchange with Laurence: for the publisher, a secondary motive for instigating a ballot on Canadian literature was to provide an alternative list to the titles noted in Margaret Atwood’s Survival, a book he described as ‘the school

180

Editorial Practices and the Selective Tradition

teacher’s bible,’ one which did ‘a disservice to Canadian literature.’ ‘It was my hope,’ he explained, ‘that something would come out of this Conference to serve over a period of years to replace that book. This will happen. I couldn’t care less whether such a replacement is published by M&S or not. I have absolutely no financial interest in the matter, but I do care about our literature and I do care that some balanced, reliable guide be available to undo some of the damage that that book has done.’84 In the wake of the conference, McClelland favoured disseminating the list of one hundred significant novels. When both Ross and Laurence protested, the publisher stated adamantly that he did not understand the emotionalism and controversy the list’s compilation had generated.85 Later in 1978, he further expressed his exasperation: ‘[W]hat in hell is wrong with such a list?’ he exclaimed. ‘Nobody has been able to explain that to me. Every time a course in English literature or American literature or any other subject is planned, a list is made of major authors, books, or whatever is to be covered ... What is wrong with a Canadian literature list? Is there something sacrosanct about the field? Nobody has ever made the claim that this is the definitive list. It is a starting point.’86 When the publisher was asked in 1980 to make a speech at the Association of Canadian University Teachers of English, he saw it as an opportunity to call the academic community directly on the issue. In his speech, he admitted that the ballot had been conceived by him as a means of aiding M&S with the selection of titles in a reconfigured NCL; to him it had seemed reasonable to determine ‘from the top experts in the country what books are most important in the study of Canadian literature.’ ‘For some reason that defies my understanding,’ he added, ‘the top experts in Canlit want the information kept secret. They don’t like lists; they resist evaluations even though such lists and evaluations are produced in every other subject area that man studies. So the conference ended in sundering, politicing [sic] and name calling.’87 Ironically, illness prevented the publisher from making his speech. In the end, the list McClelland had worked so hard to coax out of a divided Canadian literary establishment never did directly assist in the creation of a reconstituted NCL while he remained owner of M&S. After the Calgary Conference, the series went into a three-year hiatus as McClelland and his staff reworked their

Canonical Conundrums 181

plans for its future. The failure to add new titles during these years, coupled with rumours that the entire series was out of print, adversely affected sales.88 After much internal debate, in early 1981 the NCL selections made during Ross’s years as general editor began to appear in new covers, and midway through the year the firm started to issue new titles. These additions were chosen at the sole discretion of M&S, and did not include introductions. Even so, McClelland had not entirely abandoned his concept of a ‘classics’ series. To facilitate this latter objective, the publisher asked Ross in 1981 to chair a Canadian Classics Committee, which would undertake the compilation of a list of titles for which the ‘classic’ designation seemed appropriate.89 This list was not to be confined to titles already present in the NCL. The following year, a number of established NCL titles, among them Sinclair Ross’s As for Me and My House, Stephen Leacock’s Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, and Ethel Wilson’s Swamp Angel, were reprinted in the new covers with a special gold band designating them a ‘New Canadian Library Classic.’ Each contained a note on its first page that defined a Canadian Classic as a work ‘indispensable for the appreciation of Canadian literature.’ New introductions were produced for some of these volumes. However, the Classics initiative survived only a few years: members of the committee took issue with the way M&S represented its activities and authority, and grew frustrated by the firm’s resistance to its recommendation that any title designated a classic should be reissued based on a sound source text and certainly presented in unabridged form.90 The latter issue remained unresolved until after M&S was sold to Avie Bennet in 1985, and the NCL was formally relaunched in 1988 under the general editorship of David Staines. In its new incarnation, formerly abridged NCL titles, such as Susanna Moodie’s Roughing It in the Bush, were released in unabridged form. Moreover, full-colour covers were devised, series numbering was discarded, and a portion of the titles that had appeared while Ross was general editor were quietly dropped. Perhaps most significantly, M&S adopted an arm’s-length relationship to Staines and the newly formed editorial board that had been established to assist him in making title selections.91 The era of mostly amiable, but occasionally contentious, negotiation between the

182

Editorial Practices and the Selective Tradition

colourful trade publisher and the scholarly general editor had passed. IV The New Canadian Library of the Ross-McClelland era provides a window into the processes of canonization that acted on Canadian literature through the middle decades of the twentieth century. In exploring the introductions to volumes in the series, one encounters the ambivalence of an array of academic critics toward Canada’s literary heritage, particularly with reference to those works that first appeared before the mid-twentieth century. Always at pains to identify the weaknesses as well as the strengths of these titles, critics also self-consciously situated them within a chronology of Canadian literary progress. Sales figures of NCL titles viewed in conjunction with the criticism their authors generated through the 1960s and 1970s reveal, in turn, the impact of ‘cultural Darwinism’ on titles originally published before the mid1950s, with a favoured few being selected by academics to represent the dominant genre or literary milestones of particular periods. The poor critical reception and sales of early titles reprinted in the NCL in the 1970s suggest that much of this ‘sorting out’ occurred in the 1960s, when the transmission of Canadian literature was still largely classroom-based due to limited forums for scholarly publication about the topic. With the notable exception of authors such as Ernest Buckler, James De Mille, Sara Jeannette Duncan, Sinclair Ross, and Thomas McCulloch, most pre–midtwentieth-century authors who achieved a canonical claim during the course of the 1960s and 1970s carried with them into the series an established critical reputation. In their case, the NCL helped to consolidate the status of their works within Canadian literary history, a phenomenon that would not prevail in equal measure for authors whose publishing careers began contemporaneously or after the NCL’s launch, and whose entry into the series was prompted by the initial flush of enthusiasm for their work or, at times, in the case of M&S authors, by the publisher’s need to issue their works promptly in a paperback format to meet contractual obligations. Although McClelland and Ross’s collaboration over the NCL was long and fruitful, the events surrounding the Calgary Conference highlight important differences between the publisher and

Canonical Conundrums

183

the professor, as well as the natures of the milieux each inhabited. The two were equally devoted to the cause of Canadian literature, but McClelland was subject to fewer constraints in its promotion. In his efforts ‘to peddle Canadian books,’ McClelland delighted in putting on a good show; in his ambition to market the NCL specifically, he used terms like ‘great works’ and ‘classics’ without compunction, even when his personal opinion of certain titles in the series fell far short of that estimation. Above all, he could not understand why academics would make such a fuss about producing a list of the most significant Canadian novels. By contrast, Ross always problematized the notion of ‘classics’ in relation to the NCL, preferring to emphasize his ideal of gathering together a range of texts that could provide a representative sampling of Canadian literature across time, region, and genre. Always he remained ready to acknowledge that the titles included varied in the degree of their artistic accomplishment, but staunchly asserted the potential to gain cultural insight from works of lesser literary merit. Although I.S. MacLaren would in 1988 take the series to task for situating ‘fiction, and principally the novel,’ at the forefront of Canadian literary studies, leading to the neglect of genres like the exploration narrative,92 Ross, in fact, demonstrated a much more inclusive view toward Canada’s literary heritage than many others of his academic generation, or the one that followed it. He was convinced of the critical and cultural significance of fictional modes like the regional idyll and the historical romance, when many others disregarded them. While his individual view of literature may not have extended to exploration narratives, if Ross had received requests for reprints of such titles or discerned a desire for them among the academic community, it is more than likely he would have argued for their inclusion in the series. Throughout his general editorship, Ross had always been responsive to his colleagues; the hostility he encountered as a result of the Calgary Conference list was all the more painful for this reason. Unlike McClelland, Ross did understand why the Canadian literary academy might be offended by being asked to draw up a list of the country’s one hundred most significant novels: the canon debate of the day still focused on the politics of exclusion, and the generation of a list of a specific number of titles certainly appeared exclusive. The open-ended approach Ross had taken to his general editorship of the NCL was much more in keeping with his own critical sensibility toward

184

Editorial Practices and the Selective Tradition

Canadian literature. The fact that the ballot developed for the Calgary Conference referred to the one hundred ‘most significant novels’ rather than the one hundred ‘great works of Canadian fiction,’ as McClelland first envisioned the list, no doubt had much to do with Ross’s tempering hand. In the Canadian context, the New Canadian Library of the 1958 to 1978 period was as much ‘an institution, a benign presence, a crusade’ as the Everyman’s Library had been in England.93 The publishing venture launched by McClelland and Ross in 1958, with equal parts trepidation and anticipation, transpired into a cultural force whose ramifications are evident in the volume of curricular, government, and media attention presently paid to Canadian literary authors and their works. In the simplest terms, the NCL of the Ross-McClelland years recovered a portion of Canada’s literary past and made it significantly more accessible to professors, teachers, students, and the general public. The series tangibly supported study and teaching in the field of Canadian literature, and thus helped to consolidate the position, and increase the overall value of the subject, within the eyes of the Canadian academy. The NCL’s survival past its first few years encouraged other Canadian-based publishers to launch their own quality paperback ventures. The NCL’s larger consequence was that it contributed to the development of a more substantial readership for Canadian literature in the culture at large. The issue of NCL titles in their distinctive bindings raised awareness of Canadian literature among the general reading public, while use of the volumes by students provided early exposure to Canadian writing that affected their purchasing habits once they left the classroom. The enthusiasm with which established and new Canadian publishing houses began to issue original works by Canadian authors in the 1960s and 1970s can be accredited, in part, to the cultural impact of the series. The NCL of the Ross-McClelland years was thus a publisher’s library of consequence. In its rendering, Malcolm Ross achieved his personal objective of illustrating ‘a sort of cultural history’ of Canada. In the course of doing so, he, Jack McClelland, and all those who engaged with them in the creation and dissemination of the series, raised the general awareness and valuation of the country’s literary heritage, and nurtured enthusiasm for subsequent endeavours in the field of Canadian literature.

APPENDICES

186

Appendix A: New Canadian Library Titles, 1958–1978 Table A.1 Main Series Titles (General Editor: Malcolm Ross) Vol. no.

Original publication

NCL publication

Batch

Author

Title

Introducer

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1922 (M&S) 1934 1910 1941 1945; tr. 1947 (M&S) 1836 n/a

17 Jan. 1958 (1957) 17 Jan. 1958 (1957) 17 Jan. 1958 (1957) 17 Jan. 1958 (1957) late Nov. 1958 late Nov. 1958 late Nov. 1958

1 1 1 1 2 2 2

Grove, Frederick Philip Callaghan, Morley Leacock, Stephen Ross, Sinclair Roy, Gabrielle Haliburton, Thomas C. Roberts, Charles G.D.

Ross, Malcolm Ross, Malcolm Davies, Robertson Daniells, Roy McPherson, Hugo McDougall, Robert Lucas, Alec

8 9

1941 n/a

late Nov. 1958 late Apr. 1960 (1959)

2 3

MacLennan, Hugh Raddall, Thomas H.

10

1914

late Apr. 1960 (1959)

3

Leacock, Stephen

11 12 13 14 15

n/a 1938; tr. 1940 1944 1901 1912

late Apr. 1960 (1959) 19 Nov. 1960 19 Nov. 1960 19 Nov. 1960 19 Nov. 1960

3 4 4 4 4

Drummond, W.H. Ringuet Graham, Gwethalyn Connor, Ralph Leacock, Stephen

16

1821–2

5 May 1961 (1960)

5

McCulloch, Thomas

Over Prairie Trails Such Is My Beloved Literary Lapses As for Me and My House The Tin Flute The Clockmaker The Last Barrier and Other Stories* Barometer Rising At the Tide’s Turn and Other Stories* Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich Habitant Poems* Thirty Acres Earth and High Heaven The Man from Glengarry‡ Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town‡ The Stepsure Letters

McPherson, Hugo Bevan, Allan Curry, Ralph Phelps, Arthur LeGrand, Albert Mandel, Eli Beharriell, S. Ross Ross, Malcolm Frye, Northrop

Table A.1

(Continued)

Original publication

NCL publication

Batch

Author

Title

Introducer

17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

1937 1925 (M&S) 1944 1904 1926 1951 1952 1948 (M&S) 1950; tr. 1951 (M&S) 1944; tr. 1948 1769

19 Nov. 1960 5 May 1961 5 May 1961 5 May 1961 5 May 1961 5 May 1961 21 Oct. 1961 21 Oct. 1961 21 Oct. 1961 21 Oct. 1961 21 Oct. 1961

4 5 5 5 5 5 6 6 6 6 6

Callaghan, Morley Ostenso, Martha Grove, Frederick Philip Duncan, Sara Jeannette de La Roche, Mazo Klein, A.M. Buckler, Ernest Kreisel, Henry Roy, Gabrielle Lemelin, Roger Brooke, Frances

McPherson, Hugo King, Carlyle Watters, R.E. Bissell, Claude Pacey, Desmond Steinberg, M.W. Bissell, Claude Stedmond, John Roper, Gordon Shortliffe, Glen Klinck, Carl

28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

1922 1954 1951 1852 1929 1934 1949 (M&S) 1911 1926 (M&S) 1954 1950 (M&S)

21 Oct. 1961 8 Sept. 1962 8 Sept. 1962 8 Sept. 1962 8 Sept. 1962 8 Sept. 1962 20 July 1963 20 July 1963 20 July 1963 1963 20 July 1963

6 7 7 7 7 7 8 8 8 8 8

Leacock, Stephen Wilson, Ethel MacLennan, Hugh Moodie, Susanna Knister, Raymond Callaghan, Morley Birney, Earle Leacock, Stephen Stead, Robert J.C. Bodsworth, Fred Raddall, Thomas H.

More Joy in Heaven Wild Geese The Master of the Mill The Imperialist Delight The Second Scroll The Mountain and the Valley The Rich Man Where Nests the Water Hen The Town Below The History of Emily Montague My Discovery of England Swamp Angel Each Man’s Son Roughing It in the Bush‡† White Narcissus They Shall Inherit the Earth Turvey Nonsense Novels Grain Last of the Curlews The Nymph and the Lamp

Whalley, George Pacey, Desmond Lucas, Alec Klinck, Carl Child, Philip Watt, Frank W. Woodcock, George Beharriell, S. Ross Saunders, Thomas Stevens, John Matthews, John

187

Vol. no.

(Continued)

188

Table A.1 Vol. no.

Original publication

NCL publication

Batch

Author

Title

Introducer

39 40 41 42 43

1955 1954; tr. 1955 (M&S) 1957 (M&S) 1908 1915

8 May 1964 8 May 1964 (1963) 8 May 1964 8 May 1964 5 Sept. 1964

9 9 9 9 9

Moore, Brian Roy, Gabrielle Marlyn, John Grainger, M.A. Leacock, Stephen

Stedmond, John Lougheed, W.C. Mandel, Eli Scheider, Rupert Davies, Robertson

44 45 46

1947 1955 1838

(?Apr.) 1965 (1964) 26 Feb. 1966 (?Apr.) 1965

10 11 10

Hiebert, Paul Richler, Mordecai Jameson, Anna B.

47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55

1946 1918 1933 1925 1836 1947 1942 1959 (M&S) n/a

(?Apr.) 1965 (?Apr.) 1965 (?Apr.) 1965 1966 26 Feb. 1966 26 Feb. 1966 6 Dec. 1965 26 Feb. 1966 (?Apr.) 1967

10 10 10 11 11 11 11 11 12

Meade, Edward Leacock, Stephen Grove, Frederick Philip Grove, Frederick Philip Traill, Catharine Parr McCourt, Edward Leacock, Stephen Watson, Sheila Dunlop, William

56 57 58

1955; tr. 1957 (M&S) (?Apr.) 1967 1928 (?Apr.) 1967 1832 (?Apr.) 1967

12 12 12

Roy, Gabrielle Leacock, Stephen Richardson, John

Judith Hearne The Cashier Under the Ribs of Death Woodsmen of the West Moonbeams from the Larger Lunacy Sarah Binks Son of a Smaller Hero Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada‡† Remember Me Frenzied Fiction Fruits of the Earth Settlers of the Marsh The Backwoods of Canada‡† Music at the Close My Remarkable Uncle The Double Hook Tiger Dunlop’s Upper Canada* Street of Riches Short Circuits Wacousta‡†

Wheeler, A. Lloyd Woodcock, George Thomas, Clara Shrive, Norman Dooley, David Parks, M.G. Saunders, Thomas Thomas, Clara Bevan, Allan Stevens, John Grube, John Klinck, Carl Conron, Brandon Dooley, D.J. Klinck, Carl

Table A.1

(Continued)

Vol. no.

Original publication

NCL publication

Batch

Author

Title

Introducer

59 60 61 62

1964 (M&S) 1916 1967 (M&S) n/a

23 Mar. 1968 23 Mar. 1968 23 Mar. 1968 23 Mar. 1968

13 13 13 13

Laurence, Margaret Leacock, Stephen Davies, Robertson Ross, Sinclair

New, W.H. Cole, D.W. Roper, Gordon Laurence, Margaret

63

1913 ?1911

23 Mar. 1968

13

64 65 66

1854 1877 1959

Spring 1969 Spring 1969 Spring 1969

14 14 14

Roberts, Theodore Goodridge Traill, Catharine Parr Kirby, William Richler, Mordecai

The Stone Angel Further Foolishness Marchbanks’ Almanack The Lamp at Noon and Other Stories* The Harbor Master

Thomas, Clara Crawley, Derek Bevan, Allan

67 68

1913 1888

Spring 1969 Spring 1969

14 14

Leacock, Stephen De Mille, James

69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77

1945 (M&S) 1963 (M&S) n/a 1899 1963 1926 1896 1927 1964 (M&S)

Spring 1970 Spring 1970 Spring 1970 Spring 1970 Spring 1970 Spring 1971 Spring 1971 Spring 1971 Spring 1971

15 15 15 15 15 16 16 16 16

Leacock, Stephen Laurence, Margaret Woodcock, George Grey, Francis W. Cohen, Leonard Leacock, Stephen Parker, Gilbert Grove, Frederick Philip Kreisel, Henry

Canadian Settler’s Guide The Golden Dog† Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz Behind the Beyond ‡ A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder Last Leaves The Tomorrow-Tamer Odysseus Ever Returning* The Curé of St. Philippe The Favourite Game Winnowed Wisdom The Seats of the Mighty† A Search for America The Betrayal

Pacey, Desmond

Cameron, Donald Watters, R.E.

189

Robinson, J.M. Thomas, Clara New, W.H. Schieder, Rupert Smith, Rowland J. – Waterston, Elizabeth McMullin, Stanley E. Warhaft, S.

(Continued)

190

Table A.1 Vol. no.

Original publication

NCL publication

Batch

Author

Title

Introducer

78 79 80 81

1959; tr.1960 (M&S) 1963 (M&S) 1960 n/a

Spring 1971 Spring 1971 5 Feb. 1972 Feb. 1973 (1972)

16 16 17 18

Blais, Marie-Claire Richler, Mordecai Moore, Brian Sutherland, John

Kattan, Naim Ross, Malcolm Fraser, Keath Waddington, Miriam

82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91

1963 (M&S) 1960 (M&S) 1965; tr.1967 (M&S) 1944 (M&S) 1954 1969 (M&S) 1964 (M&S) 1864 1944 n/a

5 Feb. 1972 5 Feb. 1972 5 Feb. 1972 5 Feb. 1972 Feb. 1973 Feb. 1973 Feb. 1973 Feb. 1973 Jan. 1974 Jan. 1974

17 17 17 17 18 18 18 18 19 19

Wiebe, Rudy Davies, Robertson Aquin, Hubert Raddall, Thomas H. Evans, Hubert Laurence, Margaret LePan, Douglas Leprohon, Rosanna Leclerc, Félix Gallant, Mavis

92

n/a

Feb. 1973

18

Scott, Duncan Campbell

93 94 95 96 97

1969 (M&S) 1946 1970 (M&S) 1970 (M&S) 1956 (M&S)

24 Feb. 1973 Jan. 1974 Jan. 1974 Jan. 1974 Jan. 1975

18 19 19 19 20

Atwood, Margaret Grove, Frederick Philip Leacock, Stephen Laurence, Margaret McCourt, Edward

Mad Shadows The Incomparable Atuk Luck of Ginger Coffey Essays, Controversies and Poems* Peace Shall Destroy Many A Voice from the Attic Prochain Episode Roger Sudden Mist on the River The Fire-Dwellers The Deserter Antoinette de Mirecourt Allegro** The End of the World and Other Stories* In the Village of Viger and Other Stories* The Edible Woman In Search of Myself Feast of Stephen A Bird in the House The Wooden Sword

Robinson, J.M. Cockburn, Robert Sutherland, Ronald Leitold, J.R. New, W.H. Bevan, Allan Watt, Frank W. Klinck, Carl Jones, Elizabeth Weaver, Robert Dragland, Stanley L. Dawe, Alan Spettigue, D.O. – Gibbs, Robert Bogaards, Winnifred

Table A.1

(Continued)

Vol. no.

Original publication

NCL publication

Batch

Author

Title

Introducer

98 99 100 101

1946 (M&S) 1968 (M&S) 1968 1858

Jan. 1974 Jan. 1974 Jan. 1974 Jan. 1974

19 19 19 19

Raddall, Thomas H. Buckler, Ernest Ludwig, Jack Lowell, Robert

Cogswell, Fred Young, Alan Laurence, Margaret O’Flaherty, Patrick

102 103 104 105 106 107

1935 1946 1960; tr. 1961 (M&S) 1939 1863; tr. 1864/1890 1924 (M&S)

Jan. 1975 (1974) Jan. 1974 Jan. 1974 Jan. 1974 Jan. 1974 Jan. 1974

20 19 19 19 19 19

Niven, Frederick Dewdney, Selwyn Blais, Marie-Claire O’Hagan, Howard Aubert de Gaspé, P.-J. MacMechan, Archibald

108 109

1970 (M&S) Jan. 1975 1961; tr. 1962 (M&S) Jan. 1974

20 19

Wiebe, Rudy Roy, Gabrielle

Pride’s Fancy Ox Bells and Fireflies Above Ground New Priest in Conception Bay The Flying Years Wind without Rain Tête Blanche Tay John Canadians of Old Headwaters of Canadian Literature Blue Mountains of China The Hidden Mountain

110 111 112 113 114 115

1900 1966 (M&S) 1954 1953; tr. 1955 (M&S) 1928 n/a

Jan. 1974 Jan. 1974 Jan. 1974 Jan. 1974 Jan. 1975 Jan. 1975

19 19 19 19 20 20

Roberts, Charles G.D. Laurence, Margaret Lewis, Wyndham Langevin, André Grove, Frederick Philip Woodcock, George, ed.

116 117 118

1923 (M&S) 1955 (M&S) 1902

Jan. 1975 Jan. 1975 Jan. 1975

20 20 20

Salverson, Laura G. Birney, Earle Connor, Ralph

Keith, W.J. Edwards, M.J./ Ross, M. Gold, Joseph Killam, G.D. Smith, Rowland Sutherland, Ronald Spettigue, D.O. Woodcock, George Hopwood, Alison Nesbitt, Bruce Beharriell, S. Ross

191

Heart of the Ancient Wood A Jest of God Self-Condemned Dust over the City Our Daily Bread Canadian Novel in the 20th Century* The Viking Heart Down the Long Table Glengarry School Days‡

de Bruyn, Jan Stevens, John Stratford, Philip Morley, Patricia Thomas, Clara Parks, M.G.

Table A.1

(Continued)

192

Vol. no.

Original publication

NCL publication

Batch

Author

Title

Introducer

119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127

1948; tr. 1950 (M&S) 1970; tr. 1970 (M&S) 1974 (M&S) 1973 (M&S) 1972 (M&S) 1970 (M&S) 1960 (M&S) 1960 (M&S) 1907

Jan. 1975 Jan. 1975 Jan. 1976 Jan. 1976 Jan. 1976 Jan. 1976 Jan. 1976 Jan. 1976 Jan. 1976

20 20 21 21 21 21 21 21 21

The Plouffe Family Windflower The Disinherited The Temptations of Big Bear Pandora House of Hate A Candle to Light the Sun This Side Jordan The Red Feathers

Moss, John McMullen, Lorraine Moss, John Bevan, Allan Staines, David Laurence, Margaret Ricou, Laurence Killam, G.D. Ware, Martin

128 129 130 131

1968 (M&S) 1966; tr. 1966 (M&S) 1965; tr. 1968 (M&S) 1975 (M&S)

Jan. 1976 Jan. 1976 Jan. 1976 Jan. 1976

21 21 21 21

Lemelin, Roger Roy, Gabrielle Cohen, Matt Wiebe, Rudy Fraser, Sylvia Janes, Percy Blondal, Patricia Laurence, Margaret Roberts, Theodore Goodridge Moore, Brian Roy, Gabrielle Godbout, Jacques Thomas, Clara

Kennedy, Alan Marshall, Joyce Davies, Gillian –

132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141

1947 1942 (M&S) 1862; 1864 1831 1957 n/a 1939 (?M&S) 1963 (M&S) 1964 1898

Jan. 1977 Jan. 1977 Jan. 1977 Jan. 1977 Jan. 1977 Jan. 1977 Jan. 1977 Jan. 1977 Jan. 1977 Jan. 1977

22 22 22 22 22 22 22 22 22 22

Grove, Frederick Philip Raddall, Thomas H. Gérin-Lajoie, Antoine Galt, John Richler, Mordecai Brown, E.K. Macphail, Andrew Buckler, Ernest Bodsworth, Fred Seton, Ernest Thompson

I Am Mary Dunne The Road Past Altamont Knife on the Table Manawaka World of Margaret Laurence Consider Her Ways His Majesty’s Yankees Jean Rivard **† Bogle Corbet † A Choice of Enemies Responses and Evaluations* The Master’s Wife The Cruelest Month Atonement of Ashley Morden Wild Animals I Have Known

Spettigue, D.O. Gray, James Bruce, Vida Waterston, Elizabeth Stovel, Bruce Staines, David Robertson, Ian Ross Young, Alan Cole, D.W. Lucas, Alec

Table A.1

(Concluded)

Vol. no.

Original publication

NCL publication

Batch

Author

Title

Introducer

142 143 144 145 146 147

1972 n/a 1974 (M&S) 1974 (M&S) 1974 (M&S) 1951 (M&S)

Jan. 1977 Jan. 1977 Jan. 1978 Jan. 1978 Jan. 1978 Jan. 1978

22 22 23 23 23 23

Harlow, Robert Smith, A.J.M. Wiseman, Adele Ross, Sinclair Laurence, Margaret Creighton, Luella

Scann On Poetry and Poets* Crackpot Sawbones Memorial The Diviners High Bright Buggy Wheels

148 149 150 151 152

1969 (M&S) 1975 (M&S) 1937 1945; 1947; tr. 1950

Jan. 1978 Jan. 1978 Jan. 1978 Jan. 1978 Jan. 1978

23 23 23 23 23

Bacque, James Cohen, Matt Child, Philip Guèvremont, Germaine Richler, Mordecai

Big Lonely Wooden Hunters God’s Sparrows The Outlander Great Comic Book Heroes and Other Essays*

Diotte, Robert Smith, A.J.M. Laurence, Margaret McMullen, Lorraine Staines, David Macdonald, Rae McCarthy Bentley, D.M.R. Moss, John Duffy, Dennis Mollica, Anthony Fulford, Robert

193

Source: The information in the tables in Appendix A was compiled using archival papers, the NCL titles, and Carl Spadoni and Judy Donnelly, A Bibliography of McClelland and Stewart Imprints, 1909–1985: A Publisher’s Legacy. * original compilation for NCL Main series ** original translation for NCL † NCL edition is abridged ‡ M&S was not original publisher, but did publish an edition prior to NCL publication tr. translation n/a not applicable M&S original publisher of the book or its translation An NCL year in paretheses indicates a copyright year on the title different from actual year of publication.

194

Table A.2 Original Series Titles (General Editor: Malcolm Ross) Vol. no.

NCL publication

Author

Title

Introducer

O1 O2 O3 O4 O5 O6 O7 O8 O9 O10 O11 O12

late Apr. 1960,1973 21 Oct. 1961 8 Sept. 1962 5 Sept. 1964 Feb. 1967 Spring 1969 5 Feb. 1972 5 Feb. 1972 Jan. 1976 Jan. 1976 Jan. 1977 Jan. 1977

Ross, Malcolm, ed. Smith, A.J.M., ed. Smith, A.J.M., ed. Wilson, Milton, ed. Wilson, Milton, ed. Birney, Earle Mandel, Eli, ed. Sinclair, David, ed. Carman, Bliss Purdy, Al Birney, Earle Layton, Irving

Poets of the Confederation Masks of Fiction Masks of Poetry Poetry of Midcentury, 1940–1960 Poets between the Wars Poems of Earle Birney Poets of Contemporary Canada Nineteenth-Century Narrative Poems Poems of Bliss Carman Poems of Al Purdy Damnation of Vancouver Poems of Irving Layton

Ross, Malcolm Smith, A.J.M. Smith, A.J.M. Wilson, Milton Wilson, Milton Birney, Earle Mandel, Eli Sinclair, David Sorfleet, John Robert Purdy, Al Low, Wai Lan Mandel, Eli

Source: Same as table A.1, p. 193

195 Table A.3 Canadian Writers Series Titles (E ditor: W. Dave G odfrey until W12) o Vl. no.

NCLpublication Author

W1 W2 W3 W4 W5 W6 W7 W8 W9 W10 W11 W12 W13 W14 W15 W16 W17

1969 1969 1969 1969 1970 1970, 1971 1970 1970 1971 1971 1971 1971 1974 1976 1976 1978 1978

Duffy, Dennis Wilson, Milton Thomas, Clara Sutherland, Ronald Ondaatje, Michael Woodcock, G eorge Davies, Robertson L ucas, Alec Robillard, Richard H . Bates, Ronald New, W.H . Woodman, Ross G reig H ughes, P eter L ucas, Alec oYung, Alan Morley, P atricia G rant, Judith Skelton

Source: Same as table A.1, p. 193

Title Marshall McLuhan E.J. Pratt Margaret Laurence Frederick Philip Grove Leonard Cohen Mordecai Richler Stephen Leacock Hugh MacLennan Earle Birney Northrop Frye Malcolm Lowry James Reaney George Woodcock Farley Mowat Ernest Buckler Morley Callaghan Robertson Davies

Appendix B: Copies of NCL Titles Sold Annually, 1958–1979 Table B.1 Main Series Sales Title#

1958

1959

1960

1961

1962

1963

1964

1965

1966

1967

1

3423

738

1248

449

713

851

769

993

1106

1281

1968 594

2

3822

897

2047

1485

1240

1161

1876

1630

2493

2192

4630

3

5883

2053

2719

3874

2636

2403

2511

1817

2307

2330

2137

4

3319

945

1791

722

1127

1402

579

2099

2065

1770

3863

5

2693

2332

2510

1888

2349

1266

4566

2655

3359

7161

6023

6

3045

77

1345

1107

1124

1380

1542

1537

2199

1696

2353

7

1359

541

2877

424

271

256

341

374

342

304

87

8

1493

2048

2779

2104

810

1478

1512

4091

3428

3963

5448

9

1812

616

507

364

409

508

531

364

463

10

4075

2904

1477

1875

1396

1714

2343

2039

1313

11

2813

1412

1021

1038

1192

1185

1178

1276

1202

12

1643

804

512

608

845

694

1102

888

1157

13

1147

1874

581

312

724

1233

2140

2143

1150

14

1158

1283

560

749

976

737

839

902

983

15

730

3135

3967

4532

5320

5124

4192

6720

6841

1548

160

939

247

302

257

309

162

1133

1513

1269

715

1697

2171

3179

3485

1771

18

1459

569

443

526

583

693

737

878

19

1489

603

642

625

712

971

1209

504

20

1043

366

457

560

778

1207

319

497

21

1165

329

293

291

316

343

417

320

22

2055

-214

482

713

729

1167

1144

2031

23

880

601

609

593

839

1567

1709

361

24

949

328

195

401

395

395

378

392

25

1163

2041

1400

1802

1391

1534

2353

1634

26

1166

1502

737

4852

694

952

6767

1830

27

1029

632

539

305

462

563

553

449

28

1603

2053

1283

1075

780

1270

1239

811

29

1092

879

723

612

892

779

1690

30

1699

3665

1154

1857

2168

353

o/p

31

2123

2325

2249

2057

2814

2636

2913

32

602

568

235

255

344

214

194

33

886

949

745

946

1415

1390

1383

16 17

34

1716

939

800

1601

1195

1602

35

2397

1520

1558

1917

2038

2083

36

1015

1391

1193

1995

2048

2695

37

1335

1060

1023

1060

1188

927

38

1448

687

274

938

789

1022

39

1321

629

717

415

1013

40

1560

759

1338

869

576

41

965

368

311

315

425

42

1754

579

376

380

474

43

1360

1139

1219

1089

739

Copies of NCL Titles Sold Annually, 1958–1979 197

1969

1970

1971

1972

1973

1974

1975

1976

1977

1978

1979

Total

1688

2044

1075

1731

1640

1244

1781

859

942

475

394

26,038

5259

8251

8589

8092

6397

7648

7378

6513

4370

4349

4082

94,401

1845

2609

2630

2272

1993

2302

2143

1754

1308

1207

830

51,563

4452

5269

7104

9454 10,236

11,824 13,415

11,041

8019

9255

7155

116,906

7228

8555 13,120 10,287 10,351 10,596

11,281 10,688 10,919

9315

7167 146,309

1622

3867

4523

4205

3177

3226

3911

3096

1724

2086

1516

50,358

0

669

6644

838

1429

628

1050

569

394

417

15

19,829

6598

7294

8336

8193

6473

8881

9925

6850

5085

6299

574

600

924

1045

1193

745

963

561

438

714

282

1017

2447

3381

2617

3008

2696

2891

2937

1694

1952

1071

44,847

1309

1579

1698

2005

1240

1320

1234

856

613

465

400

25,036

4033 107,121 13,613

1919

2276

3205

3733

3578

3683

3765

3447

2808

2921

3093

42,681

2263

2009

1819

1367

924

941

1542

1100

773

523

1122

25,687

1276

2357

1669

793

2092

1115

846

1396

1065

23,118

9559 10,156 12,298 10,235

7957

6464

6622 142,325

1148

1174

7375

9277

11,044 10,777

381

348

463

628

659

8106

9424

7952

9188

7322

693

492

283

277

181

9041

9733 10,904

712

8659

7566

8095

6891

110,773

862

365

2148

1826

3351

2293

2517

3284

2097

2304

2380

29,315

1318

1183

1802

2011

1645

1633

1652

1362

877

886

649

21,773

778

1449

1686

1679

1804

2070

2068

2939

1587

1444

1072

23,803

266

328

801

874

360

349

265

427

190

308

88

7730

1986

1448

1328

1498

1415

1521

879

1359

767

519

515

21,342

6170

4488

6916

7767

4109

8123 10,599 10,595

8948

7776

5360

88,010

355

349

637

1131

1250

975

557

811

530

885

732

11,645

2219

2434

3013

3165

3435

5343

4109

3596

3225

2806

2186

48,849

2462

2284

1754

2203

1401

881

829

858

395

755

351

32,673

328

367

467

1255

396

463

394

712

573

382

129

9998

915

1456

1030

1450

1459

1373

1093

797

568

564

338

21,157

1211

9344

4350

3128

2439

5087

4567

3398

3044

3012

2156

48,403

o/p

o/p

o/p

o/p

o/p

o/p

o/p

o/p

o/p

o/p

o/p

10,896

0

5417

6318

7100

8437

9449

9375

8752

7012

6546

4405

89,928

232

274

543

757

466

365

358

490

106

110

118

6231

3052

3408

4108

3976

3220

3489

4865

3765

1738

2305

1473

43,113

1781

1964

2433

2778

1848

1797

2620

1899

1843

945

669

28,430

1517

2161

1851

1993

1919

1733

1682

1606

1612

841

759

29,187

3230

2299

1723

1294

1847

1470

1148

1201

1498

1540

1048

28,635 27,304

855

1352

2605

3428

2552

1548

2145

1750

1810

1759

907

1033

783

3810

1783

1563

1428

1722

1325

1484

1957

1046

23,092

1009

974

2970

2190

1008

1467

1073

1181

1372

960

468

18,767

677

1547

2887

2847

2653

2398

2793

2963

1845

2417

1756

29,885

440

701

2577

2892

2216

2161

2638

2314

1736

1765

2122

23,946

703

244

676

999

658

643

545

685

363

380

260

9719

1156

1180

962

1139

1046

974

916

633

594

384

220

14,750

198

Appendix B

Table B.1 Main Series Sales (Continued) Title# 44

1958

1959

1960

1961

1962

1963

1964

1965

1966

1967

1968

2284

1255

2129

1547

1388

1267

850

937

736

581

45 46

1284

47

533

277

151

111

48

1667

1166

1230

873

49

671

922

1315

1439

50

39

1142

704

980

51

1877

1752

929

52

867

302

307

53

1817

1172

761

54

1264

1101

1497

55

811

340

56

1441

949

57

1692

742

58

684

356

59

1349

60

1350

61

625

62

852

63

558

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

Copies of NCL Titles Sold Annually, 1958–1979 199

1969

1970

1971

1972

1973

1974

1975

1976

1977

1978

1979

Total

1289

1531

2538

3057

2662

2268

3994

2323

1701

1118

1009

30,705

1680

2452

4110

8733

4941

5146

3263

3548

2288

2216

1322

43,204

536

623

756

1638

945

836

1007

1039

546

650

616

12,730

162

134

255

608

220

197

122

172

42

19

87

3090

870

1382

1483

1567

960

1304

1481

914

689

564

505

16,655

2543

3242

4272

3090

3562

3683

4373

4244

2424

1804

1185

38,769

1632

2212

6568

5137

4162

5752

4770

5434

3861

3781

2793

48,967

1154

1612

1943

2821

2359

2414

2696

2572

1944

1659

1118

26,850

390

392

249

824

613

585

441

448

227

300

170

6115

765

1056

1202

1732

1462

1429

1126

958

852

625

432

15,389

1579

1968

5324

4170

4099

4491

4259

4399

3701

3248

2435

43,535

376

307

235

698

398

274

421

310

18

–1

0

4187

1043

1068

1655

2906

2687

2243

2156

1821

1596

1082

964

21,611

629

1065

843

957

908

944

772

661

479

524

225

10,441

563

706

1049

1830

1022

1784

1232

2193

1516

1437

987

15,359

2372

6488 15,545 22,478 29,780 37,868 37,220 36,233 31,467

21,114 12,602 254,516

739

1157

936

1342

1302

1330

1155

754

410

523

288

325

323

528

917

983

987

999

1069

822

450

227

11,286 8255

449

443

1010

1392

1178

1391

1808

1651

2105

1845

1115

15,239

212

194

541

609

292

161

328

457

244

231

80

3907

1270

885

1055

1498

1450

1750

1588

1995

1340

1099

679

14,609

1020

917

1065

814

825

989

1506

1767

735

479

351

10,468

1586

2988

5859

6772

5520

5873

-16

1364

3

5464

3360

38,773

1419

1076

752

1014

931

937

814

606

370

569

261

8749

720

499

818

1057

1282

1569

1577

1306

727

1151

643

11,349

2077

1186

1454

1224

1064

918

609

445

617

306

9900

1926

2077

2690

2760

5176

5996

5318

3247

1813

1184

32,187

1471

924

956

591

308

517

481

229

87

39

5603

832

360

791

288

153

319

–26

17

0

0

2734

2932

3180

1972

1973

1838

2527

2002

1509

977

616

19,526

1849

965

995

855

736

533

344

358

197

6832

1038

699

398

274

507

497

202

197

176

3988

1477

1714

1493

1593

1749

956

401

431

438

10,252

1439

1343

420

882

764

1029

750

775

577

7979

3573

4603

7926

6871

3863

3463

3302

3997

2988

40,586

3723

3173

1926

1837

2073

2397

1749

1085

728

18,691

3567

3671

3963

5455

5054

4500

3312

1066

30,588

927

262

248

205

117

35

71

1865

2410

2586

2316

2308

1908

2516

2633

19,273

2596 1337

1058

1139

1050

951

624

425

340

6924

3021

1565

1498

1373

1311

586

731

1161

11,246

955

2865

1207

474

714

420

342

9143

1430

802

683

403

881

528

217

4944

6489 10,826 12,905 10,447

8248

4223

1111

54,249

149

111

65

2386

2166

924

308

379

450

200 Appendix B Table B.1 Main Series Sales (Continued) Title# 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133

1958

1959

1960

1961

1962

1963

1964

1965

1966

1967

1968

Copies of NCL Titles Sold Annually, 1958–1979 201

1969

1970

1971

1972

1973

1974

1975

1976

1977

1978

1979

Total

891

570

463

407

50

140

100

2621

1383

285

282

274

251

167

2642

1972

244

995

394

398

681

4684

513

185

224

148

93

109

2068

21,144 22,338 19,889 20,681 17,590

796

8849

3879

114,370

1951

555

390

642

227

198

3963

2228

780

758

434

397

389

4986

8329 10,369

8565

6619

6329

3164

43,375

1537

265

86

104

72

2064

1870

384

360

454

374

197

3639

3477

1869

1641

949

795

417

9148

1756

157

300

32

30

790

3065

1672

417

356

211

119

67

2842

1614

257

142

29

109

2151

1756

347

374

338

162

217

3194

2354

1085

1003

598

741

489

6270

1871

290

1508

856

1580

903

7008

1506

466

717

712

770

313

4484

1568

313

300

317

101

66

2665

3034

1030

924

549

867

6404

2891

1419

1160

720

733

436

7359

1561

622

339

662

395

306

3885

12,398 13,852 14,999

9225

3946

2840

57,260

1663

208

289

26

–7

0

2179

2288

1059

953

801

1031

419

6551

2020

920

677

501

430

4548

2447

1122

567

464

231

4831 3391

1680

721

466

276

248

2712

1061

282

205

73

4333

2538

1216

1006

666

983

6409

2182

608

400

477

128

3795

3895

2669

2695

1722

1932

12,913

3172

825

693

755

5445

4159

1941

2542

1546

10,188

3996

1187

1205

578

6966

2410

839

794

701

4744

1995

240

280

203

2718

6802

3524

1777

925

13,028

1935

313

89

2337

591

501

121

3680

2795

914

634

796

5139

1943

323

31

-2

2295 5316

2467

3632

757

614

313

1631

182

87

1900

1756

465

321

2542

202 Appendix B Table B.1 Main Series Sales (Concluded) Title#

1958

1959

1960

1961

1962

1963

1964

1965

1966

1967

1968

134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152

Source: WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 93, file 14. Note: To match title numbers to titles, see Appendix A. The figures quite possibly include review copies distributed at no charge.

Table B.2 Original Series Sales Title# O1 O2 O3

1958

1959

1960

1961

1962

1963

1506

1931

502

1048

949 871

O4 O5 O6 O7 O8 O9 O10 O11 O12

Source: Same as table B.1, above.

1964

1965

1966

1967

1968

587

668

932

1114

1349

1012

708

1181

818

895

654

659

993

737

769

819

797

806

1264

1420

1739

3418

3665

2205

1063

Copies of NCL Titles Sold Annually, 1958–1979

1969

1970

1969

1970

1931

2427

1030

757

1971

1971

1972

1973

1974

1975

1976

203

1977

1978

1979

Total

1332

42

75

1449

1320

111

74

1505

2237

362

138

2737

1386

83

83

1552

2038

115

142

2295

2526

561

300

3387

1413

152

114

1679

2832

1075

587

4494

1255

24

115

1394

1467

76

89

1632

2849

773

3622

1970

188

2158

2296

845

3141

1877

159

2036

986

54

1040

1067

197

1264

887

70

957

1321

124

1445

1328

117

1445

Total

1972

1973

1974

1975

1976

1977

1978

1979

3818

4626

3402

3059

3429

3467

2745

2490

1723

42,718

1017

1353

740

579

749

549

336

267

133

14,422

824

705

1085

1157

795

638

697

607

301

143

93

12,837

3876

6535

5382

4529

3022

4113

3163

2660

2720

2174

1651

51,331

2158

2618

9087

3921

3006

3284

3007

2980

2320

2319

1733

39,701

228

1803

1692

2192

1800

1399

1130

1043

1041

–4

–2

12,322

4393

4561

4473

5230

4014

2252

2541

2739

30,203

1644

1270

1554

1264

1939

731

809

355

9566

2005

112

104

152

2373

1878

648

682

466

3674

1804

317

53

2174

2088

538

331

2957

204 Appendix B

Figure B.1 Copies of NCL titles sold annually, 1958–1979 (Main and Original series) 400,000 350,000 300,000

200,000 150,000 100,000 50,000

5 19 9 60 19 6 19 1 62 19 6 19 3 6 19 4 65 19 6 19 6 67 19 6 19 8 69 19 7 19 0 7 19 1 7 19 2 7 19 3 7 19 4 7 19 5 7 19 6 77 19 7 19 8 79

19

58

0 19

Copies

250,000

Year

Appendix C: Titles Proposed but Not Included in the NCL to 1978 Author/Editor Abbott, J. ed. Acland, Peregrine Allen, Andrew Anderson, Patrick Atwood, Margaret Avison, Margaret Baird, Irene Ballantyne, R.M. Barr, Robert Beames, John Beaven, Frances Begg, Alexander Berton, L.B., and L.B. Woodward Berton, Pierre Bessette, Gérard – – Bickersteth, J.B. Birney, Earle – – Blais, Marie-Claire – – – Blewett, Jean Blondal, Patricia Bodsworth, Fred – Bowering, George – Brooke, Rupert

Title/Nature of Title* Philip Musgrave All Else Is Folly collection from CBC Stage The Colour as Naked Surfacing† selected poetry Waste Heritage Hudson Bay The Measure of the Rule An Army without Banners Sketches and Tales Illustrative of Life in the Backwoods of New Brunswick, North America ‘Dot It Down’: A Story of Life in the North-West Johnny in the Klondike The Secret World of Og Le Cycle Incubation Not for Every Eye The Land of Open Doors, Being Letters from Western Canada Piers Plowman The ‘Third Shepherd’s’ Play Trial of a City, and Other Verse David Sterne The Day Is Dark; and, Three Travellers A Season in the Life of Emmanuel † The Wolf Jean Blewett’s Poems From Heaven with a Shout The Sparrow’s Fall The Strange One Mirror on the Floor selected poetry Canadian letters

206 Appendix C

– Brooker, Bertram – – Brown, E.K. Bruce, Charles – Buchan, John Buckler, Ernest Buell, John – Bugnet, Georges Buller, Herman Butler, W.F. Callaghan, Morley – – – – – – – – Campbell, Grace – – – Canada. Royal Commission on DominionProvincial Relations Carman, Bliss – – – Carr, Emily – –

The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke The Robber: A Tale of the Time of the Herods The Tangled Miracle Think of the Earth On Canadian Poetry The Channel Shore† The Township of Time† Sick Heart River The Rebellion of Young David and Other Stories Four Days The Pyx La Forêt One Man Alone The Great Lone Land An Autumn Penitent A Broken Journey In His Own Country It’s Never Over The Loved and the Lost Morley Callaghan’s Stories A Native Argosy No Man’s Meat Now That April’s Here and Other Stories Fresh Wind Blowing The Higher Hill Torbeg The Tower and the Town

Report Far Horizons Sanctuary: Sunshine House Sonnets selected letters The Selected Poems of Bliss Carman (ed. L. Pierce) The Book of Small Growing Pains The House of All Sorts

Titles Proposed but Not Included in the NCL to 1978

– Caswell, E.S. Cather, Willa Charney, Ann Chauveau, P.-J.-O Child, Philip – – Coady, M.M. Cobbett, William – Cockburn, R., and R. Gibbs (eds) Cody, H.A. Cohen, Leonard – – Cohen, Nathan Collier, Eric Collin, W.E. Connor, Ralph – – – – – – – – – – Cooney, Percival J. Cornish, John Costain, Thomas B. – Coulter, John Crawford, Isabella Valancy Creighton, Luella

Klee Wyck Canadian Singers and Their Songs Shadows on the Rock Dobryd Charles Guérin Day of Wrath Mr. Ames against Time The Village of Souls Masters of Their Own Destiny Advice to Young Men Peter Porcupine in America Ninety Seasons: Modern Poems from the Maritimes The Crimson Sign Beautiful Losers† Let Us Compare Mythologies selected poetry collection of dramatic criticism Three against the Wilderness The White Savannahs The Arm of Gold The Foreigner The Gay Crusader The Girl from Glengarry To Him That Hath The Major Postscript to Adventure The Rebel Loyalist The Rock and the River The Sky Pilot Torches through the Bush Kinsmen The Provincials The Black Rose High Towers Riel selected poetry Turn East, Turn West

207

208 Appendix C

Curry, Ralph L. Daniells, Roy Davies, Blodwen Davies, Robertson – – – – Day, Frank Parker de la Roche, Mazo – – – – – – – Deacon, W.A. Denison, Merrill – Dennis, Clara Drew, Wayland Drummond, W.H. Duley, Margaret Dumbrille, Dorothy – Duncan, Norman – – Duncan, Sara Jeannette – – Dunham, B. Mabel Durham, Lord Eaton, Evelyn Eggleston, Wilfrid Engel, Marian –

Stephen Leacock: Humorist and Humanist Deeper into the Forest Storied York: Toronto Old and New The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks Fortune, My Foe Leaven of Malice A Mixture of Frailties Tempest-Tost Rockbound Explorers of the Dawn Jalna Portrait of a Dog Possession Ringing the Changes: An Autobiography The Two Saplings The Very House Whiteoaks of Jalna The Four Jameses Henry Hudson and Other Plays Klondike Mike books The Wabeno Feast Dr. W.H. Drummond’s Complete Poems Highway to Valour All This Difference Deep Doorways Doctor Luke of the Labrador Harbor Tales down North The Way of the Sea articles from The Week Cousin Cinderella The Simple Adventures of a Memsahib Kristli’s Trees Report Quietly My Captain Waits The High Plains Bear† The Honeyman Festival

Titles Proposed but Not Included in the NCL to 1978

Faulknor, Cliff Finch, Robert FitzGibbon, Mary Agnes Forer, Mort Fraser, Sylvia Fraser, W.A. – – Freedman, Frank Frye, Northrop Fuller, W.H. Galbraith, John Kenneth Galt, John Garneau, Hector de Saint-Denys – Garner, Hugh – – Gélinas, Gratien Gibbon, J. Murray – Giguère, Diane Glassco, John Godbout, Jacques Gotlieb, Phyllis Graham, Gwethalyn Gray, John Grove, Frederick P. – – Gustafson, Ralph – Haggerty, Joan Haig-Brown, Roderick –

The White Calf The Strength of the Hills A Veteran of 1812 The Humback The Candy Factory The Blood Lilies Bulldog Carney The Lone Furrow This Side of Holman’s Hill collection of articles on Canadian literature and culture HMS Parliament The Scotch Lawrie Todd, or, The Settlers in the Woods complete poems (ed. J. Glassco) The Journal of Saint-Denys-Garneau Cabbagetown Storm Below The Yellow Sweater and Other Stories Bousille et les justes Drums Afar Pagan Love Innocence The Deficit Made Flesh Salut Galarneau! Within the Zodiac Swiss Sonata plays The Turn of the Year Two Generations The Yoke of Life Rivers among the Rocks Sift in an Hourglass Daughters of the Moon Fisherman’s Spring Ki-Yu

209

210

Appendix C

– – – – – – Hale, Horatio Haliburton, T.C. – – Hardy, W.G. – – Harlow, Robert – Harrison, Charles Yale Harrison, Susan Frances Hart, Julia Catherine Beckwith Hawthorne, H.B., C.S. Belshaw, and S. Jamieson Head, George

Measure of the Year On the Highest Hill Pool and Rapid Return to the River Starbuck Valley Winter Timber The Iroquois Book of Rites The Old Judge Sam Slick (ed. R.P. Baker) The Season-Ticket All the Trumpets Sounded Turn Back the River The Unfulfilled Gift of Echoes Royal Murdoch Generals Die in Bed† The Forest of Bourg-Marie

St. Ursula’s Convent, or, The Nun of Canada

The Indians of British Columbia Forest Scenes and Incidents in the Wilds of North America Hearne, Samuel journals Heavysege, Charles Saul: A Drama in Three Parts Hébert, Jacques The Temple on the River Hickman, Albert Canadian Nights Hiebert, Paul Willows Revisited Hiemstra, Mary Gully Farm Hilts, Louis Spanish Jack Hunter, Robert Erebus Innis, Mary Quayle Stand on a Rainbow Israel, Charles E. The Mark Jack, Donald Three Cheers for Me Jackson, Mary Percy On the Last Frontier: Pioneering in the Peace River Block

Titles Proposed but Not Included in the NCL to 1978 211

Jamieson, Nina Moore Joudry, Patricia Kalbfleisch, Herbert (trans.) Keith, Marian – – – Kelley, Francis Clement Kelly, L.V. Kennedy, Howard Angus King, Basil – – – Kiriak, Illia Klein, A.M. – Knister, Raymond Kroetsch, Robert – – Lampman, Archibald – Lampman, A., W.W. Campbell, and D.C. Scott Lampman, A., and E.W. Thomson Langevin, André – Laurence, Margaret Layton, Irving –

The Hickory Stick plays letters of Joseph Klotzkopp Bells of St. Stephen The Forest Barrier A Gentleman Adventurer The Silver Maple Pack Rat The Range Men The New World Fairy Book The Empty Sack The Happy Isles In the Garden of Charity The Wild Olive Sons of the Soil collection of prose and poetry selected poetry My Star Predominant But We Are Exiles Gone Indian The Studhorse Man The Poems of Archibald Lampman (ed. D.C. Scott) selected poetry

At the Mermaid Inn letters between the two writers Orphan Street Le temps des hommes The Prophet’s Camel Bell † plays The Swinging Flesh

212

Appendix C

Leacock, Stephen –

The Boy I Left behind Me collection on the French-Canadian question – Hellements of Hickonomics – Montreal, Seaport and City – My Discovery of the West – Our British Empire – Over the Footlights – While There Is Time Lemelin, Roger In Quest of Splendour Leprohon, Rosanna The Manor House of De Villerai Levine, Norman The Angled Road – Canada Made Me – collection of short stories – One Way Ticket: Stories Livesay, Florence Randal Savour of Salt – selected poetry Lizars, Robina Committed to His Charge Longfellow, Henry W. Evangeline Lowry, Malcolm Hear Us O Lord from Heaven Thy Dwelling Place – October Ferry to Gabriola – Ultramarine – Under the Volcano Ludwig, Jack Confusions – A Woman of Her Age Ludwig, Jack, and Andy Wainwright (eds) Soundings Macbeth, Madge The Patterson Limit – Wings in the West MacDonald, John Darkly the River Flows Mackay, Isabel Ecclestone The Complete Poems of Isabel Ecclestone Mackay – The House of Windows – Indian Nights – Mist of Morning – The Shining Ship and Other Verse

Titles Proposed but Not Included in the NCL to 1978 213

– Mackenzie, Alexander Mackenzie, William Lyon, MacKinnon, Lilian Vaux MacLennan, Hugh – – – – MacMechan, Archibald – – – – – Mandel, Eli Marquand, John P. Marshall, Joyce – McArthur, Peter – McClung, Nellie L. – – – McCourt, Edward – – – – McDougall, Colin McGee, Thomas D’Arcy McLeish, John Melzack, Ronald

The Window-Gazer journals collection of writings Miriam of Queen’s collection of essays Cross-Country The Precipice Thirty and Three Two Solitudes† The Book of Ultima Thule Old Province Tales Red Snow on Grand Pré The Relation of Hans Sachs to the Decameron Tales of the Sea There Go the Ships selected poetry Women and Thomas Harrow Lovers and Strangers Presently Tomorrow In Pastures Green To Be Taken with Salt Clearing in the West Painted Fires Purple Springs The Second Chance The Canadian West in Fiction Fasting Friar The Flaming Hour Home Is the Stranger Walk through the Valley Execution† collection of writings September Gale: A Study of Arthur Lismer of the Group of Seven The Day Tuk Became a Hunter and Other Eskimo Stories

214

Appendix C

Metcalf, John Mitchell, W.O. – Montgomery, L.M. (ed.) Moodie, Susanna – – Moore, Brian – – – – Moore, Mavor Moss, John Mowat, Angus Mowat, Farley – – – – – – – Newlove, John Niven, Frederick – Nowlan, Alden O’Hagan, Howard O’Meara, Walter Ostenso, Martha – – – – Page, P.K. Papineau, Louis-Joseph Parker, Gilbert

Going Down Slow novels Who Has Seen the Wind † Courageous Women Flora Lyndsay Geoffrey Moncton Mark Hurdlestone An Answer from Limbo The Emperor of Ice-Cream† The Feast of Lupercal Fergus The Revolution Script plays Patterns of Isolation in English Canadian Fiction Carrying Place The Black Joke The Curse of the Viking Grave The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be The Grey Seas Under Lost in the Barrens Owls in the Family People of the Deer The Regiment selected poetry Mine Inheritance The Transplanted handbook The Woman Who Got On at Jasper Station and Other Stories The Grand Portage The Dark Dawn The Mad Carews The Mandrake Root Milk Route The Youmg May Moon selected poetry collection of writings Pierre and His People

Titles Proposed but Not Included in the NCL to 1978 215

– – Pattillo, T.R. Pennefather, John P. Phelps, A.L. Pickthall, Marjorie –

The Power and the Glory When Valmond Came to Pontiac Moose-Hunting, Salmon-Fishing, and Other Sketches of Sport

Thirteen Years on the Prairies Canadian Writers The Complete Poems of Marjorie Pickthall Selected Poems of Marjorie Pickthall (ed. L. Pierce) – selected poetry Pratt, E.J. collection of poetry Purdy, Al The Cariboo Horses – Love in a Burning Building Raddall, Thomas H. The Governor’s Lady – Hangman’s Beach – A Muster of Arms, and Other Stories – The Path of Destiny – The Pied Piper of Dipper Creek – Tambour, and Other Stories – Tidefall – The Wedding Gift – The Wings of Night Reaman, George Elmore The Trail of the Black Walnut Reaney, James Colours in the Dark – Killdeer – The Red Heart Richler, Mordecai The Acrobats† – Cocksure† – Hunting Tigers under Glass – Shovelling Trouble – The Street† Ringwood, Gwen Pharis collection of plays Roberts, Charles G.D. Earth’s Enigmas – The Forge in the Forest – The Haunters of the Silences – The House in the Water – In the Morning of Time

216

Appendix C

– – – – Robins, John D. – (ed.) Robins, John D., and Margaret V. Ray (eds) Ross, Malcolm (ed). Ross, Sinclair – Roy, Katherine Morris Ryerson, Egerton Ryga, George Sagard, Gabriel Salverson, Laura Goodman – – Saunders, Marshall – – Scadding, Henry Schull, Joseph – Scott, Duncan Campbell – – – Service, Robert W. – – – Seton, Ernest Thompson – – Sime, J.G.

The Kindred of the Wild The Red Fox A Sister to Evangeline Watchers of the Trails The Incomplete Anglers A Pocketful of Canada

A Book of Canadian Humour Our Sense of Identity The Well Whir of Gold Lise My Dearest Sophie (ed. C.B. Sissons) The Ecstacy of Rita Joe Long Journey to the Country of the Hurons Confessions of an Immigrant’s Daughter The Dark Weaver Immortal Rock Beautiful Joe Esther de Warren The King of the Park Toronto of Old The Legend of Ghost Lagoon collection of radio work The Circle of Affection The Poems of Duncan Campbell Scott selected poetry The Witching of Elspie The Master of the Microbe The Poisoned Paradise Songs of a Sun-Lover The Trail of ’98 collection of nature stories Lives of the Hunted Two Little Savages Our Little Life

Titles Proposed but Not Included in the NCL to 1978 217

Simpson, Leo Sinclair, Lister – Slater, Patrick Smith, A.J.M. – Stead, Robert J.C. – – Stewart, Frances Strange, William Stringer, Arthur – Sutherland, John Sutherland, Ronald – Taylor, Peter Thériault, Yves Thomas, Audrey Thompson, Samuel Thomson, E.W. Traill, Catharine Parr Van der Mark, Christine Vining, Charles Walker, David – Wallace, Frederick William Warwick, Jack Watson, Wreford Weaver, Robert (ed.) Webb, Phyllis Whitaker, Herman Wiebe, Rudy Williams, Flos Jewell Williams, Helen E.

The Peacock Papers collection of radio work Socrates The Yellow Briar sequel volume to On Poetry and Poets Towards a View of Canadian Letters (abr.) The Cow Puncher Neighbours The Smoking Flax Our Forest Home Sunset in Ebony The Mud Lark The Prairie Wife Poetry of E.J. Pratt Lark des Neiges Second Image Watcha Gonna Do Boy ... Watcha Gonna Be? Agaguk Ten Green Bottles Reminiscences of a Canadian Pioneer for the Last Fifty Years, 1833–1883 Old Man Savarin, and Other Stories Canadian Crusoes Honey in the Rock Bigwigs Digby Where the High Winds Blow Blue Water The Long Journey Of Time and the Lover Ten for Wednesday Night Even Your Right Eye The Settler First and Vital Candle New Furrows: A Story of the Alberta Foothills Spinning Wheels and Homespun

218

Appendix C

Wilson, Edmund Wilson, Ethel – – – Wilson, Richard Wiseman, Adele Woodcock, George Wright, Richard B.

O Canada: An American’s Notes on Canadian Culture The Equations of Love† Hetty Dorval † The Innocent Traveller† Love and Salt Water† The Miraculous Birth of Language The Sacrifice Ravens and Prophets The Weekend Man

* Title suggestions are drawn from all archival collections consulted during the research process, but emerged primarily from WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds; SC-UCLCR, MR fonds; and TFRBL-UT, MR fonds. In addition to what is listed here, there were approximately forty further proposals for original volumes that were not author specific. CWS title proposals have also been omitted. † Titles that appeared in the NCL after Ross retired as general editor.

Notes

Introduction 1 W.H. Clarke, ‘An Art, a Craft, and a Business,’ 10; J. Gray, ‘Book Publishing,’ 61–2. 2 J. Gray cited in D. Staines, ‘Introduction,’ 14–15. 3 M. Ross interview with J. Friskney, 17 August 1995. 4 J. Breen and L. Atkinson, ‘Interview with Malcolm Ross,’ 60. 5 M. Laurence cited in B. Slopen, ‘Malcolm Ross,’ 22. 6 W.J. Keith, ‘Imagining Canadian Literature,’ 32. 7 D.F. McKenzie, ‘Book as an Expressive Form,’ 6–7. 8 C. Gerson and J. Michon, ‘Editors’ Introduction,’ 3. 9 L. Howsam, ‘Sustained Literary Ventures,’ 5. 10 R.D. Altick, ‘From Aldine to Everyman,’ 184. 11 D.F. McKenzie, ‘Book as an Expressive Form.’ 12 The impact of this decision forms an integral part of the narrative of W. St Clair, Reading Nation in the Romantic Period. 13 J. Tebbel, Between Covers, 67–75. 14 T.L. Bonn, UnderCover, 60–1; J. Satterfield, World’s Best Books, 161. 15 P. Litt, Muses, the Masses, and the Massey Commission, 108, 109. 16 Ibid., 84. 17 Ibid., 99–102. 18 Ibid., 107–8. 19 H. Hubert, Harmonious Perfection, 153. 20 J. Kertzer, Worrying the Nation, 44; M. Fee, ‘English-Canadian Literary Criticism, 1890–1950,’ 34, 38. 21 Canada, Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences, Report, 222.

220 Notes to pages 12–24 22 23 24 25 26 27

28 29 30 31

P. Litt, Muses, the Masses, and the Massey Commission, 109. J. Kertzer, Worrying the Nation, 51–3. N. Frye, ‘Conclusion,’ in Literary History of Canada (1965), 821. Queen’s University Archives, George Woodcock fonds, box 1, file 70, N. Frye to G. Woodcock, 7 May 1962. Ibid., box 2, file 43, H. McPherson to G. Woodcock, 25 January 1959. UWOA, Carl Klinck fonds, 1st accession, box 13, file 6, ‘The Historical Approach to Canadian Literature[,] Ontario Agricultural College 1941? 1942?’ Emphasis is Klinck’s. D. Pacey, ‘A Penetrating Analysis of the Role of the Critic,’ 25. WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series Cc, box 69, file: ‘New Canadian Library 1978,’ M. Ross to A. Porter, 16 May 1976. M. Ross interview with J. Friskney, 17 August 1995. R. Williams, Long Revolution, 66–70. Over the years, literary critics have occasionally referred to the NCL as a canon. Charles Steele, for example, wrote of ‘the implicit canon of Canadian fiction established by the New Canadian Library series,’ while Robert Lecker, in reference to the NCL, queried: ‘What values informed the pedagogical canon at its inception?’ (C. Steele, ed., Taking Stock, 155; and R. Lecker, ‘New Canadian Library,’ 155).

Chapter 1: Malcolm Ross, Jack McClelland, and the Launch of the NCL 1 UWOA, Carl Klinck fonds, 1st accession, box 8, file 38, J. Gray to C. Klinck, 24 October 1955. 2 J. Michon, ‘French-Canadian Classics from Fides,’ 239–41. 3 W. Eggleston, ‘Challenging the Publishers,’ 16. 4 Fourth resolution in G. Whalley, ed., Writing in Canada, 9. The conference’s first and second resolutions are also of note: they urged that Canadian literature be placed on provincial educational curricula and also favoured its post-secondary teaching (ibid., 8). 5 J. McClelland, ‘Reprinting of Canadian Books,’ 190–2. 6 D. LePan, ‘Tribute to Malcolm Ross,’ 2. 7 M. Ross interview with J. Friskney, 17 August 1995. 8 In a lecture entitled ‘Definitions: Religion, Poetry, History,’ Woodhouse detailed the relationship between poetry and history: ‘... poetry may be considered in its relation to history in two different ways: first,

Notes to pages 24–7 221

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

19 20

as it supplies data for depicting and explaining the age in which it was written; secondly, as forces operating in the age can be shown to have had their influence upon its poetry. In both divisions, it is necessary to recognize the complexity introduced by the personal factor – as indeed it is wherever history concerns itself with individuals, and especially with individuals of talent and genius; but here to be forewarned is to be at least half-armed. It has been argued that “literature is no document,” simply because it is literature and an imaginative creation, not a literal transcript. The truth is that literature is a document, but that, as with other documents, one needs to know the language in which it is written and how to deal critically with the data it presents. At the very least, literature will tell us much of the sensibility of an age, of the assumptions it makes, and of the effects it enjoys. In its other relation to history – namely, the way in which historical considerations may help to elucidate it – the poem can be considered first in its purely literary aspect, as standing in some relation to a tradition, either a positive relation as accepting the tradition or a negative one as reacting against it; and, secondly, it may be considered as responding to extra-literary influences which have contributed to shape the poet’s mind and outlook or provide the assumptions which underlie his work’ (A.S.P. Woodhouse, Poet and His Faith, 8–9). M. Ross interview with J. Friskney, 17 August 1995. Ibid. M. Ross, ‘Symbolic Approach to Carman,’ 140–4; and M. Ross, ‘Carman by the Sea,’ 294–8. M. Ross, ‘Bliss Carman and the Poetry of Mystery,’ 9. Ibid., 11, 13. Ibid., 12. M. Arnold cited in ibid., 11. Ibid. M. Ross interview with J. Friskney, 17 August 1995. For more detail of this period of Ross’s life, see M. McGillivray, ‘Scholar Visionary,’ 339–40. Ross’s name was one of three put forward by Grierson, in his 10 August 1945 letter of resignation, as a possible successor to him as commissioner. See G. Evans, John Grierson and the National Film Board, 233. M. Ross interview with J. Friskney, 17 August 1995. Ibid.

222 Notes to pages 27–30 21 22 23 24 25 26

27 28 29

30 31 32 33 34 35

36

37

M. Ross, ‘Introduction,’ in Our Sense of Identity, ix–x. Ibid., xi. M. Ross, ‘American Pressures and Canadian Individuality,’ 121. M. Ross, ‘Editor’s Introduction,’ in Arts in Canada, 5. N. Frye, ‘Poetry,’ in Arts in Canada, 86. See, for example, M. Ross, ‘The Imaginative Sense and the Canadian Question,’ and M. Ross, ‘Canadian Culture and the Colonial Question.’ Ross took particular issue with the introduction of The Bush Garden, in which Frye argued that any sense of national unity in Canada is political, while the imaginative sense among Canadians resides at the local or regional level. In ‘The Imaginative Sense and the Canadian Question,’ Ross responded: ‘Our six regions, to use Professor Frye’s count, are ... not solitudes, although each region has its own identity and, as Professor Frye asserts, the imaginative sense of the creative artist does indeed respond to the uniqueness of regions and localities.’ In Ross’s view, the works these artists produce, ‘localized as they are in setting and even in sensibility, serve to illuminate the larger sense we begin to have of ourselves in all our diversity’ (153). M. McGillivray, ‘Scholar Visionary,’ 342–3. M. Ross interview with J. Friskney, 17 August 1995. John McClelland cited in ‘Who’s Who in Business,’ 43. For an overview of M&S’s publishing activities during its first half century, see G.L. Parker, ‘History of a Canadian Publishing House.’ E. Cameron, ‘Adventures in the Book Trade,’ 33. J. King, Jack, 44. J. McClelland to J. Friskney, 30 November 1995. J. McClelland cited in E. Cameron, ‘Adventures in the Book Trade,’ 33; and J. McClelland to J. Friskney, 30 November 1995. J. McClelland cited in E. Cameron, ‘Adventures in the Book Trade,’ 33. C. Spadoni and J. Donnelly, Bibliography of McClelland and Stewart Imprints, 1909–1985, 36. See also E. Cameron, ‘Adventures in the Book Trade,’ 33–4. According to one article, between 1946 and 1965 the Canadian content on the list shifted from 10 per cent to 70 per cent. See ‘Canadian Publisher Goes Canadian,’ 38. Under the agreement, M&S served as the agent for Dent’s books in Canada but was not allowed to originate its own educational titles (WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 41, file 9, ‘McClelland and Stewart Limited A Confidential Report,’ c. 1972). J. McClelland to J. Friskney, 30 November 1995.

Notes to pages 30–4

223

38 M. Robert, ‘What Jack McClelland Has Done to Book Publishing in Canada,’ 24, 32. 39 T. Browne cited in ibid., 31 (emphasis in the original). 40 S. Fraser, ‘Beware Recurrent Ides of March,’ G13. 41 J. McClelland, ‘Book Publishing in Canada,’ Business Quarterly, 205. 42 J. McClelland cited in D. Cameron, ‘Jack McClelland and the Crisis in Canadian Publishing,’ 13. 43 J. McClelland cited in M. Knelman, ‘Business by the Book,’ 44. 44 J. McClelland, ‘Book Publishing in Canada,’ Business Quarterly, 211. 45 Robert Chambers Papers (held privately), R. Chambers, citation for Jack McClelland’s honorary degree, Trent University Convocation, 1985. 46 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, 1988 accession, box 27, file 2, ‘Correspondence’ (author correspondence 1954–64), M. Ross to J. McClelland, 9 December 1952. 47 Ibid., M. Ross to J. McClelland, 30 December [1952]. 48 Ibid., series A, box 54, file 15, M. Ross to J. McClelland, 6 April 1954. In this letter Ross refers to raising the idea with McClelland the previous year. In interviews, Ross recalled speaking with McClelland in person about the idea. See K. Chittick ‘SCL Interviews,’ 260. 49 Ibid., S.J. Totton to J. McClelland, 14 April 1954. 50 Ibid., J. McClelland to M. Ross, 22 September 1954. 51 J. Satterfield, ‘World’s Best Books,’ 161; WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#3, J. McClelland to M. Ross, 27 January 1955. The division of royalties between author and editor(s) varied over time and among books in the series. 52 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#3, M. Ross to H. Kane, 11 March 1957. 53 Ibid., box 54, file 15, M. Ross to J. McClelland, 21 October 1954. Ross’s first formal list included: Sinclair Ross’s As for Me and My House; Morley Callaghan’s Such Is My Beloved and More Joy in Heaven; Stephen Leacock’s Sunshine Sketches or ‘a collection of essays and skits from a variety of his books’; Thomas Chandler Haliburton’s ‘Sam Slick’ (possibly referring to the anthology prepared by Ray Palmer Baker in the 1920s); Susanna Moodie’s Roughing It in the Bush; Frederick Philip Grove’s Over Prairie Trails; Martha Ostenso’s Wild Geese; Hugh MacLennan’s Barometer Rising; Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano; a Confederation poets volume; and a collection of Canadian plays. Ross also cited as possibilities unspecified books by Thomas Raddall, W.O. Mitchell, and Ethel Wilson, as well as a collection of essays.

224 Notes to pages 34–42 54 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#3, J. McClelland to M. Ross, 23 November 1954 and 4 March 1955; and series A, box 54, file 15, M. Ross to J. McClelland, 6 December [1954]. 55 Ibid., box 47, NCL file#3, Catherine Grove to J. McClelland, 28 January 1958. 56 M. Ross interview with J. Friskney, 17 August 1995. 57 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#3, J. McClelland to M. Ross, 27 January 1955. 58 Ibid., J. McClelland to M. Ross, 31 January 1957; and ‘He’s Taking a Chance,’ 69. 59 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#3: J. McClelland to M. Ross, 31 January 1957; M. Ross to J. McClelland, 13 February [1957]; J. McClelland to M. Ross, 8 March 1957; and M. Ross and H. Kane, correspondence for March 1957. 60 Ibid.: J. McClelland to M. Ross, 27 November 1957; J. McClelland to M. Ross, 29 November 1957; and J. McClelland to J.A. (‘Steve’) Rankin et al., 25 November 1957. 61 Ibid., H. Kane to S. Ross, 10 April 1957, and J. McClelland to M. Ross, 2 April 1957. 62 Ibid., M. Ross to J. McClelland, 3 May [1957]. Ross’s emphasis. 63 T.L. Bonn, Heavy Traffic and High Culture, 10. 64 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#3, J. McClelland to M. Ross, 8 August 1957. 65 Ibid., J. McClelland to W.A. Deacon, 10 February 1958. 66 J. Satterfield, World’s Best Books, 161. 67 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series Ca, box 2, file 7, draft press release. 68 Ibid., typescript with no date or title beginning, ‘In creating the cover designs for the New Canadian Library, says Toronto artist Frank Newfeld, ...’ 69 Ibid., series A, box 47, NCL file#3, J. McClelland to J.A. (‘Steve’) Rankin cc. Kane, Savage, Yates, 25 November 1957. 70 Ibid., series Ca, box 2, file 7, news release, n.d., beginning, ‘On January 17, 1958, McClelland and Stewart Limited will publish ...’; and press release, n.d., ‘The New Canadian Library – A Publishing First.’ 71 Ibid., news release, n.d., ‘On January 17, 1958, McClelland and Stewart Limited ...’ 72 Ibid., box 15, file 6, J. McClelland to M. Ross, 7 January 1958. 73 SC-UCLCR, MR fonds, box 4, file 10, W.A. Deacon, ‘The Fly Leaf: Our Emergent Literature’ (4 Janaury 1958), clipping. 74 Ibid., P. McL. ‘New Venture,’ Winnipeg Free Press (18 January 1958).

Notes to pages 42–6

225

75 ‘Bookmaker’s Gamble,’ 12. 76 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#3, W. Eggleston, Critically Speaking book review, 2 February 1958. 77 Ibid., J. McClelland to M. Ross, 7 March 1958. 78 Ibid., R. McDougall to J. McClelland, 12 January 1958. 79 Ibid., series Ca, box 2, file 7, C. Bissell to M&S, 14 January 1958. 80 Ibid., series A, box 47, NCL file#3, J. McClelland to C. MacDonald, 10 February 1958. Chapter 2: Establishing a Canadian Literary Reprint Series, 1958–1967 1 The percentages regarding Canadian literature courses were calculated using the data in J.B. Friskney, ‘On a Mission for Culture,’ Appendix D, 655–7. According to a brief submitted to the Commission on Canadian Studies, between 1960 and 1970 full-time student enrolment at Canadian universities increased from 114,000 to 317,000. To address this increase in university attendance, established universities were expanded, some existing colleges acquired university status, and new universities were created (Trent University Archives, Commission on Canadian Studies fonds, box 2, file 4, brief 267, ‘The Selection of Faculties for Ontario Universities and the Strengthening of Canadian Studies,’ 5 December 1973). 2 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#3, J. McClelland to M. Ross, 24 January 1958. 3 Ibid., J. McClelland to M. Ross, 20 June and 25 August 1958; and M. Ross to J. McClelland, 2 October [1958]. 4 The book reviewer of the Saskatoon Star Phoenix was taken enough with this promotional gambit to publish a picture of the books in their stocking (J.S., ‘Forewords and Backwards,’ 30). Robert Fulford, clearly less enamoured of the books’ packaging, stated in the Toronto Daily Star that the four volumes had arrived ‘in a gaudy Christmas stocking’ (R. Fulford, ‘Book Makers,’ 28). 5 R. Weaver, ‘New Canadian Library and the Paperback Boom,’ 4. The selected titles were Morley Callaghan’s Such Is My Beloved, Frederick Philip Grove’s Over Prairie Trails, Stephen Leacock’s Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich, Sinclair Ross’s As for Me and My House, and Gabrielle Roy’s The Tin Flute. 6 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#3, J. McClelland to M. Ross, 25 August 1958. 7 D. Pacey, ‘New Canadian Library,’ 180.

226 Notes to pages 46–52 8 SC-UCLCR, MR fonds, box 4, file 10, R. Fulford, ‘Robert Fulford on Books: The Mark Twain Disaster,’ n.d. 9 Ibid., D.O.S., ‘Confederation’s Poets Collected,’ Vancouver Sun (21 May 1960). 10 G. Woodcock, ‘Venture on the Verge,’ 73. 11 Ibid., 73–4. 12 Ibid., 74. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid., 74–5. 15 Ibid., 75. 16 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 18, file 1, J. McClelland to M. Ross, 18 October 1960. 17 Ibid., box 47, NCL file#1, M. Ross to J. McClelland, 20 October 1960. 18 Ibid., NCL file#6, M. Ross to J. McClelland, 12 December [1960], and J. McClelland to M. Ross, 5 January 1961. 19 Ibid., NCL file#1, press release, hand dated 14 November 1960. 20 G. W[oodcock], ‘Short Reviews,’ 84. 21 M.G. Parks, ‘Canadian Books,’ 583. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid., 585. 24 M.G. Parks, ‘Book Reviews,’ 566. 25 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#1, J. McClelland to M. Ross, 7 April 1960. 26 Ibid., ‘New Canadian Library Program.’ 27 J. McClelland to J. Friskney, 6 March 1998; WRDARC-MU, Jack McClelland fonds, 1987 donation, box 12, file 37, ‘New Canadian Library Co.’ 28 LAC, audio tape A1–9903–0013, CBC Radio show Assignment, ‘Personality,’ Bill McNeil interview with J. McClelland at the World’s Biggest Book Sale at the St Lawrence Market in Toronto. 29 CUA, Robert McDougall fonds, box A-101, ‘Out-of-Print Canadian Books,’ hand dated June 1959. In addition, after the launch of the NCL, Ross received from colleagues occasional suggestions for nonliterary titles in other disciplines. 30 CUA, Robert McDougall fonds, box A-101, ‘Proposal for a Publishing Affiliation between the Institute for Canadian Studies, Carleton University and the New Canadian Library, McClelland & Stewart Limited.’ 31 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#1, J. McClelland to M. Ross, 4 May 1960.

Notes to pages 52–8

227

32 Ibid., box 18, file 1, M. Ross to J. McClelland, 6 May [1960]. Ross’s emphasis 33 Ibid., J. McClelland to R. McDougall, 16 June 1960. 34 Ibid., R. McDougall to J. McClelland, 27 June 1960. 35 Ibid., M. Ross to J. McClelland, 18 July 1960, and J. McClelland to M. Ross, 11 August 1960. 36 Ibid., box 47, NCL file#7, ‘Report of the New Canadian Library Meeting,’ 28 January 1961. 37 For a list of Carleton Library titles, see C. Spadoni and J. Donnelly, Bibliography of McClelland and Stewart Imprints, 1909–1985, 770–2. 38 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#6: J. McClelland to M. Ross, 5 January and 2 February 1961; and NCL file#7, ‘Report of the New Canadian Library Meeting,’ 28 January 1961. 39 D. Pacey, ‘Group of Seven,’ 63, 64. 40 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 62, file 14, R.E. Watters to J. McClelland, 25 October 1961. 41 Ibid., box 47, NCL file#2, G. Roper to J. McClelland, 13 November 1961. See also UWOA, Carl Klinck fonds, 1st accession, box 1, file 45, G. Roper to C. Klinck, 15 October 1961, and C. Klinck to G. Roper, 17 October 1961. 42 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#2, H. MacLennan to M. Ross, 19 January 1962. 43 C. Beresford-Howe, ‘More Canadian Classics!’ 40. 44 TFRBL-UT, MR fonds, box 22, M. Laurence, ‘Canadian Novel Reprints Revive Some Fine Works,’ n.d., clipping. 45 Ibid. 46 C. Beresford-Howe, ‘More Canadian Classics!’ 40. 47 M.L. Mackenzie, ‘Blunderbuss against Butterfly,’ 73, 74. See also D. Pacey, ‘Group of Seven,’ 64, and M.G. Parks, ‘Book Reviews,’ 567. 48 R. Bates, ‘Book Reviews,’ 141; D. Stephens, ‘Past or Permanent,’ 83. 49 M. MacLure, ‘Literary Scholarship,’ 537. 50 M.G. Parks, ‘Book Reviews,’ 565; M. Smith, ‘Period Pieces,’ 75, 77. 51 M. Smith, ‘Period Pieces,’ 74, 75. 52 Ibid., 73, 74. 53 Ibid., 72. 54 H. Kreisel, ‘Humanities,’ 478–9. 55 P. West, ‘Canadian Fiction and Its Critics,’ 265, 266. 56 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#2, H. Kane to J. McClelland, 1 December 1961, and J. McClelland to H. Kane, n.d. 57 Ibid., J. McClelland to M. Ross, 21 December 1961.

228 Notes to pages 58–61 58 Ibid., box 54, file 16, ‘Report of the New Canadian Library Meeting,’ 20 January 1962. 59 Ibid., box 47, NCL file#2, J. McClelland to M. Ross, 29 March 1962. 60 Ibid., J. McClelland to M. Ross, 7 February 1963; and box 54, file 16, J. McClelland to M. Ross, 6 April 1962. 61 Ibid., NCL file#8, handwritten notes, New Canadian Library Meeting, 5 October 1963. 62 Ibid., series Ca, box 6, file 29, S.J. Totton to J. McClelland, 17 September 1963. 63 Ibid., J. McClelland to S.J. Totton, 24 September 1963. 64 SC-UCLCR, MR fonds, box 3, file 2, S.J. Totton to M. Ross, 17 October 1963, ‘Re: The New Canadian Library Meeting of October 5th, 1963.’ 65 F. Cogswell, ‘New Canadian Library,’ 124–5. 66 The ‘a’ titles were: Such Is My Beloved, Literary Lapses, The Tin Flute, Barometer Rising, Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich, Habitant Poems, Earth and High Heaven, The Man from Glengarry, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, More Joy in Heaven, Wild Geese, Where Nests the Water Hen, The Town Below, My Discovery of England, Each Man’s Son, They Shall Inherit the Earth, Nonsense Novels, and The Nymph and the Lamp. 67 The ‘b’ titles were: Over Prairie Trails, Such Is My Beloved, As for Me and My House, The Tin Flute, The Clockmaker, Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich, Thirty Acres, Earth and High Heaven, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, Delight, The Second Scroll, The Mountain and the Valley, The Rich Man, Swamp Angel, Roughing It in the Bush, Turvey, Grain, Last of the Curlews, The Nymph and the Lamp, and Poets of the Confederation. 68 The ‘c’ titles were: Over Prairie Trails, The Clockmaker, Thirty Acres, The Stepsure Letters, The Imperialist, The History of Emily Montague, Roughing It in the Bush, White Narcissus, Poets of the Confederation, Masks of Fiction, and Masks of Poetry. 69 The ‘x’ titles were: Literary Lapses, The Last Barrier and Other Poems, Barometer Rising, At the Tide’s Turn and Other Stories, Habitant Poems, The Man from Glengarry, The Stepsure Letters, More Joy in Heaven, The Master of the Mill, The Imperialist, My Discovery of England, Each Man’s Son, White Narcissus, They Shall Inherit the Earth, Nonsense Novels, Masks of Fiction, and Masks of Poetry. 70 F. Cogswell, ‘New Canadian Library,’ 125–6. 71 SC-UCLCR, MR fonds, box 3, file 3, ‘New Canadian Library Meeting,’ 29 July 1964. 72 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series Ca, box 6, file 29, M. Ross to S.J. Totton, 9 March 1965.

Notes to pages 62–3

229

73 Ibid., J. McClelland to S.J. Totton, 22 March 1965. By the end of 1964, the firm had sold 1,873 copies of The Rich Man, 965 copies of Under the Ribs of Death, and 6,697 copies of Roughing It in the Bush. See Appendix B for annual sales figures of other titles. 74 For Ross’s list, see WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series Ca, box 6, file 29, paper entitled ‘New Canadian Library,’ 12 May 1965. The index to applications contained within the Canada Council Papers, which was examined for me by Access to Information staff at Library and Archives Canada, did not contain a record of any application from M&S with respect to this issue. Moreover, the annual publication of the Canada Council, which lists all monies granted, has no record of a project grant to M&S for this purpose. Finally, I found no draft or final copy of a Canada Council application in the McClelland and Stewart Papers. One memo from J. McClelland to S.J. Totton, dated 22 March 1965 (WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series Ca, box 6, file 29), does note that the publisher was making some effort that year to secure funds from various foundations ‘in order to affect [a] drastic reduction in price’ of NCL and Carleton Library books for the Centennial and this action ‘might have some bearing on an approach to the Canada Council for subsidy for the New Canadian Library.’ However, I found no further mention of this undertaking, and, as far as I know, no reduction in prices occurred in 1967. See figure B.1 for the increase in sales in 1964. 75 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#8, G. Graham to J. McClelland, 4 September 1964. 76 Ibid., J. McClelland to M. Ross, 11 September 1964, and M. Ross to G. Graham, 14 September 1964. 77 Ibid., G. Graham to M. Ross, 16 September 1964. At the end of 1964, the cumulative sales of Graham’s novel were about 4,600 copies. 78 Ibid., M. Ross to G. Graham, 23 September 1964, and M. McCall to J. McClelland, 18 February 1966. 79 ‘News of Paperbacks,’ 24; ‘Recent Reprints,’ 82. 80 ‘A New Paperback Series ...,’ 19–20. 81 ‘Paperbacks in Canada,’ 36; ‘New Paperback Series,’ 80; M.P. Jordan, ‘Clarke Irwin Canadian Paperbacks,’ 35–6. 82 LAC, Robertson Davies fonds, vol. 45, file 20, R. Davies to R.W.W. Robertson, 8 October 1963; J.S. Grant, Robertson Davies, 437. 83 G[eorge] W[oodcock], ‘Paperbacks,’ 82; Quill & Quire 33 (September 1967).

230 Notes to pages 63–73 84 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#15, D. Sutherland to H. Kane, 1 August 1967. 85 The titles were: Morley Callaghan’s It’s Never Over, A Broken Journey, and The Loved and the Lost; Irene Baird’s Waste Heritage ; W.O. Mitchell’s Who Has Seen the Wind; Hugh MacLennan’s Each Man’s Son and Two Solitudes; Ethel Wilson’s Hetty Dorval and The Equations of Love ; Adele Wiseman’s The Sacrifice ; Robertson Davies’ A Mixture of Frailties; Colin McDougall’s Execution; and Gérard Bessette’s Not for Every Eye. 86 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series Ca, box 6, file 29, J. Matthews to M&S, 1 July 1965. Chapter 3: Establishment and Its Discontents, 1968–1978 1 These percentages are based on data in J.B. Friskney, ‘On a Mission for Culture,’ Appendix D, 655–60. 2 T.H.B. Symons, To Know Ourselves, 1:1. 3 N. Frye, ‘Conclusion,’ in Literary History of Canada, 2nd ed., vol. 3, 319. 4 M. Atwood, Survival, 11. 5 M. Ross, review of Margaret Atwood’s Survival, 160. 6 G.L. Parker, ‘Sale of Ryerson Press,’ 18–19. 7 Ibid., 16–18. 8 P. Clark, ‘Rise and Fall of Textbook Publishing in English Canada,’ 231. 9 G.L. Parker, ‘Trade and Regional Publishing in Central Canada,’ 174. 10 Ontario, Royal Commission on Book Publishing, Canadian Publishers and Canadian Publishing, n.pag. 11 R. MacSkimming, Perilous Trade, 129–30, 141–3, 147–8; C. Spadoni and J. Donnelly, Bibliography of McClelland and Stewart Imprints, 1909– 1985, 39–43. 12 Ontario, Royal Commission on Book Publishing, Canadian Publishers and Canadian Publishing, Appendix, ‘First Interim Report March 23, 1971,’ 287. 13 R. MacSkimming, Perilous Trade, 149. 14 J. McClelland quoted in D. Cameron, ‘Jack McClelland and the Crisis in Canadian Publishing,’ 13–14. 15 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 41, file 9, ‘McClelland and Stewart Limited: A Confidential Report’ [c. 1972], 17. 16 For a list of titles in the CWS sub-series, see appendix A. 17 SC-UCLCR, MR fonds, box 3, file 13, C. Thomas to M. Ross, 4 May 1973.

Notes to pages 73–8 231 18 M. Ross cited in J. Breen and L. Atkinson, ‘Interview with Malcolm Ross,’ 61. 19 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 93, file 11, S. Kerr to M. Ross, 15 August 1977. 20 The net sales figure for the NCL is drawn from WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#15, L.H. Ritchie to Wilkinson, 11 August 1972. It constituted a tentative, rather than firm, calculation for the series’ sales activity in 1971. The annual net sales figure for M&S is taken from ibid., box 68, file 1, ‘McClelland & Stewart Ltd., Consolidated Financial Statement, December 31, 1971.’ 21 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series H, box 18, file 3, ‘Report on Research in M&S Library,’ 2 September 1971. 22 The Starter Pack contained Such Is My Beloved, As for Me and My House, Barometer Rising, The Stone Angel, and The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. The Humour Pack contained Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, The Clockmaker, The Incomparable Atuk, Sarah Binks, and Turvey. The Poetry Pack contained Poetry of Midcentury, Poets of the Confederation, Poems of Earle Birney, Habitant Poems, and Poets between the Wars. The History Pack contained Roger Sudden, Roughing It in the Bush, Wacousta, Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada, and The Backwoods of Canada. The Fiction Pack contained The Mountain and the Valley, The Man from Glengarry, More Joy in Heaven, Judith Hearne, and The Nymph and the Lamp. The French Canada Pack contained The Tin Flute, Mad Shadows, Thirty Acres, Prochain Episode, and The Town Below (WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series H, box 14, file 28, ‘New Canadian Library – 1972 [Second – Revised],’ 10 January 1972). 23 J. Richmond, ‘Psst! ... Wanna Read a Canadian Book?’ C3. 24 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#15, I. Barzilay to Montreal Star, 2 April 1972. 25 These calculations are based on the figures available in Appendix B. 26 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series H, box 14, file 28, L.H. Ritchie to G. Witmer and P. Taylor, 18 July 1972. 27 J.R. Sorfleet, ‘NCL Series,’ 93. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid., 96. 31 G. Woodcock, ‘Reprints and the Reading Public,’ 100. 32 Ibid., 102. 33 Ibid., 102–3.

232 Notes to pages 79–83 34 SC-UCLCR, MR fonds, box 3, file 11, J. McClelland to M. Ross, 10 March 1972. 35 Ibid., file 12, J. McClelland to M. Ross, 5 January 1973. 36 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#15, J. McClelland to L. [Ritchie], 28 January 1973. 37 Ibid., box 68, file 18, L. Ritchie to R. Baker, 21 May 1974. 38 Ibid., box 47, NCL file#15, M. Ross to J. McClelland, 18 February [1972]. 39 D. Lochhead to J. Friskney, 15 July 1997. 40 SC-UCLCR, MR fonds, box 3, file 12, M. Ross to J. McClelland, 6 February 1973. 41 Ibid., J. McClelland to M. Ross and A. Porter, 26 April 1973. 42 Ibid., M. Ross to J. McClelland, 9 May 1973. 43 Ibid., J. McClelland to M. Ross, 7 March 1973. 44 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 68, file 18, L. Ritchie to J. McClelland, 4 April 1974. 45 SC-UCLCR, MR fonds, box 3, file 12, M. Ross to A. Porter, 19 June 1973; and file 14: M. Ross to J. McClelland, 25 September 1973; and J. McClelland to M. Ross, 28 September 1973. 46 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 68, file 18, M. Ross to J. McClelland, 2 January 1974. 47 Ibid., J. McClelland to A. Porter, 26 June 1974. 48 Ibid., A. Porter to J. McClelland, 15 January 1974, and J. McClelland to A. Porter, 31 January 1974. 49 SC-UCLCR, MR fonds, box 4, file 1, M. Ross to A. Porter, 15 January 1975; WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 93, file 9, A. Porter to M. Ross, 23 January 1975. Ross’s original list included: Rudy Wiebe’s The Temptations of Big Bear, Matt Cohen’s The Disinherited, Patricia Blondal’s A Candle to Light the Sun, John Galt’s Bogle Corbet, Percy Janes’s House of Hate, Sara Jeannette Duncan’s Cousin Cinderella, T.G. Roberts’s The Red Feathers, Thomas H. Raddall’s His Majesty’s Yankees, Bertram Brooker’s Think of the Earth, Arthur Stringer’s The Prairie Wife, Philip Child’s God’s Sparrows, a selected volume of Bliss Carman’s poems, Gilbert Parker’s When Valmond Came to Pontiac, a collection of Ernest Buckler short stories, and Sylvia Fraser’s Pandora. In common with Ross, McClelland and Porter’s initial list included The Disinherited, The Temptations of Big Bear, Pandora, House of Hate, A Candle to Light the Sun, and Carman’s selected poems. Their list also contained Gabrielle Roy’s The Road Past Altamont, Margaret

Notes to pages 83–97

50 51

52 53

54 55 56 57 58 59

233

Laurence’s This Side Jordan, Brian Moore’s An Answer from Limbo, and Ron Sutherland’s Second Image. SC-UCLCR, MR fonds, box 4, file 1, M. Ross to A. Porter, 28 January 1975. Ibid., M. Ross to A. Porter, 29 January 1975; WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 93, file 9, J. McClelland to A. Porter, 14 March 1975. SC-UCLCR, MR fonds, box 4, file 1, J. Roberts to M. Ross, 12 December 1975. Rudy Wiebe’s The Temptations of Big Bear was one such title (WRDARCMU, M&S fonds, series A, box 95, file 8, J. McClelland to A. Porter, 31 March 1975). Ibid., box 87, file 24, M. Laurence to J. McClelland, 29 May 1978. Ibid., box 93, file 10, J. McClelland to A. Porter, 14 October 1976. Ibid., file 11, J. McClelland to M. Ross, 29 March 1977. Ibid., M. Ross to J. McClelland, 7 April 1977. Ibid., box 83, file 21, J. McClelland to A. Porter and M. Ross, 14 June 1977. Ibid., box 93, file 14, document stating NCL net sales for 1975 through 1979, 28 May 1980; and box 91, file 23, ‘McClelland & Stewart Ltd.’s Consolidated Financial Statement, December 31, 1978.’ A breakdown in NCL sales for 1978 indicated that 37.6 per cent were in trade, 12.5 per cent in wholesale, 2 per cent in library, 13.9 per cent in elementary/high school, and 33.8 per cent in college (see WRDARCMU, JGM correspondence 1981, box ‘McKnight to O,’ file 19, ‘NCL Net Sales Summary,’ 28 January 1981).

Chapter 4: Selection, Rejection, and Compromise 1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8

T.L. Bonn, Heavy Traffic and High Culture, 2. R. Williams, Long Revolution, 66–7. M. Ross interview with J. Friskney, 17 August 1995. TFRBL-UT, MR fonds, box 10, file 6, M. Ross to A. Porter, 17 March 1977. Ross’s emphasis. SC-UCLCR, MR fonds, box 3: file 11, M. Ross to A. Porter, 6 November 1972; and file 12, M. Ross to J. McClelland, 26 January 1973. M. Ross, ‘Introduction,’ in Over Prairie Trails, v. M. Ross interview with J. Friskney, 17 August 1995. Ibid.

234 Notes to pages 97–103 9 SC-UCLCR, MR fonds, box 3, file 9, D. Spettigue to M. Ross, 21 April 1970. 10 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#15, A. Hopwood to R. Baker, 20 September 1973. 11 SC-UCLCR, MR fonds, box 3, file 4, J. Macpherson to M. Ross, 24 August 1965. 12 Ibid., file 11, C. Klinck, ‘Report on the Desirability of Reprints of Two Novels in the “New Canadian Library” Series.’ 13 UWOA, Carl Klinck fonds, 1st accession, box 16, file ‘Ross, Malcolm,’ C. Klinck to M. Ross, 1 December 1959. 14 Ibid., file 36, M. Ross to C. Klinck, 10 December 1959 and 13 January 1960. 15 Ibid., file 22, Carl Klinck’s statement re: Frances Brooke’s The History of Emily Montague, [18 January 1960]. 16 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#1, J. McClelland to M. Ross, 10 February 1960. 17 Ibid., NCL file#15, L. Grove to J. Jerman, 23 February 1973, and L. Ritchie to L. Grove, 28 February 1973. 18 SC-UCLCR, MR fonds, box 3, file 13, M. Ross to R. Baker, 12 July 1973. 19 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#15: J. McClelland to M. Ross, 28 July 1972; M. Ross to J. McClelland, 14 August 1972; and J. McClelland to M. Ross, 18 August 1972. 20 SC-UCLCR, Rudy Wiebe fonds, box 2: file 2, R. Wiebe to S.J. Totton, 30 March 1968; R. Wiebe to J.R. Colombo, 5 May 1969; and J. McClelland to R. Wiebe, 21 October 1969; and file 3, R. Wiebe to M. Ross, 17 February 1971. 21 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 53, file 30, M. Richler to J. McClelland, 19 April 1960 and J. McClelland to M. Richler, n.d. 22 Ibid., file 38, M. Richler to J. McClelland, 1 November 1961, and J. McClelland to M. Richler, 7 November 1961. 23 Ibid.: box 96, file 24, J. McClelland to M. Richler, 26 June 1962; and box 53, file 38, M. Richler to J. McClelland, 30 July [1962], and J. McClelland to M. Richler, 7 August 1962. 24 Ibid., box 96, file 24, J. McClelland to M. Richler, 8 October 1964. 25 Ibid., J. McClelland to J. Stewart, 8 October 1964. 26 Ibid., box 53, file 33, M. Richler to J. McClelland, 16 November 1966, and J. McClelland to M. Richler, 22 November 1966. 27 Ibid., box 47, NCL file#6, J. McClelland to M. Ross, 5 January 1961; and series Ca, box 11, file 10, J. McClelland to C. Pratt, 18 January 1964.

Notes to pages 103–7

235

28 Ibid., series A, box 47, NCL file#6, C.C. Johnson to Ruth Taylor, 14 August 1961. 29 Ibid., NCL file#3: M. Ross to J. McClelland, 30 May [1958]; J. McClelland to M. Ross, 17 February 1958; and J. McClelland to M. Ross, 5 June 1958. 30 Ibid., J. McClelland to M. Ross, 17 February 1958; and NCL file#2, J. McClelland to M. Ross, 7 December 1959. 31 Ibid.: series A, box 54, file 16, ‘Report of the New Canadian Library Meeting,’ 20 January 1962; series A, box 47, NCL file#2, S.J. Totton to W. Eggleston, 20 November 1962; and series Ca, box 12, file 28, S.J. Totton, editorial report on Grain. 32 Ibid.: series A, box 47, NCL file#2, ‘Re: Katherine Parr Traill’s Housekeeping Guide, ’ 12 November 1962; and series Ca, box 11, file 9, Joan Walker’s reader’s report on Canadian Emigrant’s Housekeeper’s Guide, n.d. 33 Ibid., series Ca, box 34, file 15, M. Ross to G. Feilding, 9 June 1967. 34 Ibid., series A: box 47, NCL file#2, H. Kane to D. Mew, 15 May 1962; box 47, NCL file#1, M. Ross to J. McClelland, 12 January 1960; box 54, file 16, ‘Report of the New Canadian Library Meeting,’ 20 January 1962; box 47, NCL file#2, M. Ross to J. McClelland, 24 January 1962; box 62, file 14, R.E. Watters to J. McClelland, 2 February 1962. 35 Ibid., series Ca, box 15, file 6: C. Pratt to M. Ross, 26 February and 6 March 1962. 36 Ibid., series A, box 47, NCL file#2: D. M[ew]’s reader’s report, 11 March 1962, and S.J. Totton’s reader’s report, 23 March 1962. 37 Ibid., H. Kane to D. Mew, 15 May 1962, and [J.A.] S. Rankin’s reader’s report, n.d. Rankin’s emphasis. 38 Ibid., R. Taylor to M. Ross, 7 June 1962, and R. [Taylor] to J. McClelland, 23 July 1962. 39 SC-UCLCR, MR fonds, box 3, file 1, G. Woodcock to M. Ross, 13 August 1962. 40 Ibid., Ross’s note at top of G. Woodcock to M. Ross, 13 August 1962, and R.E. Watters to M. Ross, 14 September 1962. 41 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#2, Ross’s note on top of R.E. Watters to M. Ross, 14 September 1962, and J. McClelland to M. Ross, 4 October 1962. 42 Ibid., box 54, file 18, J. McClelland to M. Ross, 15 April 1968. 43 Ibid., box 47, NCL file#5, R.E. Watters to J. McClelland, 14 June 1968, and J. McClelland to R.E. Watters, 25 June 1968. 44 G. Woodcock, ‘De Mille and the Utopian Vision.’

236 Notes to pages 109–15 45 SC-UCLCR, MR fonds, box 4, file 1, A. Porter to M. Ross, 5 September 1975. 46 Ibid., file 2, M. Ross to H. Porter, 21 May 1976, and A. Porter to M. Ross, 4 June 1976. The proposal was from Carole Gerson and Kathy Mezei. This suggestion came to pass as The Prose of Life: Sketches from Victorian Canada, a title published by ECW Press in 1981. 47 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 93, file 9, J. McClelland to A. Porter, 28 October 1975. 48 Ibid., box 47, NCL file#6, J. McClelland to M. Ross, 5 January 1961. 49 SC-UCLCR, MR fonds, box 3, file 11, A. Porter citing J. McClelland’s opinion to M. Ross, 14 September 1972. 50 Ibid., Y.G. Brunelle to M. Ross, 17 February 1972, and M. Ross to P. Stratford, 13 March 1972. 51 WRDARC-MU: JGM fonds, 1988 Donation, box 25, file 3, L. McKnight to M. Ross, 6 July 1971; M&S fonds, series A, box 95, file 8, A. Porter to J. McClelland, 25 May 1975; M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#15, notification of Canada Council translation grant, 22 November 1971. 52 University of Toronto Archives, Claude Bissell fonds, B84-0036, box 6, file 1, M. Ross to C. Bissell, date stamped 14 March 1960. 53 SC-UCLCR, MR fonds, box 3, file 12: J. McClelland to M. Ross, 19 January 1973; M. Ross to J. McClelland, 26 January 1973; and ‘Projected 1974 Titles – New Canadian Library,’ 21 April 1973. 54 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 68, file 18, R. Baker to J. McClelland, 4 July 1974. 55 Ibid., series Ca, box 11, file 9, G. Feilding to J. McClelland, 17 January 1968; and series A, box 47, NCL file#5, G. Feilding to J. McClelland et al., 18 June 1968. 56 SC-UCLCR, MR fonds, box 3, file 7, J. McClelland to M. Ross, 27 August 1968. 57 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#5, M. Ross to J. McClelland, 2 September 1968. Ross’s emphasis. 58 SC-UCLCR, MR fonds, box 3, file 7, J. McClelland to M. Ross, 9 September 1968. 59 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#5, M. Ross to J. McClelland, 18 September 1968. 60 Ibid., NCL file#15: J. McClelland to M. Ross, 4 and 16 October 1968. 61 M. Ross interview with J. Friskney, 17 August 1995. 62 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series Ca, box 12, file 12, M. Ross to J. Rackliffe, 17 March 1961; SC-UCLCR, MR fonds, box 3, file 11, A. Porter, memo to M. Ross et al., 15 June 1972.

Notes to pages 115–19

237

63 M. Ross interview with J. Friskney, 17 August 1995. 64 Ibid.; K. Chittick, ‘SCL Interviews,’ 261. M.G. Parks recalled Ross visiting Canadian universities in 1964 because he wanted to draw on academics throughout the country for NCL introductions (M.G. Parks to J. Friskney, 30 April 1997). 65 W.J. Keith to J. Friskney, 1 May 1997; S. Dragland to J. Friskney, 1 May 1997; D. Bentley to J. Friskney, 16 April 1997; E. Waterston to J. Friskney, 9 May 1997; N. Shrive to J. Friskney, 24 June 1997; J. de Bruyn to J. Friskney, 24 May 1997; A. Young to J. Friskney, 16 June 1997; J. Marshall to J. Friskney, 20 April 1997; K. Fraser to J. Friskney, 21 April 1997, R.M.K. Schieder to J. Friskney, 14 May 1997; P. Stratford to J. Friskney, 20 April 1996; J. Stedmond to J. Friskney, [April 1997]; J. Gray to J. Friskney, 22 April 1997; M.G. Parks to J. Friskney, 30 April 1997. 66 SC-UCLCR, MR fonds, box 3, file 13, M. Ross to L. McMullen, 24 July 1973. 67 Ibid., box 4, file 2, M. Ross to V. Bruce, 14 January 1976. 68 Ibid., box 4, file 3, M. Ross to I.R. Robertson, 4 December 1975; WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series Ca, box 25, file 6, M. Ross to C. Pratt, 16 January 1962. 69 M. Ross interview with J. Friskney, 17 August 1995; WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series Ca, box 12, file 12, M. Ross to J. Rackliffe, 17 March 1961. 70 University of Saskatchewan Archives, Carlyle King fonds, box 5, C. King to M. Ross, 22 February 1960, and M. Ross to C. King, 24 February 1960. 71 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#1, E. Mandel to M. Ross, 15 March 1960. 72 LAC, Morley Callaghan fonds, vol. 4, file: ‘McClelland & Stewart. 1950–1982,’ C. Turton, M&S, to M. Callaghan, 19 December 1955; and file ‘Ross, Malcolm, n.d., 1951–1953,’ M. Ross to M. Callaghan, 7 January [1956]. Ross’s emphasis. 73 SC-UCLCR, MR fonds, box 3, file 12, M. Ross to J. McClelland, 3 January 1973. 74 Ibid., J. McClelland to M. Ross, 5 January 1973. 75 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 54, file 21, J. McClelland to G. Roy, 8 August 1974. 76 Ibid., box 68, file 18, J. McClelland to M. Ross, 27 August 1974. 77 Ibid., M. Ross to J. McClelland, 31 August 1974, and J. McClelland to M. Ross, 3 September 1974. Ross’s emphasis.

238 Notes to pages 119–26 78 Ibid., series Cc, box 69, file ‘New Canadian Library – General 1976,’ R.B., ‘New Canadian Library,’ 24 June 1975. 79 M. Ross cited in J. Breen and L. Atkinson, ‘An Interview with Malcolm Ross,’ 61. According to the original transcript held in the archives, the interview itself was done 15 April 1973. (See SC-UCLCR, MR fonds, box 4, file 10.) 80 In his interview with Breen and Atkinson, Ross subsequently acknowledged as a limitation the difficulty of outside publishers not allowing access to their books ( J. Breen and L. Atkinson, ‘An Interview with Malcolm Ross,’ 62). 81 M. Ross cited in J. Breen and L. Atkinson, ‘An Interview with Malcolm Ross,’ 61. 82 Ibid. Chapter 5: On the Matter of the Source Text 1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8

9

10 11 12

F. Bowers, ‘Practical Texts and Definitive Editions,’ 25, 27, 33–4. C.F. Klinck, Giving Canada a Literary History, 151. F.G. Halpenny, ‘Bibliographical Temper,’ 434–7. R. Landon, ‘Literature in English,’ 190. LAC, ACQL fonds, vol. 2, file 6, K. Hughes to R. Dionne, 4 July 1976; and vol. 3, file 5, S. Djwa to J.-M. Duciaume, 19 November 1980. F.G. Halpenny, ‘Introduction,’ 7. C.F. Klinck, Giving Canada a Literary History, 154. WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series Ca, box 12, file 12, M. Ross to J. Rackliffe, 17 May 1961; SC-UCLCR, MR fonds, box 3, file 11, A. Porter to M. Ross et al., ‘New Canadian Library Editorial Procedures,’ 15 June 1972. WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series Ca, box 15, file 6: M. Ross to C. Pratt, 11 August 1960; C. Pratt to M. Ross, 16 August 1960; and M. Ross to C. Pratt, 31 August 1960. G. Shortliffe substituted: ‘shop’ or ‘confectionary shop’ for ‘restaurant’; ‘pop’ for ‘liqueur’; ‘parish’ for ‘parochial’ (in certain contexts); ‘streetcar’ for ‘trolley’; ‘pillar of the church’ for ‘pious one’; and ‘born cad’ for ‘hereditary voyou.’ WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#5, ‘New Canadian Library Meeting October 6 1961.’ Ibid., NCL file#3, J. McClelland to A. Lucas, 24 January 1958, and M. Ross to J. McClelland, 30 May [1958]. SC-UCLCR, MR fonds, box 3, file 10, M. Ross to S. Dragland, 29

Notes to pages 126–8

13

14

15

16

17 18 19 20

21

22 23

24

239

November 1971; WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#15, S. Dragland to M. Ross, 14 April [1972]. WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#1, M. Ross to J. McClelland, 12 January 1960, and J. McClelland to M. Ross, 10 February 1960. Ibid.: series A, box 47, NCL file#8, J. McClelland to M. Ross, 4 April 1961; and series Ca, box 14, file 5, A.J.M. Smith to J. McClelland, 8 April 1961. SC-UCLCR, MR fonds, box 4, file 1, D. Staines to M. Ross, 12 October 1975; WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A: box 93, file 9, D. Staines to M. Ross, 1 October 1975; and box 93, file 10, J. McClelland to J. Roberts, 27 January 1976. WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series Ca, box 3, file 30, C. Pratt to A.L. Phelps, 11 December 1958, and C. Pratt to J. McClelland, 27 May 1959. McClelland’s response appears on Pratt’s memo. Ibid., C. Pratt to A.L. Phelps, 23 January 1959, and A.L. Phelps to C. Pratt, 26 January and 10 June 1959. Phelps’s emphasis. Ibid., C. Pratt to A.L. Phelps, 15 June 1959. Ibid., series A, box 47, NCL file#3, M. Ross to J. McClelland, 9 and 26 June 1958. Ibid., J. McClelland to M. Ross, 25 August 1958. When queried about the decision, Malcolm Ross reported he could ‘recall wavering between a broader “anthology” and what I thought of as the big four.’ However, he did not remember precisely why the decision went in favour of only the four poets (M. Ross to J. Friskney, 1 February 1999). The other three source texts were Selected Poems of Archibald Lampman (1947), edited by Duncan Campbell Scott, The Poems of Duncan Campbell Scott (1926), and Selected Poems of Duncan Campbell Scott (1954). SC-UCLCR, MR fonds, box 3, file 12, M. Ross to D. Scollard, 22 March 1973. WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 54, file 17: C. Pratt to M. Ross, 23 October 1959; M. Ross to C. Pratt, 8 January 1960; and C. Pratt to M. Ross, 19 January 1960. SC-UCLCR, MR fonds, box 3, file 12: D. Scollard to M. Ross, 5 March 1973; M. Ross to J. Newlove, 19 March 1973; and M. Ross to D. Scollard, 22 March 1973. Through a lack of knowledge of the textual history of the source texts, Sorfleet accused Ross of a ‘nearly contemptuous abridgement of Roberts and Carman’ and called him to task for not stating, or otherwise indicating, that some poems in the collection were not as their authors originally wrote them ( J.R.

240 Notes to pages 128–30

25

26 27 28

29 30 31 32 33

Sorfleet, ‘The NCL Series,’ 93). Sorfleet later offered Ross a public apology (see J.R. Sorfleet, ‘On Analyzing and Editing Bliss Carman’s Work,’ 59, note 1). Ross apparently used Sorfleet’s criticisms as a guide. Revisions to the volume clearly addressed the very concerns the reviewer had raised: bibliographic errors noted by the critic were corrected; portions of Roberts’s ‘Marsyas,’ ‘The Witches’ Flight,’ and ‘The Place of His Rest,’ which Sorfleet had cited as missing, were inserted; finally, although he was not completely successful in the effort, Ross endeavoured to rid the volume of all the abridged Carman poems and replace them with full versions of others. (Despite his request for the removal of ‘Easter Eve,’ a poem which, according to Sorfleet, was missing three stanzas, the revised edition of Poets of the Confederation contained the abridged version. Ross also asked for changes to the Carman section of the table of contents to reflect a strict chronology as well as a correction in the placement of ‘Low Tide on Grand Pré’ so that it would appear accurately in the listing under Carman’s, rather than Roberts’s, section of the table of contents. He was successful with regard to the former but not the latter. M&S also failed to meet his request to have Carman’s Ballads and Lyrics added to the copyright page as a source book.) See SC-UCLCR, MR fonds, box 3, file 12, M. Ross to D. Scollard, 22 March 1973; J.R. Sorfleet, ‘The NCL Series,’ 93; and the original and revised editions of Malcolm Ross, ed., Poets of the Confederation. The two editions of the volume are not distinguished in any way on the copyright page. The easiest way to determine which edition one has is to check the Carman poems in the table of contents. M. Wilson to J. Friskney, 21 July 1997. E. Mandel, ‘Introduction,’ in Poets of Contemporary Canada 1960–1970, x. WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#2, [M. Wilson] to M. Ross, 10 February 1961; SC-UCLCR, MR fonds, box 3, file 9, E. Mandel to M. Ross, 13 October 1970. M. Wilson, ‘Introduction,’ in Poetry of Midcentury, xiv–xv. WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#2, J. McClelland to M. Wilson, 21 April 1961. LAC, Robert Weaver fonds, vol. 19, file 7, R. Weaver, ‘On Writing: A Fine Sampling,’ 19 September 1964. M. Wilson, ‘Introduction,’ in Poetry of Midcentury, xiv. M. Wilson, ‘Introduction,’ in Poets between the Wars, [ix].

Notes to pages 130–3 241 34 LAC, Robert Weaver fonds, vol. 22, file 7, R. Weaver, ‘Ambitious New Anthologies: An Abundance of Books of Canadian Poetry.’ 35 E. Mandel, ‘Introduction,’ in Poets of Contemporary Canada 1960–1970, x, xi. 36 SC-UCLCR, MR fonds, box 3, file 9, E. Mandel to M. Ross, 13 October 1970. 37 University of Toronto, E.J. Pratt Library, David Sinclair fonds, box 1, file 9, D. Sinclair to M. Ross, 2 August 1971. 38 D. Sinclair, Note on ‘St. Lawrence and the Saguenay,’ in NineteenthCentury Narrative Poems, 43. 39 D. Sinclair, Note on ‘Malcolm’s Katie,’ 157. 40 University of Toronto, E.J. Pratt Library, David Sinclair fonds, box 1, file 8, D. Sinclair to G. Warkentin, 9 March 1973. 41 I.S. MacLaren, ‘When Is a Reprint Not a Reprint?’ 81–5. The quotation appears on page 82. This article is actually a review of NineteenthCentury Narrative Poetry, ed. Frank M. Tierney and Glenn Clever (Ottawa: Tecumseh, 1988), rather than of Sinclair’s title per se. However, MacLaren takes the position that the book actually constitutes ‘a revised, second edition’ (81) of Sinclair’s text and, through a comparison of the two volumes, goes on to illustrate how Sinclair’s editorial efforts go unacknowledged. 42 D. Sinclair, ‘Introduction,’ in Nineteenth-Century Narrative Poems, vii. The poem had originally been produced in a 170–page volume. In his head note, Sinclair explained to readers that the text provided represented ‘the bulk of the first three cantos and a few lines from canto fifth’; excisions had been made ‘mainly where the author ... digressed or ... made reference to events in the poem which occur in later cantos’ (D. Sinclair, Note on ‘The U.E.,’ 82). 43 C. Thomas interview with J. Friskney, 4 December 1996; C. Thomas to J. Friskney, 2 February 1999; SC-UCLCR, MR fonds: box 3, file 10, C. Thomas to M. Ross, 24 April 1971; and box 3, file 13, C. Thomas to M. Ross, 3 July 1973. 44 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#3: R. McDougall’s opinion cited in M. Ross to H. Kane, 8 March 1957; and R. McDougall’s opinion cited in J. McClelland to M. Ross, 2 April 1957. 45 CUA, Robert McDougall fonds, box A-101, file ‘McClelland and Stewart – Re: Misc. Publications 1957–1958,’ R. McDougall to M. Ross, 27 August 1957. 46 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A: box 47, NCL file#3, M. Ross to J.

242 Notes to pages 133–5

47

48

49

50 51 52

53

54

55

McClelland, 1 October 1957; and box 30, file 6, C. Pratt to R. McDougall, 30 July 1958. CUA, Robert McDougall fonds, box A-101, file ‘McClelland and Stewart – Re: Misc. Publications 1957–1958,’ R. McDougall to J. McClelland, 16 October [1957]. Ibid., R. McDougall to C. Pratt, 8 August 1958; WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 30, file 6, C. Pratt to R. McDougall, 18 August 1958; ‘Note on the Text,’ in Thomas C. Haliburton, The Clockmaker, [iv]. The Blackadar edition is dated 1860, but according to Douglas Lochhead and Gwendolyn Davies, it did not appear until 1862. See D. Lochhead, ‘A Bibliographical Note,’ 159; G. Davies, ‘Editing The Mephibosheth Stepsure Letters,’ 94; WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series Cae, box 12, file 26, J. Irving to M. Ross, 3 December 1959. WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series Cae, box 12, file 26, N. Frye to M. Ross, 2 December 1959. Ibid., J. Irving to M. Ross, [early May 1960], and J. Irving to C. Pratt, 2 May 1960. Ibid., J. Irving to M. Ross, 3 December 1959, and N. Frye to M. Ross, 2 December 1959. Irving’s belief that a bibliographical note should be included went back to a conversation he had had with Lochhead when he first came across the title. Lochhead had argued at the time that such a note would be required if the volume were to be reprinted (Mount Allison University Archives, Lochhead Family fonds, 8901, III/6/3a, J. Irving to D. Lochhead, [May 1960]). WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series Cae, box 12, file 26: C. Pratt to M. Ross, 29 April 1960; M. Ross to C. Pratt, 4 May [1960]; and Stafford report on six additional Stepsure letters; Mount Allison University Archives, Lochhead Family fonds, 8701, III/6/3a: D. Lochhead to C. Pratt, 28 April 1960; D. Lochhead to M. Ross, 2 May 1960; M. Ross to D. Lochhead, 5 May 1960; C. Pratt to D. Lochhead, 24 May 1960; and D. Lochhead to C. Pratt, 25 May 1960. WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series Cae, box 12, file 26, D. Lochhead to C. Pratt, 11 May 1960. Gwendolyn Davies found that the Blackadar edition omitted ‘The Stranger’s Letter,’ which had followed the sixth Stepsure letter in the Acadian Recorder (G. Davies, ‘Editing The Mephibosheth Stepsure Letters, ’ 94). WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series Cae, box 12, file 26, C. Pratt to M. Ross, 14 September 1960; D. Lochhead quoted in CEECT, Reports and Proceedings, 33.

Notes to pages 135–8

243

56 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series Cae, box 12, file 26: C. Pratt to D. Lochhead, 26 April 1960; C. Pratt to M. Ross, 29 April 1960; C. Pratt to J. Irving, 26 April 1960; C. Pratt to N. Frye, 26 April 1960; D. Lochhead to C. Pratt, 28 April 1960; N. Frye to C. Pratt, 28 April 1960; and M. Ross to C. Pratt, 4 May 1960. 57 UWOA, Carl Klinck fonds, 1st accession, box 16, file 36, C. Klinck to M. Ross, 16 March and 4 April 1960; WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, NCL file#1, J. McClelland to M. Ross, 7 April 1960. 58 UWOA, Carl Klinck fonds, 1st accession, box 16, file 36, C. Klinck to M. Ross, 2 December 1960; WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 12, file 5: M. Ross to C. Pratt, 6 December 1960; C. Pratt to M. Ross, 6 January 1961; ‘Emily Montague Possibly Objectionable Passages’; and C. Pratt to M. Ross, 10 February 1961. 59 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 12, file 5: C. Pratt to C. Klinck, 10 February 1961; C. Klinck to C. Pratt, 14 February 1961; C. Pratt to C. Klinck, 6 March 1961; and C. Klinck to C. Pratt, 7 March 1961. 60 Ibid., C. Pratt to C. Klinck, 17 March 1961. 61 Ibid., C. Klinck to C. Pratt, 22 March 1961. 62 Ibid., C. Klinck, ‘Recapitulation of Comments on General Matters,’ n.d. 63 Ibid., C. Pratt to C. Klinck, 19 June 1961; and handwritten query for a textual note. 64 ‘Note on the Text,’ in History of Emily Montague, [iv]. 65 See, for example, W.H. New, ‘Some Comments on the Editing of Canadian Texts,’ 15; and J.R. Sorfleet, ‘NCL Series,’ 93. 66 TFRBL-UT, MR fonds, box 41, file 24, M. Ross to S. Djwa, 27 May 1991. 67 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds: series Ca, box 15, file 6: M. Ross to J. McClelland, 24 February 1960; J. McClelland to M. Ross, 25 February and 4 March 1960; and C. Klinck to M. Ross, 3 March 1960; and series A, box 47, NCL file#5, R.E. Watters to M. Ross, 19 April 1968. 68 UWOA, Carl Klinck fonds, 1st accession, box 16, file 36: M. Ross to C. Klinck, 29 February 1960, 7 March 1960, and [13 March 1960]; and C. Klinck to M. Ross, 16 March 1960; WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds: series Ca, box 15, file 6, J. McClelland to M. Ross, 10 March 1960; and series A, box 47, NCL file#1, J. McClelland to M. Ross, 7 April 1960. 69 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series Ca, box 15, file 6, C. Klinck to M. Ross, 3 March 1960. 70 J.R. Sorfleet, ‘NCL Series,’ 93.

244 Notes to pages 138–42 71 W.H. New, ‘Some Comments on the Editing of Canadian Texts,’ 15. 72 UWOA, Carl Klinck fonds, 1st accession, box 14, file 17: C. Klinck to M. Ross, 13 October 1961; C. Pratt to C. Klinck, 18 October 1961; and C. Klinck to C. Pratt, 27 October 1961. 73 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series Ca, box 25, file 24, M. Ross to C. Pratt, 16 October 1961, and C. Pratt to C. Klinck, 18 October 1961; UWOA, Carl Klinck fonds, 1st accession, box 14, file 17, C. Klinck to M. Ross, 18 October 1961. 74 UWOA, Carl Klinck fonds, 1st accession, box 14, file 17, C. Klinck to C. Pratt, 27 October 1961. 75 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds: series Ca, box 25, file 24, C. Pratt to M. Ross, 30 October 1961; and series A, box 47, NCL file#2, H. Kane to J. McClelland, 1 December 1961. 76 See UWOA, Carl Klinck fonds, 1st accession, box 14, file 17: C. Klinck’s sheet of suggested omissions to Roughing It in the Bush, [8 November 1961]; and sheet of ‘Corrections for Page-Proof,’ 12 January 1962. 77 UWOA, Carl Klinck fonds, 1st accession, box 14, file 17, C. Klinck to M. Ross, 10 November 1961; C. Klinck, ‘Introduction,’ in Roughing It in the Bush, x. 78 M. Peterman, This Great Epoch of Our Lives, 29, 26; M. Peterman, ‘Susanna Moodie (1803–1885),’ 81 and 98, note 56. 79 UWOA, Carl Klinck fonds, 1st accession, box 7, file 10, C. Klinck to M. Ross, 27 April 1966, and M. Ross to C. Klinck, 22 August [1966]; WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series Ca, box 12, file 7, C. Klinck to M. Ross, 8 August 1966. In his introduction to Wacousta, Klinck referred to using W. Morley’s work (C. Klinck, ‘Introduction,’ in Wacousta, xi). See W. Morley, ‘A Bibliographical Study of John Richardson.’ 80 UWOA, Carl Klinck fonds, 1st accession, box 7, file 10, C. Klinck to M. Ross, 27 April and 14 November 1966. 81 C. Klinck, ‘Introduction,’ in Wacousta, xi–xii. 82 ‘Note on the Text,’ in Wacousta, [ii]; WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series Ca, box 12, file 7: C. Klinck to S. Cumings (formerly Rankin), 8 February 1967. 83 Ibid., S. Cumings to C. Klinck, 29 November 1966, with attachment; C. Klinck to S. Cumings, 8 February 1967; and S. Cumings to C. Klinck, 20 April 1967. 84 D. Cronk, ‘Editorial Destruction of Canadian Literature,’ 37, 56, 57, 119–20. 85 C. Thomas, Chapters in a Lucky Life, 223–4; C. Thomas interview with

Notes to pages 142–5

86 87 88 89 90

91 92 93 94

95

96 97 98

99

100 101

102

245

J. Friskney, 4 December 1996; D. Crawley to J. Friskney, 2 July 1997; and E. Waterston to J. Friskney, 23 March 1999. E. Waterston to J. Friskney, 23 March 1999. Waterston refers to the copy of the title contained in The Works of Gilbert Parker. V. Bruce, ‘Introduction,’ 15. Ibid. ‘Note on the Text,’ in Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada, [iv]. WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series Ca, box 12, file 38: [J. Craig] to C. Pratt, 15 January 1965, and J. Craig to C. Pratt, 26 April 1965. In later years, this choice of source text would be identified as problematic because, in addition to revisions by Traill’s hand, it was subject to editorial intervention on the part of Edward Caswell (M. Peterman to J. Friskney, 6 July 1999). C. Thomas interview with J. Friskney, 4 December 1996; and C. Thomas to J. Friskney, 2 February 1999. C. Thomas, ‘Introduction,’ in Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada, xii–xiii. E. Waterston to J. Friskney, 23 March 1999. WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 93, file 9, E. Waterston to M. Ross, 20 May 1975; E. Waterston to J. Friskney, 8 December 2006. See, for example, P.H. Scott, John Galt, 102, and H. Gibault, John Galt, 140. In her introduction, Waterston indicated that it was only the third volume that was reproduced, a statement which she later acknowledged was in error (E. Waterston, ‘Introduction,’ in Bogle Corbet, 5; and E. Waterston to J. Friskney, 23 March 1999). D. Crawley to J. Friskney, 2 July 1997; and D. Crawley, ‘Introduction,’ vii. E. Waterston, ‘Introduction,’ in Seats of the Mighty, v. E. Waterston, ‘Gilbert Parker (1860–1932),’ 121. Further details of Waterston’s abridgement appear in her correspondence with Ross (E. Waterston to M. Ross, 24 October 1969 and 27 April 1970 [copies provided to author by Elizabeth Waterston]). J. Moss, ‘Canadian Frontiers: Sexuality and Violence from Richardson to Kroetsch,’ 41, note 2; and D. Stouck, ‘“Secrets of the Prison House,”’ 472, note 3. E. Waterston to J. Friskney, 23 March 1999. WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series Ca, box 26, file 6, C. Pratt to H. MacLennan, 10 October 1961, and H. MacLennan to C. Pratt, 11 October 1961. Ibid.: box 21, file 44, C. Pratt to P. Hiebert, 22 May 1964; and box 6,

246 Notes to pages 145–50

103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114

115 116 117 118 119 120 121

122 123

124

file 36: I. Owen to S.J. Totton, 19 May 1964; P. Hiebert to S.J. Totton, 18 November 1964; and S.J. Totton to Hiebert, 27 November 1964. Ironically, McLaren’s drawings were reinstated in the NCL reissue of 1995. Ibid., series A, box 47, NCL file#2, E. Wilson to J. McClelland, 22 June [1962], and J. McClelland to E. Wilson, 6 July 1962. Ibid., series Ca, box 15, file 7, C. Pratt to S. Ross, 3 June 1957. Ibid., S. Ross to C. Pratt, 5 June 1957. Ibid., series Cc, box 69, file ‘[Sinclair] Ross’: S. Ross to D. Swift, 5 April 1977, and D. Swift to S. Ross, 19 September 1977. Ibid., series A, box 54, file 18, J. McClelland to S. Ross, 15 October 1967. Ibid., S. Ross to J. McClelland, 10 October 1967, and J. McClelland to S. Ross, 15 October 1967. M.L. Ross, ‘Sinclair Ross (1908–),’ 267, 268. WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 15, file ‘Callaghan, Morley,’ L. Todd to M. Callaghan, 22 March 1960. Ibid., series Ca, box 11, file 9, S. Cumings to M. Ross, 20 October 1966. E. Birney, ‘Preface,’ 5–6. ‘Author,’ in Remember Me (1965), by Edward Meade, [1]. WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds: series Ca, box 25, file 22, J. McClelland to R. Taylor, n.d.; series Ca, box 15, file 6, M. Ross to C. Pratt, 5 May 1961; and series A, box 47, NCL file#2, R. Taylor to P.F. du Sautoy, Faber and Faber, 26 October 1961. Ibid., series A, box 47, NCL file#2, E. Meade to M&S, 14 November 1961. Ibid., series Ca, box 25, file 22, M. Ross to J. McClelland, 22 January 1962. Ibid., E. Meade to M&S, 2 August 1962. Ibid., D. Mew, reader’s report on Remember Me, n.d. Ibid., J. McClelland to E. Meade, 28 August 1962. Ibid., E. Meade to J. McClelland, 26 June and 27 September 1963. Ibid.: series Ca, box 25, file 22, L. Edwards, reader’s report on Remember Me, and B. Mayer to E. Meade, 17 August 1964; and series A, box 47, NCL file#2, C. Pratt to J. McClelland, 25 November 1963. See E. Meade, Remember Me (1946), 166–72. The complete scene between O’Roarke and Barbara appears on pages 101 to 106 in the Faber edition, and from pages 74 to 78 in the NCL edition. G.T. Tanselle, ‘Textual Instability and Editorial Idealism,’ 1.

Notes to pages 152–9

247

Chapter 6: Canonical Conundrums 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

23 24

S.D. King, ‘An Uncomfortable Match,’ 3. Ibid., 3–4. C. Gerson, ‘Cultural Darwinism,’ 25. Ibid., 28–9. G. Genette, Paratexts, 263–7. Ibid., 270. J. de Bruyn, ‘Introduction,’ n.pag. Ibid. References to copies sold figures throughout this chapter are calculated on the basis of figures in appendix B. R. McDougall, ‘Introduction,’ xv. P. Child, ‘Introduction,’ 11–12, 16. J. Grubb, ‘Introduction,’ 14; A. Bevan, ‘Introduction,’ xi; J. Moss, ‘Introduction,’ xiii; and C. Thomas, ‘Introduction,’ in Canadians of Old, xii. N. Frye, ‘Introduction,’ ix, vii. For number of copies sold each year, see appendix B. C. Klinck, ‘Introduction,’ in History of Emily Montague, xi–xii. C. King, ‘Introduction,’ v–vi. M.G. Parks, ‘Introduction,’ in Fruits of the Earth, xi. S. R. Beharriell, ‘Introduction,’ xi–xii. C. Thomas, ‘Introduction,’ in Backwoods of Canada, 7. C. Klinck, ‘Introduction,’ in History of Emily Montague, v, xi–xii. M. Ware, ‘Introduction,’ vii–viii. In 1988, I.S. MacLaren argued that modernist preference for novels, poems, and plays had inhibited the entry of other genres into the canon, even forms such as exploration narratives, which had specifically Canadian claims for inclusion (I.S. MacLaren, ‘Defusing the Canon,’ 49–55). Then, in 1991, Carole Gerson added gender to the equation by identifying ‘the still prevalent modernist critical embargo on “feminine” concerns and the subsequent demotion of social and domestic issues as “sentimental” (and not explicitly “Canadian”)’ as one of the factors that had ‘conspire[d] against the reputations of Canadian women writers’ and the genres through which they had chosen to ex-press themselves (C. Gerson, ‘The Canon between the Wars,’ 46–7). J. Kertzer, Worrying the Nation, 19. A.J. Fry, ‘Periods, Canons, and Who Wants to Get into The New Yorker Anyway?’ 58–9.

248 Notes to pages 160–4 25 N. Frye, ‘Conclusion,’ in Literary History of Canada (1965), 821–2; N. Frye, ‘Conclusion,’ in Literary History of Canada (1976), 319; F. Davey, ‘Surviving the Paraphrase,’ 5–13; B. Cameron and M. Dixon, ‘Introduction: Mandatory Subversive Manifesto: Canadian Criticism VS. Literary Criticism,’ 137–45; R.M. Brown, ‘Critic, Culture, Text: Beyond Thematics,’ 151–83; W. Cude, A Due Sense of Differences; J. Moss, ‘Bushed in the Sacred Wood,’ 161–78; P. Stuewe, Clearing the Ground; W.J. Keith, ‘The Function of Canadian Criticism at the Present Time,’ 1–15; and T.D. MacLulich, ‘Thematic Criticism, Literary Nationalism, and the Critic’s New Clothes,’ 17–36. 26 J. Guillory, Cultural Capital, 5–8. 27 D. Arnason, ‘Critical Theory and the Canadian University,’ 60. 28 The other titles with average sales of less than 500 copies per year were: Mazo de la Roche, Delight; Edward Meade, Remember Me; Edward McCourt, Music at the Close and The Wooden Sword; William Dunlop, Tiger Dunlop’s Upper Canada; T.G. Roberts, Harbor Master ; Francis W. Grey, Curé of St. Phillippe ; John Sutherland, Essays, Controversies and Poems; Douglas LePan, The Deserter ; Félix Leclerc, Allegro; Duncan Campbell Scott, In the Village of Viger and Other Stories; Robert Lowell, New Priest of Conception Bay; Frederick Niven, The Flying Years; Archibald MacMechan, Headwaters of Canadian Literature ; Wyndham Lewis, Self-Condemned; Robert Harlow, Scann; and Philip Child, God’s Sparrows. 29 The titles with average sales in excess of 5,000 copies per year were: Sinclair Ross, As for Me and My House; Gabrielle Roy, The Tin Flute ; Stephen Leacock, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town; Morley Callaghan, More Joy in Heaven; Margaret Atwood, The Edible Woman; and Margaret Laurence’s The Stone Angel, The Fire Dwellers, A Jest of God, and A Bird in the House (though A Bird in the House did not make the Calgary list). 30 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 47, file 15, ‘1971 Sales by Customer Outlet,’ 6 October 1972. The total annual figures recorded in this document for each title are not always in complete harmony with the figures found for 1971 in Appendix B. My calculation of percentages excludes the figures for the Canadian Writers sub-series, which are also contained in this document. 31 Exceptions were Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town and Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich. 32 The term ‘creative writers’ is being used because this figure excludes works by critics, except A.J.M. Smith and John Sutherland, whose poetry was also represented in the series. The assessment of journal

Notes to pages 164–72

33

34

35

36 37 38 39 40 41

42 43 44 45 46 47 48

249

literature about the authors is based on a search of authors’ names in the Canadian Periodical Index (CPI). Because in the 1970s the CPI did not index Canadian Poetry, Essays on Canadian Writing, or Studies in Canadian Literature, and the Journal of Canadian Fiction only after 1976, the tables of contents of these publications were examined as well. AMICUS and A. Steele, Theses on English Canadian Literature provided the data for any comments regarding monographs and theses produced between 1958 and 1978. These other surveys were: G.M. Adam, ‘An Outline History of Canadian Literature’ (1887); T.G. Marquis, English-Canadian Literature (1913); P. Edgar, ‘English-Canadian Literature’ (1916); R.P. Baker, A History of English-Canadian Literature to the Confederation (1920); A. MacMechan, Headwaters of Canadian Literature (1924); J.D. Logan and D. French, Highways of Canadian Literature (1924); L. Stevenson, Appraisals of Canadian Literature (1926); L. Pierce, An Outline of Canadian Literature (1927); W.E. Collins, The White Savannahs (1936); and E. McCourt, The Canadian West in Fiction (1949). In 1951, A.L. Phelps also published Canadian Writers, a collection of individual essays on just over a dozen authors. ‘Many Called – but Few Chosen,’ 34. The committee included E.K. Brown, Philip Child, William Arthur Deacon, F.C. Jennings, Watson Kirkconnell, Lorne Pierce, B.K. Sandwell, and W. Stewart Wallace. A. MacMechan, Headwaters of Canadian Literature, 49, 38, 138. C. Berger, The Sense of Power, 261. D. Pacey, Creative Writing in Canada, 174; E. McCourt, Canadian West in Fiction, 101–3. WRDARC-MU, series A, box 47, NCL file#3, S. Ross to H. Kane, 16 April 1957. R. Daniells, ‘Introduction,’ v. P.W. Martin, ‘Re-Producing Culture(s),’ 165. Figure 10 shows As for Me and My House as one of the three most frequently taught Canadian literature titles in the 1997–8 academic year. C. Bissell, ‘Introduction,’ vii. P.W. Martin, ‘Re-Producing Curlture(s),’ 165. D. Pacey, Creative Writing in Canada, 138. C. Gerson, ‘Cultural Darwinism,’ 29. T. Dunbabin, ‘First Newfoundland Novel.’ R.E. Watters and I.F. Bell, On Canadian Literature 1806–1960, 89–90, 100–1, 138, 156. See P.W. Martin, ‘Re-Producing Curlture(s),’ Appendix 3, 264–74.

250 Notes to pages 172–6 49 ‘(B) Letter with the Ballot,’ in C. Steele, ed., Taking Stock, 158. 50 There were more than 140 titles in the Main series when McClelland made the suggestion; the number rose to 152 after the January 1978 issue. 51 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 93, file 11: J. McClelland to M. Ross, 29 March 1977; M. Ross to J. McClelland, 7 April 1977; and J. McClelland to M. Ross, 26 April 1977. 52 Ibid., J. McClelland to M. Ross, 29 March 1977. 53 Ibid., M. Ross to J. McClelland, 28 April [1977]. 54 Ibid., box 83, file 21, J. McClelland to M. Ross and A. Porter, 14 June 1977. 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid. 57 TFRBL-UT, MR fonds, box 4, file 1, handwritten note by M. Ross attached to J. McClelland to K. Glazier, 5 July 1977. 58 UWOA, Carl Klinck Papers, 2nd and 3rd accession, box 16, file ‘Ross, Malcolm,’ M. Ross to C. Klinck, 1 August 1977. 59 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 75, file 22, J. McClelland to M. Ross, 29 September 1977. 60 Ibid., J. McClelland to M. Ross, 11 October 1977. Sponsors for the conference included the Alberta government, the Canadian Book Information Centre, the Canadian Book Publishers Council, and the Association of Canadian Publishers. Funding to publish the conference proceedings came from the Canada Council for the Arts, which may also have sponsored part of the conference itself. 61 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 75, file 22, J. McClelland to M. Ross, 29 September 1977. 62 C. Steele, ed., Taking Stock, 155. Ernie Ingles, who chaired the committee, also recalls an impetus to broaden the survey coming from the organizers at the university (E. Ingles interview with J. Friskney, 27 November 2006). 63 Ross’s letter of 1 October has not been located, but McClelland refers to it in his letter of 11 October. 64 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 75, file 22, M. Ross to J. McClelland, ?27 Oct. [1977]. 65 ‘(B) Letter with the Ballot,’ in C. Steele, ed., Taking Stock, 159. 66 SC-UCLCR, CCCN clippings file, S. Fraser cited in Lesley Hughes, ‘Writer Sees New Interest in Canadian Material,’ Edmonton Journal (11 February 1978).

Notes to pages 176–9 251 67 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 87, file 24, M. Laurence to J. McClelland, 24 August 1977. 68 Ibid., J. McClelland to M. Laurence, 9 September 1977. 69 This statement is based on the collection of newspaper and magazine clippings contained in SC-UCLCR, CCCN clippings file. 70 SC-UCLCR, CCCN clippings file, William French, ‘The CanLit Allstars Are Up at Bat,’ Globe and Mail (17 January 1978). 71 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 75, file 22, M. Ross to J. McClelland, Sunday afternoon [January 1978]. 72 Ibid. 73 For a commentary on the conference’s critical sessions, see L. Lamont-Stewart, ‘Calgary Conference Revisited,’ 81–8. At the outset of her article, Lamont-Stewart noted that the attention focused on the list has overshadowed what went on at the other conference sessions. In examining them, she found that ‘no monolithic consensus on the canon of the Canadian novel emerged. In fact, given the contradictions among the critical assumptions shaping the papers of the four keynote speakers,’ she argued, ‘the Conference can be seen as initiating a theoretical challenge to precisely the sort of institutionalized canon and conservative criticism it might appear to epitomise’ (81.) W.J. Keith made a similar statement in ‘The Quest for the (Instant) Canadian Classic,’ 157. 74 TFRBL-UT, MR fonds, box 4, file 3, M. Ross’s statement for the Friesen show, 10 February 1978. 75 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, box 93, file 12, M. Ross to J. McClelland, 17 March 1978. 76 M. Ross, ‘The Ballot,’ in C. Steele, ed., Taking Stock, 137. 77 W.J. Keith, ‘The Ballot,’ in C. Steele, ed., Taking Stock, 146. 78 Comments cited in ‘Discussion,’ in C. Steele, ed., Taking Stock, 149. 79 SC-UCLCR, CCCN clippings file: M. Richler cited in Bob Bergen, ‘Great Canadian Novel Hunt Gets Mixed Reaction,’ The Albertan (18 February 1978); and S. Fraser cited in William French, ‘Ah, the Showbiz of CanLit!’ Globe and Mail (20 February 1978). 80 SC-UCLCR, CCCN clippings file, anonymously authored clipping, possibly from the Calgary Herald (February 1978). 81 WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 75, file 22, J. McClelland to M. Ross, 28 February 1978. 82 SC-UCLCR, CCCN clippings file: Leslie Peterson, ‘Literary Hit Parade,’ Vancouver Sun (24 February 1978). For the lists, see C. Steele,

252 Notes to pages 179–84

83 84 85

86 87 88

89

90

91 92 93

ed., Taking Stock, 151–4. Note that Margaret Laurence’s The Stone Angel should have appeared at the top of List A. WRDARC-MU, M&S fonds, series A, box 96, file 25, J. McClelland to M. Richler, 28 February 1978. Ibid., box 87, file 25, J. McClelland to M. Laurence, 6 April 1978. Ibid.: box 87, file 25, M. Laurence to J. McClelland, 7 March 1978, and J. McClelland to M. Laurence, 6 April 1978; and box 93, file 12, M. Ross to J. McClelland, 17 March 1978, and J. McClelland to M. Ross, 6 April 1978. Ibid., box 93, file 12, J. McClelland to M. Ross, 17 October 1978. Ibid., box 71, file 11, J. McClelland, ‘ACUTE Speech,’ May 1980 (marked ‘not given’). Ibid., box 93, file 13: P. Saunders to J. McClelland, 10 April 1979; J. McClelland to P. Taylor, 5 February 1979; and other documents in this file. WRDARC-MU, JGM correspondence 1981, box ‘McKnight to O,’ file 19, J. McClelland to M. Ross, 3 February 1981. In addition to Ross, the members of the committee were Teresa Ford, W.J. Keith, Douglas Lochhead, John Moss, John Stevens, and David Stouck. W.J. Keith resigned from the committee over this issue. See W.J. Keith, ‘The Quest for the (Instant) Canadian Classic,’ 155–65. For archival material about the committee and the NCL, see WRDARCMU, JGM correspondence 1981, box ‘McKnight to O,’ file 19; 1982 correspondence, box ‘Neale-R,’ file 4; 1983 correspondence, box 4, ‘N’ Misc. to SH, file 15. See also ‘Classic Materials’ in JGM Donation of 1987; and TFRBL-UT, MR fonds, box 44, file 3. D. Staines interview with J. Friskney, 6 June 1997. I.S. MacLaren, ‘Defusing the Canon,’ 50. J. Gross cited in J.R. Turner, ‘The Camelot Series, Everyman’s Library, and Ernest Rhys,’ 28.

Selected Bibliography

Archival Sources Carleton University Archives Robert McDougall fonds Library and Archives Canada Association for Canadian and Quebec Literatures fonds Morley Callaghan fonds Canada Council for the Arts CBC Assignment, Audio tape A1-9903-0013 Robertson Davies fonds Robert Weaver fonds McMaster University Library, William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections Jack Gordon McClelland fonds McClelland and Stewart fonds Mount Allison University Archives Lochhead Family fonds Private Papers Robert Chambers Papers Queen’s University Archives George Woodcock fonds

254 Selected Bibliography Trent University Archives Commission on Canadian Studies fonds University of Calgary Library and Cultural Resources, Special Collections Calgary Conference on the Canadian Novel clippings file Malcolm Ross fonds Rudy Wiebe fonds University of Saskatchewan Archives Carlyle King fonds University of Toronto, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library Malcolm Ross fonds University of Toronto, E.J. Pratt Library David Sinclair fonds University of Toronto Archives Claude Bissell fonds University of Western Ontario Archives Carl Klinck fonds Interviews with the Author Ernie Ingles, 27 November 2006 Malcolm Ross, 17 August 1995 David Staines, 6 June 1997 Clara Thomas, 4 December 1996 Correspondence with the Author David Bentley, 16 April 1997 Derek Crawley, 2 July 1997 Jan de Bruyn, 24 May 1997 Stan Dragland, 1 May 1997 Keath Fraser, 21 April 1997 James Gray, 22 April 1997 W.J. Keith, 1 May 1997

Selected Bibliography

255

Douglas Lochhead, 15 July 1997 Joyce Marshall, 20 April 1997 Jack McClelland, 30 November 1995, 6 March 1998 M.G. Parks, 30 April 1997 Michael Peterman, 6 July 1999 Malcolm Ross, 1 February 1999 R.M.K. Schieder, 14 May 1997 Norman Shrive, 24 June 1997 John Stedmond, [April 1997] Philip Stratford, 20 April 1996 Clara Thomas, 2 February 1999 Elizabeth Waterston, 9 May 1997, 23 March 1999, 8 December 2006 Milton Wilson, 21 July 1997 Alan Young, 16 June 1997 Book Reviews of NCL Titles (Selected) André, Michael. Queen’s Quarterly 80 (Winter 1973): 658–60. Barbour, Douglas. ‘Critical Limitations.’ Canadian Literature 49 (Summer 1971): 75–7. Bates, Ronald. ‘Book Reviews.’ Dalhousie Review 42 (Spring 1962): 141, 143. Beattie, Munro. Canadian Forum 38 (April 1958): 22–3. – ‘Letters in Canada – Humanities – 1962.’ University of Toronto Quarterly 32 (July 1963): 407–8. Beresford-Howe, Constance. ‘More Canadian Classics!’ The Montrealer 36 (January 1962): 40. Bickerstaff, Isaac. ‘Series on Series: New Canadian Library Part 1.’ Books in Canada 2 (April–May–June 1973): 22–5. – ‘Series on Series: New Canadian Library Part 2.’ Books in Canada 2 (July–September 1973): 26–7, 52–5. – ‘Series on Series: New Canadian Library 3.’ Books in Canada 2 (October 1973): 16–17. – ‘Series on Series: New Canadian Library 4.’ Books in Canada 2 (November 1973): 12–13, 31. – ‘Series on Series: New Canadian Library Part 5.’ Books in Canada 2 (December 1973): 9, 22–3, 30–1. Canadian Poetry 28 (February 1965): 39–40. Christy, Jim. ‘Odysseus Ever Returning.’ Canadian Reader 11 (July 1970): 10–11.

256 Selected Bibliography Cogswell, Fred. ‘The New Canadian Library.’ Edge: An Independent Periodical 2 (Spring 1964): 124–6. Daniells, Roy. ‘Hopefulness Abounding.’ Canadian Literature 56 (Spring 1973): 108–10. Deacon, W.A. ‘Bid on Books That Will Last.’ Globe and Mail, 3 December 1960, p. 22. – ‘Quality Reprints Fill a Real Need.’ Globe and Mail, 18 January 1958, p. 16. Editor. ‘Literary Squirrels.’ Queen’s Quarterly 65 (Spring 1958): 159–60. ‘Five More Library Titles.’ Calgary Herald, 24 December 1960, p. 7. Fulford, Robert. ‘Book Makers.’ Toronto Daily Star, Metro Edition, 13 December 1958, p. 28. Gibbs, Robert. ‘A New Canadian Anthology.’ The Fiddlehead 64 (Spring 1965): 68–9. Johnson, Sydney. ‘The Bookshelf: Canadians in Paperback.’ Montreal Star, 28 January 1961, p. 5. Keith, W.J. ‘Review Essay: Canadian Tradition and the (New) New Canadian Library.’ American Review of Canadian Studies 21 (Spring 1991): 71– 80. King, Carlyle. ‘Letters in Canada 1969 – Humanities.’ University of Toronto Quarterly 39 (July 1970): 374–7. Klinck, Carl F. ‘British in the Bush.’ Canadian Literature 27 (Winter 1966): 77–9. – ‘The New Books.’ Queen’s Quarterly 68 (Winter 1961–2): 692–3. – ‘The Temple and the Cave.’ Journal of Canadian Fiction 1 (Winter 1972): 81–3. Kreisel, Henry. ‘Dreams and Reality.’ Canadian Literature 21 (Summer 1964): 64–6. – ‘Letters in Canada 1961 – Humanities.’ University of Toronto Quarterly 31 (July 1962): 478–9. Lennox, John. ‘Roberts, Realism, and the Animal Story.’ Journal of Canadian Fiction 2 (Summer 1973): 121–3. Mackenzie, M.L. ‘Blunderbuss against Butterfly.’ Canadian Literature 13 (Summer 1962): 73–4. Mandel, Eli. ‘Letters in Canada: 1964 – Humanities.’ University of Toronto Quarterly 34 (July 1965): 390–1. McCormack, Robert. Tamarack Review 6 (Winter 1958): 97–102. McCourt, Edward. ‘The New Canadian Library.’ Queen’s Quarterly 68 (Spring 1961): 178–9. McDougall, Robert L. Queen’s Quarterly 69 (Autumn 1962): 462–3.

Selected Bibliography

257

Mitchell, Beverley. ‘Five Fiction Reprints.’ Journal of Canadian Fiction 2 (Fall 1973) : 112–14. Morley, Patricia. ‘The Still Centre.’ Canadian Literature 60 (Spring 1974): 103–5. New, W.H. ‘Laconic Terrors.’ Canadian Literature 56 (Spring 1973): 123–5. ‘The New Canadian Library.’ Quill and Quire 24 (January–February 1958): 44. ‘The New Canadian Library’ in ‘The Editor’s Shelf.’ Queen’s Quarterly 79 (Summer 1972): 286–7. ‘New Canadian Library Quality Paperbacks.’ Canadian Author & Bookman 33 (Winter 1957–8): 12. P., H.R. ‘Rescue from Limbo.’ Canadian Author & Bookman 39 (Winter 1963): 19–20. Pacey, Desmond. ‘A Group of Seven.’ The Fiddlehead 51 (Winter 1962): 63–4. – ‘The New Canadian Library.’ Queen’s Quarterly 68 (Spring 1961): 179– 80. Parks, M.G. ‘Book Reviews.’ Dalhousie Review 41 (Winter 1961–2): 565–7. – ‘Canadian Books.’ Dalhousie Review 40 (Winter 1960–1): 583, 585. ‘Poetry of Mid-Century 1940–1960.’ Canadian Poetry 28 (February 1965): 36–40. Purdy, A.W. ‘Achievement and Monument.’ Canadian Literature 37 (Summer 1968): 72–4. ‘Recommended Reprints.’ Canadian Literature 21 (Summer 1964): 80. ‘Reprints.’ Canadian Literature 55 (Winter 1973): 127–8. S., D. ‘A Kind of Inconsistency.’ Canadian Literature 18 (Autumn 1963): 76, 78. – ‘Old Canadians Renewed.’ Canadian Literature 12 (Spring 1962): 83. S., J. ‘Forewords and Backwards.’ Saskatoon Star Phoenix, 13 December 1958, p. 30. Smith, Marion. ‘Period Pieces.’ Canadian Literature 10 (Autumn 1961): 72–7. Sorfleet, John Robert. ‘The NCL Series: An Appraisal Past and Present.’ Journal of Canadian Fiction 1 (Spring 1972): 92–6. Spettigue, Douglas. ‘Canadian Writers Series.’ Queen’s Quarterly 78 (Summer 1971): 335–7. Stephens, D.G. ‘New Criticism.’ Canadian Literature 43 (Winter 1970): 79– 82.

258 Selected Bibliography Stephens, Donald. ‘Past or Permanent.’ Canadian Literature 10 (Autumn 1961): 83–4. – ‘The Universal Context.’ Canadian Literature 24 (Spring 1965): 59–63. Stevens, Peter. ‘Critical Odyssey.’ Canadian Literature 47 (Winter 1971): 84–7. Stow, Glenys. ‘Of North and South: D.C. Scott.’ Journal of Canadian Fiction 2 (Summer 1973): 123–4. Stuewe, Paul. ‘Leacock Continues to Tickle the Funny Bone.’ Toronto Star Saturday Magazine, 9 September 1989, p. M6. – ‘New Editions Bring Susanna In from the Bush.’ Toronto Star Saturday Magazine, 13 January 1990, p. M15. Tallman, Warren. ‘Creation beyond Perception.’ Canadian Literature 11 (Winter 1962): 72–3. – ‘Politics Neglected.’ Canadian Literature 30 (Autumn 1966): 77–9. Thomas, Clara. ‘Four Critical Problems.’ Canadian Literature 56 (Spring 1973): 103–7. Weaver, Robert. ‘Five Novels from the New Canadian Library.’ Canadian Reader 2 (August 1961): 4–5. – ‘New Canadian Library and the Paperback Boom.’ Canadian Reader 1:10 (August 1960): 2–5. West, Paul. ‘Canadian Fiction and Its Critics.’ Canadian Forum 41 (March 1962): 265–6. Woodcock, George. ‘Jungle and Prairie.’ Canadian Literature 45 (Summer 1970): 82–4. – ‘Reprints.’ Canadian Literature 52 (Spring 1972): 108. – ‘Reprints.’ Canadian Literature 55 (Winter 1973): 127–8. – ‘Short Reviews.’ Canadian Literature 7 (Winter 1971): 84. – ‘Venture on the Verge.’ Canadian Literature 5 (Summer 1960): 73–5. Published Sources, Dissertations, and Theses Adam, G. Mercer. ‘An Outline History of Canadian Literature.’ In An Abridged History of Canada: Also, an Outline History of Canadian Literature, by W.H. Withrow and G. Mercer Adam. Toronto: Wm. Briggs, 1887. Altick, Richard D. ‘From Aldine to Everyman: Cheap Reprint Series of the English Classics 1830–1906.’ In Writers, Readers, and Occasions: Selected Essays on Victorian Literature and Life, 174–95. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1989. AMICUS. (On-line catalogue available on the LAC Web site.)

Selected Bibliography

259

Arnason, David. ‘Critical Theory and the Canadian University.’ Open Letter 8 (1993): 57–63. Atwood, Margaret. Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature. Toronto: Anansi, 1972. Baker, Ray Palmer. A History of English-Canadian Literature to the Confederation: Its Relation to the Literature of Great Britain and the United States. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1920. Beharriell, S. Ross. ‘Introduction.’ In The Man from Glengarry, by Ralph Connor. New Canadian Library 14, vii–xii. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1960. Berger, Carl. The Sense of Power. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1970. Bevan, Allan. ‘Introduction.’ In The Temptations of Big Bear, by Rudy Wiebe. New Canadian Library 122, ix–xv. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1976. Birney, Earle. ‘Preface.’ In The Damnation of Vancouver. New Canadian Library O11, 3–6. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1977. Bissell, Claude. ‘Introduction.’ In The Mountain and the Valley, by Ernest Buckler. New Canadian Library 23, vii–xii. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1961. Blodgett, E.D., Five-Part Invention: A History of Literary History in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003. Blodgett, E.D. and A.G. Purdy, in collaboration with S. Tötösy de Zepetnek, eds. Prefaces and Literary Manifestos. Edmonton: Research Institute for Comparative Literature, University of Alberta, 1990. Bonn, Thomas L. Heavy Traffic and High Culture: New American Library as Literary Gatekeeper in the Paperback Revolution. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1989. – UnderCover: An Illustrated History of American Mass Market Paperbacks. Middlesex, England: Penguin, 1982. ‘Bookmaker’s Gamble.’ Time (Canadian edition) 71 (20 January 1958): 12–13. Bowers, Fredson. ‘Practical Texts and Definitive Editions.’ In Two Lectures on Editing, by Charleton Hinman and Fredson Bowers, 21–70. Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 1969. Brady, Elizabeth. ‘A Bibliographical Essay on William Kirby’s The Golden Dog 1877–1977.’ Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada 15 (1976): 24–48.

260 Selected Bibliography Breen, Judith, and Lynn Atkinson. ‘Interview with Malcolm Ross.’ Journal of Canadian Fiction 3 (1974): 60–4. Brown, Russell M. ‘Critic, Culture, Text: Beyond Thematics.’ Essays on Canadian Writing 11 (1978): 151–83. Bruce, Vida. ‘Introduction.’ In Jean Rivard, by Antoine Gérin-Lajoie. New Canadian Library 134, 9–15. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1977. Cameron, Barry, and Michael Dixon. ‘Introduction: Mandatory Subversive Manifesto: Canadian Criticism VS. Literary Criticism.’ Studies in Canadian Literature 2 (Summer 1977): 137-45. Cameron, Donald. ‘Jack McClelland and the Crisis in Canadian Publishing.’ Saturday Night 86 (June 1971): 11–15. Cameron, Elspeth. ‘Adventures in the Book Trade.’ Saturday Night 98 (November 1983): 27–34, 36–8, 40, 42, 44–5. Canada. Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences. Report. Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1951. Canada Council for the Arts. Annual Reports. 1958–78. ‘A Canadian Publisher Goes Canadian.’ Monetary Times 133 (November 1965): 38–40. Centre for Editing Early Canadian Texts. Reports and Proceedings. Ottawa: Carleton University, 1982. Child, Philip. ‘Introduction.’ In White Narcissus, by Raymond Knister. New Canadian Library 32, 7–16. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1962. Chittick, Kathryn. ‘SCL Interviews: Malcolm Ross.’ Studies in Canadian Literature 9 (1984): 241–66. Clark, Penney. ‘The Rise and Fall of Textbook Publishing in English Canada.’ In History of the Book in Canada, vol. 3, ed. Carole Gerson and Jacques Michon, 226–32. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007. Clarke, W.H. ‘An Art, a Craft, and a Business.’ In A Memorial Volume, 2–32. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin, 1956. ‘Coles Canadiana Collection.’ Canadian Reader 12 (1971): 5–8. Collins, W.E. The White Savannahs. Toronto: Macmillan, 1936. Crawley, Derek. ‘Introduction.’ In The Golden Dog, by William Kirby. New Canadian Library 65, vii–xi. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1969. Cronk, Douglas. ‘The Editorial Destruction of Canadian Literature: A Textual Study of Major John Richardson’s Wacousta; Or, The Prophecy.’ Master’s thesis, Simon Fraser University, 1977. Cude, Wilfred. A Due Sense of Differences: An Evaluative Approach to Canadian Literature. Washington: University Presses of America, 1980. Daniells, Roy. ‘Introduction.’ In As for Me and My House, by Sinclair Ross.

Selected Bibliography 261 New Canadian Library 4, v–x. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1957 [1958]. Davey, Frank. ‘Surviving the Paraphrase.’ Canadian Literature 70 (Autumn 1976): 5–13. Davies, Gwendolyn. ‘Editing The Mephibosheth Stepsure Letters.’ In Challenges, Projects, Texts: Canadian Editing, ed. John Lennox and Janet M. Paterson, 89–104. New York: AMS Press, 1993. Davies, Robertson. ‘The Northern Muse.’ Holiday: Canada an Entire Issue 35 (April 1964): 10, 16–21. Dawe, Alan. ‘Lifebelt Leacock and the Saga of Canadiana.’ Vancouver Sun, 28 May 1971, p. 31. de Bruyn, Jan. ‘Introduction.’ In The Flying Years, by Frederick Niven. New Canadian Library 102, [vii–xiv]. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1974. Dunbabin, T. ‘First Newfoundland Novel.’ Dalhousie Review 40 (Winter 1960–1): 462–9. Edgar, Pelham. ‘English-Canadian Literature.’ In The Cambridge History of English Literature, ed. A.W. Ward and A.R. Waller, 343–60. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1916. Eggleston, Wilfrid. ‘Challenging the Publishers,’ Canadian Author & Bookman 21 (December 1945): 16. Evans, Gary. John Grierson and the National Film Board: The Politics of Wartime Propaganda. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984. Fee, Margery. ‘English-Canadian Literary Criticism, 1890–1950: Defining and Establishing a National Literature.’ Ph.D. diss., University of Toronto, 1981. Ferres, John H. ‘Voices of the Past: The Literature of Canada in Reprint.’ American Review of Canadian Studies 4 (Autumn 1974): 91–109. Fraser, Sylvia. ‘Beware Recurrent Ides of March,’ Toronto Star, 21 September 1996, p. G13. Friskney, Janet B. ‘On a Mission for Culture: The New Canadian Library and Its Milieu, 1953–1978.’ Ph.D. diss., Carleton University, 1999. Fry, August J. ‘Periods, Canons, and Who Wants to Get into The New Yorker Anyway?’ In Literatures in Canada. Ed. Deborah C. Poff. Special issue of Canadian Issues / Thèmes canadiens 10 (1988): 57–65. Frye, Northrop. The Bush Garden: Essays on the Canadian Imagination. Toronto: House of Anansi, 1971. – ‘Conclusion.’ In Literary History of Canada, ed. Carl F. Klinck, 821–49. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965.

262 Selected Bibliography – ‘Conclusion.’ In Literary History of Canada, 2nd ed., vol. 3, ed. Carl F. Klinck, 318–32. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1976. – ‘Introduction.’ In The Stepsure Letters, by Thomas McCulloch. New Canadian Library 16, iii–ix. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1960. – ‘Poetry.’ In Arts in Canada: A Stock Taking at Mid-Century, ed. Malcolm Ross, 84–90. Toronto: Macmillan Company of Canada, 1958. Genette, Gérard. Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation. Trans. Jane E. Lewin. Foreword by Richard Macksey. Literature, Culture, Theory 20. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Gerson, Carole. ‘The Canon between the Wars: Field Notes of a Feminist Literary Archaeologist.’ In Canadian Canons: Essays in Literary Value, ed. Robert Lecker, 46–56. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991. – ‘Cultural Darwinism: Publishing and the Canon of Early Canadian Literature in English.’ Epilogue 10 (1995): 25–35. Gerson, Carole, and Jacques Michon. ‘Editors’ Introduction.’ In History of the Book in Canada, vol. 3, 3–9.Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007. Gibault, Henri. John Galt romancier écossais. Grenoble: Publications de l’Université des langues et lettres de Grenoble, 1979. Grant, Judith Skelton. Robertson Davies: Man of Myth. Toronto: Viking, 1994. Gray, John. ‘Book Publishing.’ In Writing in Canada, ed. George Whalley, 53–65.Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1956. Groening, Laura. ‘Malcolm Ross and the New Canadian Library: Making It Real or Making a Difference?’ Studies in Canadian Literature 25 (2000): 95–110. Grubb, John. ‘Introduction.’ In The Double Hook, by Sheila Watson. New Canadian Library 54, 5–14. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1966. Guillory, John. Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1993. Halpenny, Francess G. ‘The Bibliographical Temper.’ In Proceedings of the National Conference on the State of Canadian Bibliography, Vancouver, Canada, May 22–24, 1974, 427–49. Ottawa: National Library of Canada, 1977. – ‘Introduction.’ In Editing Canadian Texts: Papers Given at the Conference on Editorial Problems, University of Toronto, November 1972, ed. Francess G. Halpenny, 3–11. Toronto: A.M. Hakkert, 1975. ‘He’s Taking a Chance.’ Canadian Business 31 (March 1958): 69–70. Howsam, Leslie. ‘Sustained Literary Ventures: The Series in Victorian Publishing.’ Publishing History 31 (1992): 5–25.

Selected Bibliography

263

Hubert, Henry. Harmonious Perfection: The Development of English Studies in Nineteenth-Century Anglo-Canadian Colleges. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1994. Jordan, M.P. ‘Clarke Irwin Canadian Paperbacks.’ British Columbia Library Quarterly 28 (January 1965): 35–6. Keith, W.J. ‘The Function of Canadian Criticism at the Present Time.’ Essays on Canadian Writing 30 (Winter 1984–5): 1–15 – ‘Imagining Canadian Literature.’ Canadian Notes and Queries 54 (1998): 29–32. – ‘The Quest for the (Instant) Canadian Classic.’ In The Bumper Book, ed. John Metcalf, 155–65. Toronto: ECW, 1986. Kerr, Cathy. ‘Malcolm Ross: “The Caretaker of Canadian Literature,”’ University News [Dalhousie], 12 March 1981, pp. 6–7. Kertzer, Jonathan. Worrying the Nation: Imagining a National Literature in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998. King, Carlyle. ‘Introduction.’ In Wild Geese, by Martha Ostenso. New Canadian Library 18, v–vii. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1961. King, James. Jack: A Life with Writers: The Story of Jack McClelland. Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 1999. King, Sarah D. ‘An Uncomfortable Match: Canadian Literature and English Departments in Canada, 1919–1965.’ Ph.D. diss., University of Western Ontario, 2003. Klinck, Carl. ‘Editor’s Introduction.’ In Roughing It in the Bush, by Susanna Moodie. New Canadian Library 31, ix–xiv. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1962. – Giving Canada a Literary History: A Memoir. Ed. Sandra Djwa. Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1991. – ‘Introduction.’ In The History of Emily Montague, by Frances Brooke. New Canadian Library 27, v–xiv. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1961. – ‘Introduction.’ In Wacousta, by John Richardson. New Canadian Library 58, v–xiii. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1967. Knelman, Martin. ‘Business by the Book.’ Financial Post Magazine, 1 October 1983, pp. 40–2, 44. Kokotailo, Philip. ‘Native and Cosmopolitan: A.J.M. Smith’s Tradition of English-Canadian Poetry.’ American Review of Canadian Studies 20 (Spring 1990): 31–40. Lamont-Stewart, Linda. ‘The Calgary Conference Revisited.’ Open Letter 9 (Autumn 1994): 81–8. Landon, Richard. ‘Literature in English.’ In Proceedings of the National

264 Selected Bibliography Conference on the State of Canadian Bibliography, Vancouver, Canada, May 22–24, 1974, 171–92. Ottawa: National Library of Canada, 1977. LePan, Douglas. ‘A Tribute to Malcolm Ross.’ ACUTE Newsletter, June 1981, pp. 1–3. Lecker, Robert. ‘The New Canadian Library: A Classic Deal.’ In Making It Real: The Canonization of English-Canadian Literature. Concord, ON: House of Anansi, 1995. Litt, Paul. The Muses, the Masses, and the Massey Commission. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992. Lochhead, Douglas G. ‘A Bibliographical Note.’ In The Stepsure Letters, by Thomas McCulloch. New Canadian Library 16, 156–9. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1960. Logan, J.D., and Donald French. Highways of Canadian Literature. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1924. MacLaren, I.S. ‘Defusing the Canon: Against the Classicization of Canadian Literature.’ In Literatures in Canada. Ed. Deborah C. Poff. Special issue of Canadian Issues / Thèmes canadiens 10 (1988): 49–55. – ‘When Is a Reprint Not a Reprint?’ Canadian Poetry 24 (Spring– Summer 1989): 81–5. MacLulich, T.D. ‘Thematic Criticism, Literary Nationalism, and the Critic’s New Clothes.’ Essays on Canadian Writing 35 (Winter 1987): 17–36. MacLure, Millar. ‘Literary Scholarship.’ In Literary History of Canada, ed. Carl Klinck, 529–50. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965. MacMechan, Archibald. Headwaters of Canadian Literature (1924). New Canadian Library 107. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1974. MacSkimming, Roy. The Perilous Trade: Publishing Canada’s Writers. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2003. Mandel, Eli. ‘Introduction.’ In Poets of Contemporary Canada 1960–1970. New Canadian Library O7, x–xvi. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1972. ‘Many Called – but Few Chosen.’ Canadian Author & Bookman 24 ( June 1948): 34, 36–8, 40–2. Marquis, Thomas Guthrie. English-Canadian Literature. Toronto: Glasgow, Brook and Co., 1913. Martin, Paul William. ‘Re-Producing Curlture(s): The Politics of Knowledge Production and the Teaching of the Literatures of Canada.’ Ph.D. diss., University of Alberta, 2002. ‘Master-Works of Canadian Authors’ [advertisement]. Saturday Night, 25 August 1923, p. 9.

Selected Bibliography

265

McClelland, J.G. ‘Book Publishing in Canada.’ Business Quarterly 18 (Winter 1954): 205–21. – ‘Book Publishing in Canada.’ Quill & Quire 22 (April 1956): 16–18, 24–8, 30–2. – ‘The Reprinting of Canadian Books.’ Ontario Library Review 41 (August 1957): 190–2. McCourt, Edward. The Canadian West in Fiction. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1949. McDougall, Robert. ‘Introduction.’ In The Clockmaker, by Thomas Chandler Haliburton. New Canadian Library 6, ix–xvi. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1958. – ‘The Reprinting of Canadian Books.’ Ontario Library Review 41 (August 1957): 183–8. – ‘Reprints and Collections.’ Queen’s Quarterly 82:3 (Autumn 1975): 478– 81. McGillivray, Mary. ‘The Scholar Visionary: Malcolm Ross at Ninety.’ Dalhousie Review 80 (Autumn 2000): 337–49. McKenzie, D.F. ‘The Book as an Expressive Form.’ In The Panizzi Lectures 1985: Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts, 1–21. London: British Library, 1986. Meade, Edward. Remember Me. New Canadian Library 47. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1965. – Remember Me. London: Faber & Faber, 1946. Michon, Jacques. ‘French-Canadian Classics from Fides.’ In History of the Book in Canada, vol. 3, ed. Carole Gerson and Jacques Michon, 239–41. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007. Morley, William. ‘A Bibliographical Study of John Richardson.’ Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada 4 (1965): 63–78. Morpurgo, J.E. Allen Lane: King Penguin. A Biography. London: Hutchinson & Co., 1979. Moss, John. ‘Bushed in the Sacred Wood.’ In The Human Elements, 2nd series, ed. David Helwig, 161–78. Ottawa: Oberon Press, 1981. – ‘Canadian Frontiers: Sexuality and Violence from Richardson to Kroetsch.’ Journal of Canadian Fiction 2 (Summer 1973): 36–41. – ‘Introduction.’ In The Disinherited, by Matt Cohen. New Canadian Library 121, vii–xiii. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1976. Neavill, Gordon Barrick. ‘The Modern Library Series.’ Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1984. New, W.H. ‘Canadian Reprints.’ World Literature Written in English 13 (April 1974): 99–102.

266 Selected Bibliography – ‘Some Comments on the Editing of Canadian Texts.’ In Editing Canadian Texts: Papers Given at the Conference on Editorial Problems, University of Toronto, 1972, ed. Francess Halpenny, 13–31. Toronto: A.M. Hakkert, 1975. ‘A New Paperback Series...’ Quill & Quire 31 (September–October 1965): 19–20. ‘New Paperback Series.’ Canadian Literature 24 (Spring 1965): 80. ‘New: The Best Canadian Writers Now in Paperback.’ Quill & Quire 33 (September 1967): inside back cover. ‘News of Paperbacks.’ Quill & Quire 29 ( January–February 1963): 24. ‘Note on the Text.’ In The Clockmaker, by Thomas Chandler Haliburton. New Canadian Library 6, [iv]. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1958. ‘Note on the Text.’ In The History of Emily Montague, by Frances Brooke. New Canadian Library 27, [iv]. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1961. ‘Note on the Text.’ In Wacousta, by John Richardson. New Canadian Library 58, [ii]. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1967. ‘Note on the Text.’ In Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada, by Anna Brownell Jameson. New Canadian Library 46, [iv]. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1965. Ontario. Royal Commission on Book Publishing. Canadian Publishers and Canadian Publishing. Ontario: Queen’s Printer, 1973. Pacey, Desmond. ‘Areas of Research in Canadian Literature: A Reconsideration Twenty Years Later.’ Queen’s Quarterly 81 (Spring 1974): 62–8. – Creative Writing in Canada. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1952. – ‘A Penetrating Analysis of the Role of the Critic.’ Canadian Author & Bookman 32 (Summer 1956): 25. ‘Paperbacks in Canada.’ Quill & Quire 31 (January–February 1965): 36. Parker, George L. ‘A History of a Canadian Publishing House: A Study of the Relation between Publishing and the Profession of Writing 1890– 1940.’ Ph.D. diss., University of Toronto, 1969. – ‘The Sale of Ryerson Press: The End of the Old Agency System and Conflicts over Domestic and Foreign Ownership in the Canadian Publishing Industry, 1970–1986.’ Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada 40 (Fall 2002): 7–50. – ‘Trade and Regional Publishing in Central Canada.’ In History of the Book in Canada, vol. 3, ed. Carole Gerson and Jacques Michon, 168–78. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007. Parker, Gilbert. The Works of Gilbert Parker. Imperial ed. 24 vols. New York: Scribner, 1912–23.

Selected Bibliography

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Parks, M.G. ‘Introduction.’ In Fruits of the Earth, by Frederick Philip Grove. New Canadian Library 49, vii–xiii. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1965. Peterman, Michael. This Great Epoch of Our Lives: Susanna Moodie’s ‘ Roughing It in the Bush.’ Canadian Fiction Studies 33. Toronto: ECW, 1996. – ‘Susanna Moodie (1803–1885).’ In Canadian Writers and Their Works, Fiction Series, vol. 1, ed. Robert Lecker, Jack David, and Ellen Quigley, 63–104. Downsview, ON: ECW Press, 1983. Phelps, A.L. Canadian Writers. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1951. Pierce, Lorne. An Outline of Canadian Literature (French and English). Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1927. ‘Recent Reprints.’ Canadian Literature 16 (Spring 1963): 82. Richmond, John. ‘Psst! ... Wanna Read a Canadian Book?’ Montreal Star, 25 March 1972, p. C3. Robert, Marika.‘What Jack McClelland Has Done to Book Publishing in Canada.’ Maclean’s 76 (7 September 1963): 24, 31–5, 38. Ross, Malcolm. ‘American Pressures and Canadian Individuality’ (1957). In The Impossible Sum of Our Traditions, 117–23. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1986. – ‘Bliss Carman and the Poetry of Mystery: A Defense of the Personal Fallacy.’ In The Bicentennial Lectures on New Brunswick Literature: Winthrop Pickard Bell Lectures 1984–1985, Fall Series, 9–31. Sackville, NB: Centre for Canadian Studies, Mount Allison University, 1985. – ‘Canadian Culture and the Colonial Question.’ In The Impossible Sum of Our Traditions, 163–83. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1986. – ‘Carman by the Sea.’ Dalhousie Review 27 (October 1947): 294–8. – ‘Editor’s Introduction,’ In The Arts in Canada: A Stock-Taking at MidCentury, 2–6. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1958. – ‘The Imaginative Sense and the Canadian Question.’ In The Impossible Sum of Our Traditions, 145–62. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1986. – ‘Introduction.’ In Our Sense of Identity: A Book of Canadian Essays, ed. Malcolm Ross, vii–xii. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1954. – ‘Introduction.’ In Over Prairie Trails, by Frederick Philip Grove. New Canadian Library 1, v–x. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1957. – Review of Margaret Atwood’s Survival. Dalhousie Review 53 (Spring 1973): 159–60. – ‘A Symbolic Approach to Carman.’ Canadian Bookman 14 (December 1932): 140–4. Ross, Morton L. ‘Sinclair Ross (1908–).’ In Canadian Writers and Their

268 Selected Bibliography Works, Fiction Series, vol. 4., ed. Robert Lecker, Jack David, and Ellen Quigley, 257–98. Toronto: ECW Press, 1991. Satterfield, Jay. ‘The World’s Best Books’: Taste, Culture and the Modern Library. Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2002. Scott, P.H. John Galt. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1985. Sinclair, David. ‘Introduction.’ In Nineteenth-Century Narrative Poems, ed. David Sinclair. New Canadian Library O8, vi–xiii. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1972. – Note on ‘Malcolm’s Katie.’ In Nineteenth-Century Narrative Poems, ed. David Sinclair. New Canadian Library O8, 157. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1972. – Note on ‘St. Lawrence and the Saguenay.’ In Nineteenth-Century Narrative Poems, ed. David Sinclair. New Canadian Library O8, 43. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1972. – Note on ‘The U.E.’ In Nineteenth-Century Narrative Poems, ed. David Sinclair. New Canadian Library O8, 82. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1972. Slopen, Beverley. ‘Malcolm Ross: Caretaker of CanLit.’ Quill & Quire 44 (May 1987): 21–2. Solecki, Sam, ed. Imagining Canadian Literature: The Selected Letters of Jack McClelland. Toronto: Key Porter, 1998. Sorfleet, John R. ‘On Analyzing and Editing Bliss Carman’s Work: The Critical Question.’ In Bliss Carman: A Reappraisal, ed. Gerald Lynch, 53–60. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1990. Spadoni, Carl, and Judy Donnelly. A Bibliography of McClelland and Stewart Imprints, 1909–1985: A Publisher’s Legacy. Toronto: ECW Press, 1994. St Clair, William. The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Staines, David. ‘Introduction.’ In The Impossible Sum of Our Traditions, by Malcolm Ross, 7–19. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1986. Steele, Apollonia. Theses on English Canadian Literature. Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 1989. Steele, Charles, ed. Taking Stock: The Calgary Conference on the Canadian Novel. Toronto: ECW Press, 1982. Stevenson, Lionel. Appraisals of Canadian Literature. Toronto: Macmillan, 1926. Stouck, David. ‘“Secrets of the Prison House”: Mrs. Moodie and the Canadian Imagination.’ Dalhousie Review 54 (Autumn 1974): 463–72.

Selected Bibliography

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Stuewe, Paul. Clearing the Ground: English-Canadian Literature after ‘Survival.’ Toronto: Proper Tales Press, 1984. Symons, T.H.B. To Know Ourselves: The Report of the Commission on Canadian Studies. Vols. 1 and 2. Ottawa: Association of Colleges and Universities, 1975. Tanselle, G. Thomas ‘Textual Instability and Editorial Idealism.’ Studies in Bibliography 49 (1996): 1–60. Tebbel, John. Between Covers: The Rise and Transformation of Book Publishing in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Thomas, Clara. Chapters in a Lucky Life. Ottawa: Borealis, 1999. – ‘Introduction.’ In The Backwoods of Canada, by Catharine Parr Traill. New Canadian Library 51, 7–12. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1966. – ‘Introduction.’ In Canadians of Old, by [P.-J. Aubert de Gaspé]. [Translated] by Sir Charles G.D. Roberts. New Canadian Library 106, vii–xii. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1974. – ‘Introduction.’ In Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada, by Anna Brownell Jameson. New Canadian Library 46, ix–xiv. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1965. Turner, John R. ‘The Camelot Series, Everyman’s Library, and Ernest Rhys.’ Publishing History 31 (1992): 27–46. Ware, Martin. ‘Introduction.’ In The Red Feathers, by T.G. Roberts. New Canadian Library 127, vii–xiv. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1976. Waterston, Elizabeth. ‘Gilbert Parker (1860–1932).’ In Canadian Writers and Their Works, Fiction Series, vol. 2, ed. Robert Lecker, Jack David, and Ellen Quigley, 108–56. Toronto: ECW Press, 1989. – ‘Introduction.’ In Bogle Corbet, by John Galt. New Canadian Library 135, 1–7. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1977. – ‘Introduction.’ In The Seats of the Mighty, by Gilbert Parker. New Canadian Library 75, iv–ix. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1971. Watters, Reginald Eyre, and Inglis Freeman Bell. On Canadian Literature, 1806–1960. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1966. Weaver, Robert. ‘The World of Paperbacks.’ Toronto Daily Star, 11 March 1961, p. 28. Whalley, George, ed. Writing in Canada: Proceedings of the Canadian Writers’ Conference Held at Queen’s University, July 1955. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1956. ‘Who’s Who in Business: Senior Bookman.’ Saturday Night 71 (12 May 1956): 43.

270 Selected Bibliography Williams, Raymond. The Long Revolution (1961). Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2001. Wilson, Milton. ‘Introduction.’ In Poetry of Midcentury, 1940–1960. New Canadian Library Original O4, xiii–xv. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1964. – ‘Introduction.’ In Poets between the Wars. New Canadian Library O5, [ix–x]. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1967. Woodcock, George. ‘De Mille and the Utopian Vision.’ Journal of Canadian Fiction 2 (Summer 1973): 174–9. – ‘Paperbacks.’ Canadian Literature 31 (Winter 1967): 82. – ‘Paperbacks and Respectable Pickpockets.’ Canadian Literature 29 (Summer 1966): 3–6. – ‘Reprints and the Reading Public.’ Canadian Literature 57 (Summer 1973): 98–107. Woodhouse, A.S.P. The Poet and His Faith: Religion and Poetry in England from Spenser to Eliot and Auden. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1965. Wright, Paul M. ‘Commerce and the Canon.’ Paper presented at SHARP Annual Conference, Washington, DC, 14–16 July 1994.

Illustration Credits

McClelland & Stewart: 1.2 (from Over Prairie Trails by Frederick Philip Grove © 1957; from Such Is My Beloved by Morley Callaghan © 1957; from Literary Lapses by Stephen B. Leacock © 1910, 1957; from As for Me and My House by Sinclair Ross © 1957. Composite image prepared by Karel Forestal. Covers used with permission of the publisher); 1.3 (advertising material © McClelland & Stewart Ltd. Used with permission of the publisher. Reproduction courtesy of Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto); 3.1 (from The Poems of Bliss Carman by Bliss Carman © 1976; from Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town by Stephen Leacock © 1931, 1960; from The Lamp at Noon by Sinclair Ross © 1968; from Windflower by Gabrielle Roy © 1970. Composite image prepared by Karel Forestal. Covers used with permission of the publisher); 3.2 (advertising material © McClelland & Stewart Ltd. Used with permission of the publisher); 5.1 (from Remember Me by Edward Meade © 1965. Used with permission of the publisher. Photograph by Karen Friskney). Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto: 2.1. McMaster University Library: 4.1 (Macmillan Company of Canada fonds). James Opp: 1.1 digital image.

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Index

Note: Page numbers in italics indicate an illustration. Acorn, Milton, 165; Poets of Contemporary Canada, 130 American literature, 4, 152, 153, 180 Aquin, Hubert: Prochain Episode, 77, 231n22 Armed Services Editions, 8–9 Arnason, David, 160–1 Arnold, Matthew, 10, 25–6 Association for Canadian and Quebec Literatures (ACQL), 67, 123 Atwood, Margaret, 165; The Edible Woman, 85, 248n29; Poets of Contemporary Canada, 130; Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature, 68–9, 179–80 Aubert de Gaspé, PhilippeJoseph: Canadians of Old, 132, 156 Avison, Margaret, 165; Poetry of Midcentury, 129 Bates, Ronald, 55 Beharriell, S. Ross: The Man from Glengarry, 158

Bentley, D.M.R., 132 Beresford-Howe, Constance, 54–5 Bevan, Allan: The Temptations of Big Bear, 156 Birney, Earle, 112, 165, 167, 169; Damnation of Vancouver, 109, 146; Poems of Earle Birney, 231n22; Poetry of Midcentury, 129; Turvey, 163, 169, 228n67, 231n22 Bissell, Claude, 4, 43; The Imperialist, 110; The Mountain and the Valley, 168 bissett, bill, 164; Poets of Contemporary Canada, 131 Blais, Marie-Claire, 165, 171; Mad Shadows, 163, 231n22 Blondal, Patricia, 165; A Candle to Light the Sun, 232n49 Bodsworth, Ted: Last of the Curlews, 163, 228n67 Bowering, George, 164–5; Poets of Contemporary Canada, 130 Bowers, Fredson, 122 Brooke, Frances: The History of

274 Index Emily Montague, 55, 57, 59, 98–9, 132, 135–6, 137, 157, 158–9, 166– 7, 174, 228n68 Brown, E.K.: Responses and Evaluations, 109, 127 Bruce, Vida: Jean Rivard, 110, 116, 137, 141–2 Buckler, Ernest, 100, 165, 168–9, 182, 232n49; The Mountain and the Valley, 57, 163, 168–9, 228n67, 231n22 Calgary Conference on the Canadian Novel, 16, 154–5, 161, 162, 170, 172–80, 182–4, 248n29, 250nn60, 62, 251n73 Callaghan, Morley, 33, 34–5, 49, 60, 83, 164, 165, 167, 168, 171, 230n85; More Joy in Heaven, 146, 163, 223n53, 228nn66, 69, 231n22, 248n29; Morley Callaghan’s Stories, 63; Such Is My Beloved, 34, 35, 37, 38, 47, 117, 163, 223n53, 225n5, 228nn66–7, 231n22; They Shall Inherit the Earth, 228nn66, 69 Cameron, George Frederick, 128 Campbell, William Wilfred, 128 Canada Council for the Arts, 10, 23, 51, 52, 61–2, 110, 131, 229n74 Canadian Best-Seller Library, 51 Canadian Classics Committee, 181, 252nn89, 90 Canadian literature: course adoptions and teaching texts, 3–4, 31, 33, 60, 61, 63, 65, 68, 80–1, 85–6, 87, 97, 107, 109, 110, 122–4, 144–5, 149, 153, 160, 163–6, 171, 173, 174, 176, 179–80; impact of

NCL on, 4–5, 31, 44, 65–6, 77–8, 81, 123, 153, 165–72, 176, 183, 184; progressive view of, 11, 157, 159–60; and realism, 157–9; relative to British or American literature, 11, 152–3; review and scholarly journals, 46–7, 67, 68, 77, 92, 166; study and criticism, 3–4, 11–13, 15, 28, 33, 44, 56–7, 65, 67–8, 72–3, 77–8, 80–1, 92–3, 110, 115, 123–4, 138, 144, 152–3, 154–72, 177–8, 182, 184, 220n4, 249n34. See also New Canadian Library, book reviews; Ross, Malcolm, critical development and thinking about Canadian literature and culture Canadian Writers’ Conference, 22, 28, 220n4 canons and canonization, 11, 15– 16, 152–84, 247n22 Carleton Library, 51–3, 59, 79, 229n74 Carman, Bliss, 25, 165, 232n49; Poems of Bliss Carman, 74, 239n24, 240n25; Poets of the Confederation, 33, 48, 128–9 CBC, 12, 40, 42, 46, 177 Centre for Editing Early Canadian Texts (CEECT), 123, 150, 157, 161, 165, 170 Chambers, Robert, 31 Charney, Ann: Dobryd, 94, 96 Child, Philip, 157; God’s Sparrows, 84, 232n49, 248n28; White Narcissus, 116, 156 Clarke Irwin, 63 Cogswell, Fred, 59–61, 62, 228nn66–9 Cohen, Leonard, 165; Beautiful

Index Losers, 111–14; Poetry of Midcentury, 129; Poets of Contemporary Canada, 130 Cohen, Matt: The Disinherited, 84, 156, 172, 232n49 Coleman, Victor, 130 Commission on Canadian Studies, 67–8 Connor, Ralph (Charles W. Gordon), 48; Glengarry School Days, 83, 169; The Man from Glengarry, 49, 50, 158, 169, 228nn66, 69, 231n22; Postscript to Adventure, 73 copyright, 6–8, 15, 42, 60, 80, 93 Crawford, Isabella Valancy, 128; Nineteenth-Century Narrative Poems, 131–2 Crawley, Derek: The Golden Dog, 137, 141, 143 Creighton, Luella, 169 Cronk, Douglas, 141 Daniells, Roy, 4; As for Me and My House, 168 Davies, Robertson, vii, 115, 165; Fifth Business, 154; Leaven of Malice, 63; A Mixture of Frailties, 230n85; A Voice from the Attic, 77 de Bruyn, Jan: The Flying Years, 155–6 de la Roche, Mazo, 170–1; Delight, 50, 170, 228n67, 248n28 De Mille, James, 182; A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder, 104–7, 114, 137, 167–8 Deacon, William Arthur, 40, 429n35

275

Dewdney, Selwyn, 165, 169 Dragland, Stan: In the Village of Viger and Other Stories, 126 Drainie, Bronwyn, 177 Drummond, W.H.: Habitant Poems, 46, 47–8, 127, 163, 228nn66, 69, 231n22 Duncan, Sara Jeannette, 182; Cousin Cinderella, 83, 84, 110–11, 232n49; The Imperialist, 55–6, 60, 110–11, 163, 167–8, 228nn68–9 Dunlop, William, 164–5; Tiger Dunlop’s Upper Canada, 162, 248n28 Edwards, Mary Jane, 123; The Hidden Mountain, 118–19 Eggleston, Wilfrid, 22, 42, 60 Evans, Hubert, 165, 169 Fernby, Don, 73, 74 Finnigan, Joan, 130 Fraser, Sylvia, 30, 176, 178–9; Pandora, 84, 232n49 French, William, 177 Friesen, Eric, 177–8 Fry, August J., 159 Frye, Northrop, 12, 28, 68, 222n26; The Stepsure Letters, 134–5, 157, 159 Fulford, Robert, 46, 115, 225n4 Gage, W.J., 69–70, 71, 153 Gallery of Canadian Art, 51 Galt, John: Bogle Corbet, 84, 137, 142, 143, 144–5, 232n49, 245n95 Genette, Gérard, 155 Gérin-Lajoie, Antoine: Jean Rivard, 109–10, 116, 137, 142, 161

276 Index Gerson, Carole, 153, 157, 161, 169, 236n46, 247n22 Godbout, Jacques, 164–5 Godfrey, Dave, 72–3, 195 Goldsmith, Oliver: NineteenthCentury Narrative Poems, 131 Graham, Gwetholyn: Earth and High Heaven, 49, 50, 62–3, 103, 116, 163, 228nn66–7, 229n77 Gray, John, 3–4, 21–2. See also Macmillan of Canada Great Canadian 5–Packs promotion, 3, 75–6, 76 Grey, Francis W.: The Curé of St. Philippe, 169–70, 248n28 Grove, Frederick Philip, 33, 49, 82, 83, 96, 99, 134, 165, 168, 170–1; Fruits of the Earth, 60, 158, 163; Master of the Mill, 55, 60, 228n69; Our Daily Bread, 82–3, 97; Over Prairie Trails, 34, 37, 38, 47, 96, 168, 223n53, 225n5, 228nn67–8; A Search for America, 60; Settlers of the Marsh, 170 Grubb, John: The Double Hook, 156 Guèvrement, Germaine, 164–5 Guillory, John, 160 Haliburton, Thomas Chandler, 49, 134, 165, 223n53; The Clockmaker, 47, 132–3, 156, 157, 163, 166–7, 228nn67–8, 231n22 Halpenny, Francess G., 123 Harlow, Robert: Scann, 172, 248n28 Hiebert, Paul, 165; Sarah Binks, 103, 145, 231n22 Hopwood, Alison, 97 Howe, Joseph, 133; NineteenthCentury Narrative Poems, 131

Hutcheon, Linda, 109 Irving, John: The Stepsure Letters, 134–5, 242n52 Jameson, Anna Brownell, 164–5; Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada, 137, 142–3, 158, 162, 166–7, 231n22 Janes, Percy: House of Hate, 84, 100, 232n49 Jones, Doug, 130 Kane, Hugh, 57, 63, 105, 139 Kearns, Lionel, 130 Keith, W.J., 4–5, 178, 251n73, 252nn89–90 Kertzer, Jonathan, 12, 159 King, Carlyle: Wild Geese, 116, 157– 8 King, Sarah, 152–3 Kirby, William, 165; The Golden Dog, 60, 137, 143, 166–7; Nineteenth-Century Narrative Poems, 131, 132 Klein, A.M., 50, 129, 165, 167, 169; Poets between the Wars, 129–30; The Second Scroll, 48, 169, 228n67 Klinck, Carl, 4, 13, 92, 123, 124, 153; Antoinette de Mirecourt, 98; The History of Emily Montague, 98–9, 135–6, 137, 157, 158–9; The Manor House of De Villerai, 98; Roughing It in the Bush, 137, 138–9, 144; Wacousta, 137, 139– 41, 143, 144 Knister, Raymond, 130, 170–1; White Narcissus, 116, 156, 161, 170, 228nn68–9 Kreisel, Henry, 57, 59, 165, 178;

Index The Betrayal, 169; The Rich Man, 48, 61, 169, 228n67, 229n73 Lampman, Archibald, 165; Poets of the Confederation, 33, 48, 128 Laurence, Margaret, 28, 82, 83, 85–6, 112, 115, 161, 165, 171, 176–7, 179, 180; advocacy of other authors, 100, 146; A Bird in the House, 82, 85, 248n29; The Diviners, 85; The Fire-Dwellers, 85, 248n29; A Jest of God, 82, 85, 248n29; This Side Jordan, 233n49; The Stone Angel, 85, 163, 231n22, 248n29, 252n82; view of NCL, 4, 54–5, 176 Layton, Irving, 165; Poetry of Midcentury, 129 Leacock, Stephen, 33, 74, 101, 162, 164, 165, 168, 223n53; Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich, 47, 163, 225n5, 228nn66–7; 248n31; Literary Lapses, 35, 37, 38, 45, 47, 163, 228nn66, 69; My Discovery of England, 228nn66, 69; Nonsense Novels, 228nn66, 69; Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, 74, 166–7, 173, 181, 223n53, 228nn66–7, 231n22, 248nn29, 31 LeClerc, Félix: Allegro, 109–10, 248n28 Lee, Dennis, 130 Lemelin, Roger: The Town Below, 54, 55, 57, 125, 228n66, 231n22, 238n9 LePan, Douglas, 24; The Deserter, 248n28 Leprohon, Rosanna, 165; Antoinette de Mirecourt, 98, 161, 170;

277

The Manor House of De Villerai, 98 liberal humanist nationalism, 10– 12, 28, 45, 56 library series. See publisher’s series Litt, Paul, 10, 11, 12 Livesay, Dorothy, 165, 167; Poets between the Wars, 130, 146 Lochhead, Douglas, 80, 81, 252n89; The Stepsure Letters, 134– 5 Lowell, Robert: New Priest in Conception Bay, 82, 170, 248n28 Lowry, Malcolm: Under the Volcano, 60, 223n53 Lucas, Alec: Hugh MacLennan, 72; The Last Barrier and Other Stories, 125–6 Ludwig, Jack, 82, 112 MacEwen, Gwendolyn: Poets of Contemporary Canada, 130 Mackenzie, M.L., 55 MacLaren, I.S., 132, 183, 241n34, 247n22 MacLennan, Hugh, 33, 54, 60, 72, 165, 167, 171; Barometer Rising, 47, 103, 223n53, 228nn66, 69, 231n22; Each Man’s Son, 63, 145, 228nn66, 69, 230n85; Two Solitudes, 63, 154, 230n85 MacLure, Millar, 55 MacMechan, Archibald, 167, 248n28 Macmillan of Canada, 3, 21–2, 29, 69, 102–3; Laurentian Library, 63, 64, 103, 171 Macpherson, Jay, 97–8,164–5; Poetry of Midcentury, 129 Mandel, Eli, 178; Earth and High

278 Index Heaven, 116; Poets of Contemporary Canada, 129, 130–1 Marlyn, John, 165, 169; Under the Ribs of Death, 61, 229n73 Massey Commission. See Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences Matthews, John, 65 McClelland, Jack (John Gordon): biographical information and early career, 3, 29–30, 32; Canadian publishing and role of the publisher, 23, 30–1, 71; commitment to Canadian authors and books, 29–30, 31, 39–40, 100, 111–14, 120, 179–80, 183; editorial influence on NCL, 34, 45, 46, 48, 58, 59, 78–9, 80, 81, 82–5, 86–7, 102–3, 107, 109–14, 118– 19, 120, 126–7, 128, 129, 147–8, 172–5, 180–1; need for reprints of Canadian literature, 22–3, 39–40, 43; promotion and publicity, 30, 32, 37, 39–40, 42, 154, 183. See also McClelland and Stewart; New Canadian Library McClelland, John (Sr), 29 McClelland and Stewart (M&S): financial issues, public funding, and sales, 15, 70–1, 75, 87; founding and early history of firm, 29, 222n29; publishing program, 29, 30, 70–1, 222nn35–6; sale to Avie Bennett, 181; threat of sale in 1971, 71. See also Canadian Best-Seller Library; Carleton Library; Gallery of Canadian Art; McClelland, Jack; McClelland, John;

New Canadian Library; Seal Books McCourt, Edward, 168; Music at the Close, 169, 248n28; The Wooden Sword, 169, 248n28 McCulloch, Thomas, 182; The Stepsure Letters, 48, 55, 59, 132, 134–5, 157, 161, 167–8, 228nn68–9, 242nn49, 52, 54 McDougall, Colin: Execution, 63, 230n85 McDougall, Robert, 4, 22, 43, 52, 157; The Clockmaker, 132–3, 156 McKenzie, D.F., 5, 6 McLachlan, Alexander, 164; Nineteenth-Century Narrative Poems, 131 McPherson, Hugo, 12–13 McRobbie, Kenneth, 164; Poetry of Midcentury, 129 Meade, Edward, 165, 169; Remember Me, 146–9, 147, 248n28 Mew, Diane, 105, 148 Mitchell, W.O., 33, 223n53; Who Has Seen the Wind, 48, 154, 230n85 modern reader and reading taste, 137, 139, 140, 143–4 Moodie, Susanna, 33, 104, 165; Roughing It in the Bush, 61–2, 104, 137, 138–9, 144, 158, 163, 166–7, 173, 181, 223n53, 228nn67–8, 229n73, 231n22 Moore, Brian, 83, 171; An Answer from Limbo, 96, 233n49; Judith Hearne, 96, 163, 231n22; The Luck of Ginger Coffey, 77 Mowat, Angus: Carrying Place, 100 Mowat, Farley, 100; People of the Deer, 79

Index Munro, Alice, 154 nationalism and Canadian literature and culture, 5, 10–13, 26–8, 45, 56–7, 65, 67, 70–1, 78, 80–1, 94, 152, 159–60, 222n26 New, W.H., 138 New American Library, 10, 36 New Canadian Library: abridgement, 74, 77, 124, 128–9, 132, 136–45, 150, 181, 239n24, 240n25, 245n98; annual, 53; authorial revisions, 124, 145–9, 150–1; authors’ requests, suggestions, and interventions, 62, 94, 100–2; book reviews, 5, 13, 40, 42, 45–8, 49–50, 54–7, 59–61, 65, 155, 255–8; Canadian Writers Series, 14, 53, 72–3, 195, 248n30; and canonization of Canadian literature, 16, 153, 154–82, 183, 220n31; ‘classic,’ use of term in relation to, 14, 32, 39, 40, 50, 78, 86, 104, 148, 156, 173, 181, 183; competition, 15, 45, 62–4, 64, 66, 72, 79–80, 81, 86, 87, 101–2, 103, 171; conception, planning, naming, and launch, 3–4, 21, 31–43, 32, 41; covers and design, 35, 36–7, 38, 43, 59, 72, 73, 74, 87, 181; crises and tension in relationship between Ross and McClelland, 51–3, 83–4, 111–14, 172, 175–8, 180; end of new titles in 1978, 72, 86–7, 88; essay collections, 43, 51, 53, 57, 60, 62, 109, 125, 126–7, 162, 173, 223n53; external editors, 125–7, 129–45, 150; financing and financial con-

279

cerns, 21, 32, 33, 36–7, 44, 45, 46, 49, 50, 57–8, 61, 65, 72, 73, 76, 87, 102, 108, 109, 111, 120, 137, 139, 150; French-Canadian works, 60, 75, 108, 109–10, 120, 132, 161, 177; grants and public funding, 61–2, 110, 229n74; introductions, 4, 34, 79–80, 93, 94, 96, 122, 125, 129, 131, 134, 135, 137, 139, 140, 143, 144, 149, 150, 155–60, 182, 237n64; Main series, 14, 50–1, 53, 73, 115, 119, 122, 124, 125, 137, 161, 162, 186–93, 250n50; markets and readership, 3, 16, 33, 44, 46, 49, 61, 65, 72, 75, 83, 87, 97, 99, 102, 104, 107, 109, 111, 112, 137–8, 139, 140, 143, 153, 154, 161–6, 171; M&S editors, 33, 59, 61, 72, 78, 83–4, 86, 87, 94, 103–4, 105, 127, 109, 112, 132, 124–5, 133, 134, 135–6, 138, 140, 141, 142, 145, 146, 148, 149, 150, 151, 232n49; multi-faceted paperback program, 36, 44, 50–3; new titles after Ross’s retirement, 73, 181; Original sub-series, 14, 50–1, 53, 61, 74, 115, 119, 122, 124, 125, 126, 127–32, 161, 162, 194; page limits and volume size, 57, 58, 59, 102–3, 116, 125, 126, 128, 132, 137, 139, 150; plans to reconfigure series, 172–82; plays, 50, 51, 54, 60, 62, 109, 120, 223n53; poetry and poetry anthologies, 33, 43, 46, 47–8, 53, 54, 59–60, 61, 73, 75, 80, 81, 109, 120, 125, 127–32, 163, 165, 173, 223n53, 231n22; Poets of Canada, 127–32; popu-

280 Index lar titles as support for series, 45, 46, 49–50, 59, 65; potential titles, 93, 96–7; pre-1920 works, 75, 77, 80, 83, 84, 86, 88, 109, 110–11, 120, 124, 132–45, 150, 162, 165, 167–8, 169–70, 182; pricing, 34, 36, 42, 50, 79, 85, 103, 229n74; print runs, 36–7; printers, 35, 38, 73, 74; promotion and advertising, 3, 35, 36, 37, 39–41, 43, 46, 48–9, 52, 61, 72, 75, 81–4, 87, 162, 225n4; qualitative merit of NCL titles, 45, 54–7, 60, 65, 80, 88, 97, 102, 104, 105–7, 112–14, 116, 120, 148–9, 155–60, 183; range and volume of titles, 3, 14–15, 43, 44–5, 50–3, 59, 81, 82, 83, 84, 110, 120, 183; readers’ reports, 102, 103, 105–7; reception of series, private and public, 16, 31, 35, 40, 42–3, 45, 54, 59–61, 65, 75; regularity of issue, 45, 58; relaunch of NCL under David Staines, 5, 181; reliance on M&S backlist, 80, 83, 86; restrictions on development, 15, 86–7, 93, 107–12, 120–1, 238n80; rights, reprint rights, and permissions fees, 45, 58, 62–3, 66, 72, 78, 79, 80, 84, 85, 87, 88, 93, 94, 109, 111, 114, 125, 126, 128, 129; royalty arrangements, 34, 57, 58, 62, 79, 87, 223n51; sales, 35, 40, 43, 44, 45, 58, 59, 62, 65, 71, 75–6, 82, 86, 87, 107, 109, 156, 157, 159, 161– 6, 181, 182, 196–204, 233n59, 248n30; short story collections, 47, 59–60, 100, 125; source texts

and their editorial treatment, 122–51; title suggestions and title selection process, 4, 15, 33, 39, 45, 48, 53, 72, 78–9, 82–4, 86–7, 92–114, 119, 154, 173, 174, 180; titles considered but not included, 93, 94, 102, 205–18; titles published during the Ross-McClelland era, 93, 186– 95. See also McClelland, Jack; Ross, Malcolm Newfeld, Frank, 37, 38 Newlove, John, 164–5; Poets of Contemporary Canada, 130 Nichol, bp, 130 Niven, Frederick: The Flying Years, 155–6, 248n28 Nowlan, Alden, 165; Poetry of Midcentury, 129 O’Hagan, Howard: Tay John, 97–8 Ondaatje, Michael: Poets of Contemporary Canada, 130–1 Ontario Arts Council, 23, 110 Ontario Royal Commission on Book Publishing, 70–1 Ostenso, Martha, 164–5, 170–1; Wild Geese, 55–6, 116, 157–8, 170, 223n53, 228n66 Oxford Univerity Press (Canada), 63, 103 Pacey, Desmond, 4, 13, 63, 92, 128, 166, 168, 169, 170; NCL book reviews, 46, 54, 62 Page, P.K., 164–5; Poetry of Midcentury, 129 paperbacks, 3, 7–10, 34, 36, 60–1, 62, 79, 84, 88, 97, 101, 103; Canadian, 7, 9, 22, 36, 42, 44,

Index 50–3, 60–1, 63–4, 68, 72–3, 79– 80, 84–6, 88, 112, 123, 164, 184; and educational publishing, 4, 9–10, 50, 51–3, 63–4, 65, 68, 123, 164, 184; quality versus massmarket, 9–10, 34, 36, 39, 62, 79, 101, 103, 161. See also publisher’s series Parker, Gilbert, 164–5, 232n49; The Seats of the Mighty, 137, 142, 143–5, 161, 170, 245nn86, 98 Parks, M.G., 49–50, 55, 237n64; Fruits of the Earth, 158 Penguin Books, 7, 8 Peterman, Michael, 139, 245n90 Phelps, Arthur L., 249n34; Habitant Poems, 46, 127 Pickthall, Marjorie, 128 Pierce, Lorne, 128, 215, 249nn34– 5 Pocket Books, 7, 8–9, 97 Porter, Anna, 72, 78, 83–4, 86, 87, 94, 109, 132, 232n49 practical texts, 122, 124, 149 Pratt, Claire, 105, 127, 133, 134–6, 138, 145, 146, 149, 150 Pratt, E.J., 105, 165; Poets between the Wars, 130 publisher as gatekeeper, 91 publisher’s list, 91–2 publisher’s series, 6, 42, 60, 115; calls for Canadian reprint series, 22, 40, 42, 60–1; Canadian, 21–2, 42, 63, 72–3, 79–80; and canonization, 15–16; and reprint series, 6–10, 42, 60, 92, 154. See also paperbacks publishing, agency, 23, 69 publishing, educational, 3–4, 23, 69–70, 91, 104, 107, 153, 160,

281

161, 184; American subsidiaries in Canada, 69; cuts in textbook spending, 69; and paperbacks, 4, 9–10, 61, 63–4, 68, 153, 161, 184 publishing, trade, 3, 61, 65, 68, 91, 153, 161; American subsidiaries in Canada, 69; new Canadian houses of 1960s, 68, 184; original Canadian works, 23, 69, 184 Purdy, Al, 165; The Poems of Al Purdy, 145; Poets of Contemporary Canada, 130 Raddall, Thomas H., 33, 82, 162, 223n53; At the Tide’s Turn and Other Stories, 47, 228n69; His Majesty’s Yankees, 232n49; The Nymph and the Lamp, 162, 170, 228nn66–7, 231n22; Roger Sudden, 77, 231n22 Rankin (later Cumings), Joyce Anne (‘Steve’), 105–6, 140, 141, 150 Reaney, James, 165; Poetry of Midcentury, 129 Reprint Society of Canada, 22, 147 Richardson, John: Wacousta, 137, 139–41, 143, 144, 166–7, 231n22, 244n79 Richler, Mordecai, 82, 112, 165, 171, 178, 179; The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, 163, 231n22; Cocksure, 111; The Incomparable Atuk, 231n22; Son of a Smaller Hero, 100–2 Richmond, John, 75 Ringuet (Philippe Panneton), 49; Thirty Acres, 50, 163, 228nn67–8, 231n22

282 Index Ritchie, Laurence, 82 Roberts, Charles G.D., 25, 132, 165; Heart of the Ancient Wood, 82; The Last Barrier and Other Stories, 47, 125–6, 228n69; Poets of the Confederation, 33, 48, 128–9, 239n24, 240n25 Roberts, Theodore Goodridge, 25, 128; The Harbor Master, 248n28; The Red Feathers, 83, 84, 159, 232n49 Robertson, Ian Ross: The Master’s Wife, 116 Roper, Gordon, 4, 54 Rosenblatt, Joe, 164; Poets of Contemporary Canada, 130–1 Ross, Malcolm (1911–2002): biography and career, 23–8, 93, 97, 112; Canadian Writers Series, 72, 73; CCCN ballot and list, 174–8; concept and proposal of NCL, 3–4, 21, 29, 31–3, 223n48; critical assessments of Ross’s general editorship of NCL, 48, 49, 54, 55, 59–61, 77, 78, 80, 174–5; critical development and thinking about Canadian literature and culture, 13, 24–8, 177–8, 222n26; definition of an NCL title, 94, 96; editorial vision, practices, and preferences regarding NCL, 14, 15, 25, 49, 78, 80, 81, 82, 83, 88, 94, 96, 97, 99, 108–14, 115, 116, 119, 120–1, 122, 148, 126, 183–4; editorship of Queen’s Quarterly, 28; The Hidden Mountain, 118–19; Over Prairie Trails, 96; picture of, 108; Poets of the Confederation, 48, 60, 74, 127–9, 163, 223n53, 228nn67–8, 231n22, 239nn20–1,

239–40n24, 240n25; retirement from general editorship, 4, 72, 86, 87, 111, 173; review of Margaret Atwood’s Survival, 68–9; Such Is My Beloved, 35, 117; volume introductions, 114–19; work for National Film Board, 26–7, 221n18; work on Bliss Carman, 25, 74; works written or edited by, 25, 27–8. See also New Canadian Library Ross, Morton, 146 Ross, Sinclair, 100, 145–6, 165, 168, 171, 182; As for Me and My House, 34, 35, 37, 38, 47, 146, 163, 168, 181, 223n53, 225n5, 228n67, 231n22, 248n29, 249n41; Lamp at Noon and Other Stories, 74, 146; Sawbones Memorial, 146 Ross, W.W.E., 130 Roy, Gabrielle, 74, 82–3, 109, 162, 163, 164, 165, 167; The Cashier, 162; The Hidden Mountain, 118– 19; The Road past Altamont, 84, 232n49; Street of Riches, 162; The Tin Flute, 47, 163, 225n5, 228nn66–7, 231n22, 248n29; Where Nests the Water Hen, 162, 228n66; Windflower, 74, 82 Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences (Massey Commission), 10, 11–12 Ryerson Press, 29, 63, 69–70, 71, 128, 146 Salverson, Laura, 165; Confessions of an Immigrant’s Daughter, 97; The Viking Heart, 83 Sangster, Charles, 164; NineteenthCentury Narrative Poems, 131

Index scholarly editions, 122, 123. See also Centre for Editing Early Canadian Texts Scott, Duncan Campbell, 165; In the Village of Viger and Other Stories, 126, 248n28; Poets of the Confederation, 33, 48, 128 Scott, F.R., 25, 129, 167; Poets between the Wars, 129–30 Seal Books, 72, 84–6, 88, 111 selective tradition, 16, 92, 154 series. See publisher’s series Seton, Ernest Thompson, 164–5 Sherman, Francis, 128 Shortliffe, Glen: The Town Below, 125, 238n9 Sinclair, David: Nineteenth-Century Narrative Poems, 131–2, 241nn41–2 Smith, A.J.M., 25, 63, 92, 129, 165, 167, 248n32; Masks of Fiction, 57, 126–7, 228nn68–9; Masks of Poetry, 126–7, 228nn68–9; Poets between the Wars, 129–30 Smith, Marion, 55–6 Sorfleet, John Robert, 74, 76–7, 80, 128, 239–40n24, 240n25; The Poems of Bliss Carman, 74 Spettigue, Douglas, 97 Staines, David, 5, 145, 181; E.K. Brown, Responses and Evaluations, 127 Stead, Robert J.C., 170–1; Grain, 103–4, 163, 170, 228n67 Steele, Charles, 175, 220n31 Stephens, Donald, 55 Stratford, Philip, 109, 110 Stringer, Arthur: The Prairie Wife, 84, 232n49 Sutherland, John, 248n32; Essays,

283

Controversies and Poems, 109, 248n28 Totton, Jim, 33, 59, 61, 103–4, 105, 112 Thomas, Clara, 4, 104; The Backwoods of Canada, 137, 141, 142, 158; Canadians of Old, 132, 156; Heritage Books Series, 78; Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada, 137, 141, 142–3, 158 ‘3–for-2’ paperback promotions, 81–4, 111 ‘350 Outstanding Canadian Books’ (UNESCO list), 166, 168, 249n35 Traill, Catharine Parr, 104; The Backwoods of Canada, 104, 137, 141, 142, 158, 162, 166–7, 231n22, 245n90; Canadian Settler’s Guide, 162 universities: courses in Canadian literature, 23, 44, 152; expansion and increased enrolment, 44, 69, 80, 152, 225n1. See also Commission on Canadian Studies University of Toronto Press, 63, 79–80, 81, 123, 131 Waddington, Miriam, 130 Ware, Martin: The Red Feathers, 159 Waterston, Elizabeth, 4; Bogle Corbet, 137, 141–2, 143, 144–5; The Seats of the Mighty, 137, 141–2, 143–5 Watson, Sheila, 28, 165; The Double Hook, 156, 163 Watters, R.E., 4, 54, 92, 110, 116, 153; A Strange Manuscript Found

284 Index in a Copper Cylinder, 105, 106–7, 137 Weaver, Robert, 40, 46, 115, 129, 130; The Lamp at Noon and Other Stories, 146 Webb, Phyllis, 130 West, Paul, 57 Wiebe, Rudy, 83, 171; Peace Shall Destroy Many, 77, 100; The Temptations of Big Bear, 84, 156, 172, 232n49, 233n53 Williams, Raymond, 16, 92, 154 Wilson, Ethel, 223n53, 230n85; Hetty Dorval, 63, 230n85; Swamp Angel, 145, 181, 228n67

Wilson, Milton: Poetry of Midcentury, 61, 129–30, 163, 231n22; Poets between the Wars, 61, 129, 130, 146, 163, 231n22 Wiseman, Adele, 164–5; Crackpot, 100, 172; The Sacrifice, 102–3, 230n85 Woodcock, George, 12, 46–9, 77– 8, 92; A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder, 106– 7; Odysseus Ever Returning, 145, 162 Woodhouse, A.S.P., 24, 220–1n8

STUDIES IN BOOK AND PRINT CULTURE General Editor: Leslie Howsam

Hazel Bell, Indexes and Indexing in Fact and Fiction Heather Murray, Come, bright Improvement! The Literary Societies of Nineteenth-Century Ontario Joseph A. Dane, 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 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, Print Culture and the Blackwood Tradition

Bart Beaty, Unpopular Culture: Transforming the European Comic Book in the 1990s 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 B. Friskney, New Canadian Library: The Ross-McClelland Years, 1952– 1978