Showing posts with label McMullen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label McMullen. Show all posts

07 August 2023

Victorian Ladies in Day-Glo Green and Orange



Published thirty years ago by McGill-Queen's University Press, Silenced Sextet received laudatory reviews, but not its due. It is an essential work of Canadian literary history and criticism. The golden result of a collaboration between Carrie MacMillan, Lorraine McMullen, and Elizabeth Waterston, the volume features six essays on six Canadian women novelists, all of whom achieved popularity in the nineteenth century only to be more or less forgotten in the twentieth:
Rosanna Leprohon
May Agnes Fleming
Margaret Murray Robertson
S Frances Harrison
Marshall Saunders
Joanna E Wood
Silenced Sextet was added to my collection upon publication. I wonder how much I paid? It's currently listed at $125 on the MQUP website, so you can imagine my excitement in coming across a copy last week at a local thrift store. Set me back all of three dollars! 

Now, imagine my disappointment in getting it home to find this:

(cliquez pour agrandir)
And this:


Every page of the opening essay, 'Rosanna Mullins Leprohon: At Home in Many Worlds,' is underscored and highlighted.  The beginning of the second essay, 'May Agnes Fleming: "I did nothing but write" is simply underscored. I suggest that the green highlighter either gave out or rolled under a heavy bureau, forcing the scholar to do without. 


Evidence suggests that an orange highlighter was purchased midway through the Fleming essay.


Seems like a lot of work.


The near-absence of marginalia is curious. This rare instance marks the beginning of Carrie MacMillan's discussion of Joanna E Wood's The Untempered Wind:


Why is it that some passages are underlined but not highlighted? Why are some highlighted but not underlined? Why underline and highlight? Why are some dates, titles, and character names circled, but not others? Why is Elizabeth Waterston's 'Margaret Marshall Saunders: A Voice of the Silent' left untouched? Why is the purple pen all but absent in the final pages? Had it been misplaced? Had it rolled under a heavy bureau?

I haven't given these questions much thought. Frankly, I'm more irritated than puzzled. Besides, I'm still trying to wrap my head around that copy of Robert Kroetsch's Badlands I found eleven years years ago.
 

I purchased this thrift store Silenced Sextet thinking that I'd give it to a friend. As it turns out, she already had a copy. 

And so, I offer it to anyone who might be interested.

Postage is on me.

If interested, I can be contacted through the email link at my Blogger profile. Marshall Saunders fans may not find it so bad.

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01 November 2021

We All Win With May Agnes Fleming!

Who Wins?; or, The Secret of Monksworth Waste
May Agnes Fleming
New York: New York Book Company, 1910
180 pages

A woman trudges by night, babe at breast, though England's bleak marshes and ghastly commons. She begs for rest at Leamington, the nearest town, but her brute of a husband is insistent on making a ship that is scheduled to depart from Plymouth the next day. Yet, upon reaching Leamington, he's drawn to the warm lights of the Vine Inn. He does decide stop – but not before blackening his wife's one unblackened eye. "I'm going in for a pot o' porter, mistress," says he; "wait you here till I come back. The poor woman does just that. Upon her husband's return, she takes up a long, heavy, sharp-pointed stone, "deadly as a dagger," and brings it down on his head:

There was one convulsive bound, one gurgling cry, a spout of hot, red blood, and then—
      The woman turned away with sickening horror from what lay before her. It was very still, too; there was no need to repeat the blow. She flung the stone away, took one last glance at the sleeping child, one last, shuddering gaze at that other still form, then turned swiftly and flitted away into the night.
Time and place shift abruptly to a crowded French vaudeville on the Surrey side of the Thames, where dark-eyed danseuse Miss Rose Adair is giving her farewell performance before returning to Paris. It's the cheapest hot ticket in all of London. A small gathering of slumming military men sit in the more expensive seats:
Very harmless young heroes, their maiden swords still unfleshed — their maiden pistols preserving their pristine glitter — dainty carpet knights, great in the dance, and mighty at the mess-table. They lounged about the boxes, amusing themselves with sarcastic criticisms on their neighbors, while waiting for the curtain to rise.
The most envied of their circle is nineteen-year-old Lieutenant Cyril Paget Trevanion; this has less to do with his striking good looks – he has the proportions of "a muscular Apollo" – than it does with his  future as Lord of Monkswood Hall, Trevanion Park, and heir to an estate with a rental income of £15,000 per annum (roughly £1,830,000 today). In the immediate, young Trevanion has caught the eye of la belle Rose... and she his. Trevanion's fellow officers see short-term fun, but no future:
"A man can not marry his grandmother — no more can he marry a little danseuse, particularly at the innocent age of nineteen. Not but that Miss Rose Adair is pretty enough and sparkling enough to almost warrant such folly. Trevanion’s deucedly spooney about her, but there’ll be no marrying, take my word for it. He comes of a race as proud as the devil.”
What is the connection between these two disparate scenes? Who is the murderess? What happened to her baby? Will Trevanion marry Rose? Can an aristocrat and vaudevillian share a future?

And then there's the title. Who Wins? Against whom? What's the prize?

As in all May Agnes Fleming novels, answers come in time. Who Wins?, being one of her shortest, they come more quickly and are a touch more obvious. This is not to suggest that the standard elements of a Fleming novel are lacking; murder, extreme wealth, extreme poverty, inheritance, disinheritance, secret identities, secret passages, more murder, and romance all figure.

Hermit or hag? There's always one.

In this case, it's the latter.

Much as I'm loath to use the term, I can't help but describe Who Wins? as the most meta of the Flemings I've read to date. This has much to do with the mysterious character Angus Macgregor's occupation as a writer of popular fiction. In this scene, acquaintance Charley Chudleigh stops by for a tongue-wag:
"Busy, as usual?" he remarked, lounging in, looking inexpressibly handsome and cool in his summer suit of spotless linen. "If I disturb the exercises, I'll go." (Macgregor, in the deep, rose-shaded window-seat, was writing.) "Whereabouts are you? Is Lord Charlemagne Charlemount on his knees to the lovely Lady Sleepshanks? Or is the Black Bandit in the act of leaping from the top of the Martello Tower with the shrieking Aureola Pasdebasque in his arms, or has Rinaldo Binaldi, the magnificent hero of the tale, the dazzling son of 'poor but honest parents,' just been consigned to the deepest dungeon beneath the castle moat by that black-hearted scoundrel, the gouty old Marquis of Carabas? Egad! Macgregor, you sensation novelists are tremendous fellows, and play the very mischief with the women's noddles. Say the word, and I'll go; I've the greatest awe of the profession, and wouldn't interrupt a thrilling chapter for countless worlds."
I laughed aloud when reading this passage, in which the valet M François resigns his position:"Mr. Macgregor's valet may seem to have little to do with this veracious history, but Mr. Macgregor's valet was the direct means of bringing about a rapid dénouement."

Who Wins? isn't my favourite Fleming novel – that would be The Midnight Queen –but as I'm learning there is no bad place to start reading her work.

Give Who Wins? a try if you're looking for one of her shorter reads; whether female or male, she will play with your noddle.

Trivia: Google informs that Plymouth is a 317-kilometre hike from Leamington, estimating sixty-five hours of steady walking between spa town and port city. I expect May Agnes Fleming, a New Brunswicker who never visited England, was unaware of this fact.

Object: My copy was purchased last year from a bookseller in upstate New York. Price: US$12.00. It was once owned by a man named Gerald E. Rule ("from Mother"). The title on its cover and spine drop the question mark, but the title page (above) gets things right. Likely the most recent edition, it was published as part of the New York Book Company's Famous Fiction Library. Amongst the other Canadian titles in the Famous Fiction Library, we find only Mrs Fleming's The Baronet's Bride.

Access: Lauren McMullen's invaluable "Checklist of Works by May Agnes Fleming" suggests that Who Wins? made its print debut serialized in Philadelphia Saturday Night (16 April and 23 July 1870). She records a second serialization under the title The Mystery of Mordaunt Hall, which ran anonymously from 16 July 1870 to 1 November 1870 in the London Journal. Prof McMullen notes that the names of settings and characters are altered in the latter serial.*

Prof McMullen's research suggests that Who Wins? may have first appeared as a book published by New York's Surprise Library. No date is given. The earliest edition that can be read online – New York: Munro, 1895 – is here at the Internet Archive. Those looking to purchase a copy online have two choices: a 110-year-old or so New York Book Company bind-up of The Baronet's Bride and Who Wins? (price: US$15.93) or a nearly-equally-as-old paper-covered Street & Smith edition (price: US$25.00).

I'd be torn.

No pun intended.

The Mystery of Mordaunt Hall is not to be confused with another novel of the same title serialized in New Zealand's Thames Star (4 February-14 April 1896). It too was published anonymously.

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19 October 2020

Armand Durand; or, A Summer Project



Armand Durand; ou, La promesse accomplie
    [Armand Durand; or, A Promise Fulfilled]
Madame Leprohon [Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon;
    trans, J.-A.  Genaud], 
Montreal: Beauchemin, 1894
367 pages

In her time, Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon – Madame Leprohon – was more popular with francophones than anglophones, so does it not make sense to tackle this, her third novel, in translation? I thought so. It was my summer project. That the season ended weeks ago speaks to my inabilities, and is no reflection on the novel itself. The story is simple and has a rushed, rather predictable conclusion – but it is deftly told and is populated by fully-drawn characters who live in a Quebec the author knew well.

The novel begins with Paul Durand, descendant of the earliest settlers of New France, who has come to inherit a large and profitable farm in "the seigneurie of — Alonville we will call it — on the banks of the St. Lawrence."* Handsome and hardworking Paul has put off marriage so as not to impose upon his mother, who had lived many, many years in the Durand family farmhouse... until she didn't.

I shouldn't be so flippant. Mère Durand is depicted as a fine woman. After her death, son Paul looks to be in no hurry to take a bride — but then he encounters Geneviève Audut. Newly arrived from France, delicate Geneviève is employed as governess to a pair of thoroughly dislikable children related to the seigneur. Geneviève herself is a relation —a poor relation — whom no one treats her particularly well. Her charges are the worst: "Mamma says we will never learn anything till we have a tutor, and that she would get us one to-morrow, only she does not know what to do with you. No body will marry you as you have no dot."

After overhearing this little shit, Paul proposes to Geneviève, which in turn sends the women of Alonville into a tizzy:
What could he see in her, indeed, a little doll-faced creature with no life or gaiety in her, to bewitch him in such a manner? What made him marry a stranger when there were plenty of smart handsome girls in his own village that he had known ever since they wore pinafores?
Much to their delight, Geneviève proves a disaster in keeping a farmhouse, but Paul Durand loves her to the end... which comes when she gives birth to the titular character. 

Again, I shouldn't be so flippant. Though I could see it coming, Madame Leprohon's description of Geneviève's death touches the heart.

Believing that his infant son is in need of a mother, Paul marries spinster Eulalie Messier, a plain-featured woman of good character, who had been generally recognized as Alonville's youngest spinster. His new bride loves and cares for the infant Armand Durand as her own, and Paul comes to love her as a result. Eulalie wasn't so old an old maid that she couldn't provide her husband with another son. They name him Paul, after his father.

And then, she dies.


I fear I've made Armand Durand seem gothic, when it is really a mélange of melodrama and literary realism. Its depictions of French Canadian traditions and society, which Mary Jane Edwards suggests is the reason behind Madame Leprohon's popularity, was just one element that kept me reading.

With Eulalie's death, focus shifts to the two Durand boys and their schooling at "the old Montreal College." Armand, the more retiring of the two, is the intellectual. Paul, though younger, is both literally and figuratively the bigger brother. He has confidence and brash. Poor Armand, so pretty and slight, becomes a target of his fellow classmates. "Miss Armand," as he's called, is bullied to a point at which he lashes out, bloodying the brute Rodolphe Belfond, after which the two become fast friends.

As the title suggests, Armand comes to take the place of the main character. Paul fis begins to fade with the end of their schooldays, returning to Alonville to help run the family farm. Armand remains in Montreal, working for a lawyer, with the goal of becoming one himself. It all makes sense, and works well until jealousy rears its ugly head. On visits to Montreal, Paul feels like a country bumpkin, and comes to resent the money their father sends to help support Armand. He begins a campaign of lies, implying that the funds are wasted on drink and dandyism. The scheming reaches its apex when Paul Durand pere lies in his deathbed as Paul fis intercepts letters addressed to his older brother. The upshot is that Armand Durand is disinherited.   

Madame Leprohon's greatest challenge in writing this novel must surely have had to do with events following the father's death. Armand marries Delima Laurin, his landlady's niece. Written this way, the decision seems so rash, and yet this reader understood the proposal of marriage and its timing. Sadly, Armand and Delima soon prove themselves ill-suited. 

I'll write no more for fear of spoiling things... and because I'm hoping you'll read it.

I found Armand Durand to be one the finest Canadian novels of the nineteenth-century.

Am I wrong?

Was something gained in translation?

* All quotes come from Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon's original text.  

Object: A fragile volume printed on thin paper, bound in embossed scarlet boards, my copy once belonged to the Bibliotheque de Chénéville. It was purchased earlier this year from a Gatineau bookseller. Price: C$19.41. I see no evidence that it was a discard. Should I be concerned?

Access: Armand Durand first appeared as a serial on 1 October 1868 in the Montreal Daily News. That same year, the novel was published in book form by John Lovell. That edition can be read — gratis — through this link at the Internet Archive.

The novel is in print today, with introduction by Loraine McMullen and Elizabeth Waterston, as part of Tecumseh's Early Canadian Women Writers Series. It can be ordered here, thorough the press.

Pay no heed to print on demand vultures. Take it from a Montrealer, this isn't Quebec:


The Tecumseh edition aside, I see no copies of Armand Durand — English or French —listed for sale online.

As might be expected, this once-popular novel has come to be the stuff of academe. The only copy I see in a public library can be found in Toronto.

01 August 2019

Margaret Murray Robertson Matrimonial Mystery (& Canadian literature's most tear-stained novel)



Summertime, and the livin' is busy. Many irons in the fire add to the heat, the pressure is on, and I'm enjoying each and every day. This week I finished a Dusty Bookcase review of Margaret Murray Robertson's 1866 novel Christie Redfern's Troubles for Canadian Notes & Queries.

A forgotten bestseller published by the Religious Tract Society, I expect a fair percentage of sales came through purchase as gifts and prizes. My own copy, which I bought last year from a London bookseller, was presented in 1893 to Hattie Seymour, winner of Miss Moore's Prize at the Mall Board School, Brading.


The author herself taught at the Sherbrooke Academy in Sherbrooke, Quebec. Lorraine McMullin, who wrote the the Dictionary of Canadian Biography entry for Margaret Murray Robertson, records that "as a teacher, she was devoted to her pupils, she never called a student by a pet name; instead, she looked to the intellect. Correspondingly, her students revered rather than loved her."


I think of Margaret Murray Robertson as "Miss Robertson." That she never married renders this undated edition curious.


That the scene depicted on its cover does not feature in the novel adds to the mystery.

My thoughts on Christie Redfern's Troubles will appear in the next issue of CNQ. What did I think? Well, I found the  following passages worthy of note. Préparez vos mouchoirs.

Night after night did her weary little head slumber on a pillow which her tears had wet. (15)

Amid a rush of angry tears, there fell a few very bitter drops to the memory of her mother. (22)


Christie did not speak; but the touch of her sister's lips unsealed the fountain of her tears, and clinging to her and hiding her face, she cried and sobbed in a way that, at last, really frightened her sister. (26)


If Christie could have found words with which to answer him, she could not have uttered them through the tears and sobs that had not been far from her all the evening. (39)


The disappointment was a very bitter one; and she turned her face away, that her sister might not see the tears that were gushing from her eyes. (41)


The tears that wet her pillow were very different from the drops that had fallen on it a little while before. (45)


Christie sank down, struggling with her tears. (64)


She was not a demonstrative child, usually; but now she dropped her face upon her father's hand, and he felt the fall of her warm tears. (80).


But she enjoyed the kind greetings and looks of sympathy that awaited them in the kirk-yard, though they brought many tears to Effie's eyes, and sent them gushing over her own pale cheeks. (90)


Her cheeks were crimson, and there was a light in her eyes that bade fair to be very soon quenched in tears. (121)


Her tears fell fast for a moment; but her heart was lightened, and it was with a comparatively cheerful face that she presented herself in the little back parlour, where she found Mrs, Mclntyre taking tea with a friend. (123)


There were tears in Christie's eyes as she raised them to look in Mrs. Lee's face, called forth quite as much by the gentle tones of her voice as by the thought of 'the bairns' at home. (130)

She was very much afraid that if Mrs. Lee were to speak so gently again her tears must flow; and this must not be if she could possibly help it. (137)

It was a troubled, tearful face that Christie laid down on her hands as she said this. (147)

It was only by a great effort that she restrained a flood of tears till her sister had gone. (156)

She went early, as usual, and had time for the shedding of some very sorrowful tears before the congregation gathered. (157)

Turning her aching eyes from the light, she did not, for a moment or two, try to restrain her tears. (166)

In a little while she grew unconscious of the tears she had tried to hide, and her hands fell down on her lap, and her wet cheeks and smiling lips were turned towards the face that her dim eyes failed to see. (169)

It was almost like seeing Effie herself, she told him, amid a great burst of tears that startled the grave John considerably. For a moment her sobs came fast. (191)

His words were light, but there was a meaning in his grave smile that made Christie's heart leap; and her answer was at first a startled look, and then a sudden gush of happy tears. (200)

Christie ceased to struggle with her tears now, but they fell very quietly. (214)

Remembering all they had passed through together, Christie could hardly restrain her tears. (221)

A few tears fell on the leaves of her little Bible; but by and by the former peace came back again, as she felt herself half resting indeed on the only sure foundation. (253)

The letter fell from her hands, and her face, as she burst into happy tears, was hidden by them. (260) Her face was flushed, and the tears filled her eyes, but she spoke very modestly and humbly too. (275)

To say that the surprise was a joyful one would be saying little, yet after the first tearful embrace, the joy of both sisters was manifested very quietly. (315)

Of Mrs. Lee's kindness she could not speak without tears. (317)

She was weak and worn out, and she could not manage to say what she had to say without a flood of tears, which greatly surprised her mistress. (323)

Her first night in the hospital was very dreary. No one can be surprised to hear that she shed some sorrowful tears. (327)
Was it any wonder that many a time her pillow was wet with tears? (332)

It was of no use to try to check her tears. They must flow for a minute or two. (333)

Christie's countenance lighted up with pleasure as he read, and the tears that had been close at hand flowed freely. (339)

Christie's face brightened as she turned her bright, tearful eyes upon him. (342)

Too many teardrops for one heart to be crying, wouldn't you say?

Related post:

24 January 2018

May Agnes Fleming's Very Worst Marriage?



The Heiress of Castle Cliffe; Or, Off With the Old Love
     [Victoria; Or, The Heiress of Castle Cliffe]
May Agnes Fleming
New York: Street & Smith, [c. 1917]
289 pages


The Heiress of Castle Cliffe, the most reprinted work by Canada’s first bestselling writer, May Agnes Fleming, appeared under many titles, but none so intriguing as Wedded for Pique, the one slapped on the 1878 edition. 
Wedded for pique? I couldn’t imagine what sort of slight would lead to matrimony. 
The affront is revealed in the last third of novel, just before an angry, malicious walk down the aisle. It follows a series of great misfortunes and misadventures, and leads to even more, resulting in a murder, a drowning, and a hanging. 
To think it all begins with a pleasant evening at the theatre.

My first book review of the year! The rest can be read – gratishere at the Canadian Notes & Queries website.

Pique your interest?

Sorry.

As recompense, I offer a visual treat comprised of three other editions. Interested readers are advised not to look too closely at the scribblings on the first, which give away the novel's twist:

Victoria; Or, The Heiress of Castle Cliffe
New York: Brady, 1864
Heiress of Castle Cliff [sic]
New York: Hurst, [1880?]
Wedded for Pique
New York: Dillingham, [1889]

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08 August 2017

The Parents of the Children of the Revolution



Edith Percival; Or, Her Heart or Her Hand
May Agnes Fleming
New York: Street & Smith [c. 1917]
215 pages

Published not long after the United States entered the Great War, my copy of Edith Percival features a request from the publishers. It seems Street & Smith were struggling with unspecified wartime conditions – paper shortages most probably – but were bravely soldiering on in trying to supply titles by bestsellers Bertha Clay, Charles Garvier, Nicholas Carter, Mary J. Holmes, Harriet Lewis, Horatio Alger, and New Brunswick's own May Agnes Fleming. And so, the request: "In short, we are asking you to take what your dealer can supply, rather than to insist upon just what you want. You won't lose anything by such substitution, because the books by the authors named are very uniform in quality."


I won't say that one May Agnes Fleming book is as as good as the next because Edith Percival pales beside The Midnight Queen, the only other I've read.

On the surface, the two are similar: historical novels with action, romance and a touch of the supernatural. The Midnight Queen takes place over the course of a particularly eventful evening in 1666 London; though a much shorter book, Edith Percival, spans many months, perhaps years, during the American Revolution. It begins with two handsome young men, good friends Fred Stanley and Gus Elliott, on the deck the Mermaid, a schooner bound from Paris to Boston. "Well, Fred," says Gus, in the novel's first line of dialogue, "since, as you say, you neither have a lady-love in America nor expect a legacy there, I confess it puzzles me to know what inducement could have been strong enough to make you quit Paris."

Clearly, Gus doesn't know all that much about his pal. Happily, Fred's response brings Gus and the reader up to speed. He and we learn that Fred is the son of Sir William Stanley, a bigamist with wives in both the Old and New Worlds. Though born in the Thirteen Colonies, he was raised and educated in England. The young man is now returning to the New World so as to confront his father, who expects his help in quelling disent. Fred's is an extreme case of nature over nurture: "Am I not an American by birth – an American in heart and soul – a thousand times prouder of the glorious land in which I was born than of my father's broad acres in merrie England?"

I don't know. Are you, Fred? After all, you've spent nearly all of your life in merrie England. Might your feelings have something to do with the way your father treated your late mother? As an orphan, friend Gus doesn't have mommy and daddy issues, though he does tend to go on about about the feelings he has for his cousin.

Enter Edith Percival!

No, wait. Before this happens the Mermaid goes down in an terrible storm. All hands are lost save Fred, Gus, and the ship's captain. The trio endure days of agony aboard a raft crafted in the maelstrom before being rescued by American privateers. "Yours was a narrow escape, Mr. Stanley," says Captain Dale, the commander of the privateer.

Indeed, it was! No sooner has Dale uttered the words than a burning ship is spotted on the horizon. Fred leads a team of men intent on saving souls – and then breaks away from the group, risking his life to rescue the only woman aboard.

Enter Edith Percival!

The Midnight Queen has an evil dwarf, whores playing at being aristocrats, and a seductive masked woman who at the end of the novel is revealed to have nothing but a skull for a head. Edith Percival is more restrained. Fred falls in love with Edith, but has a rival in Ralph De Lisle, to whom Edith has been betrothed since childhood. There
are uncomfortable encounters and things are left unsaid. After thirty pages of this, I had all but lost interest, until Nell, Edith's cheeky little sister, suggests a visit to the Hermit of the Cliffs.

Dismissed by Nugent, Edith's brother, as "some unfortunate, whom the cares of the world have made an idiot," the hermit is something of a mystic. Not only is he aware of the last meeting between Fred and his father, which ended with Sir William disowning his rebel son, he has can see something of the challenges the young man must meet in the future. The hermit is the most interesting character in Edith Percival – as recognized in the title publisher F.M. Upton gave its edition (c. 1865). Though we don't see much of the man, he plays a pivotal role in saving Fred's life. Mere seconds before our hero is to be executed as a traitor at the hands of his terrible father, the mystic man appears and whispers something in Sir William's ear:
The effect was appalling. Sir William staggered back, with ghastly face and straining eye-balls, then with one wild cry: "Oh, Great Heaven!" the strong man fell stricken to the ground.
All were bewildered, amazed, terrified! Several rushed forward to raise the prostrate man, whilst the others surrounded Fred, who had risen to his feet, under the vague impression that he was in some way about to escape. The hermit, as he passed him, whispered "Fear not, you are safe!" And a moment after he was gone.
What did the hermit whisper to Sir William? I couldn't wait to find out! But in reading the remaining eighty-six pages I became increasingly concerned. I recognized the story arc, and so came to wonder where all this was leading. The trajectory was ever upward:
  • Fred angers Major Percival by telling him that he's in love with Edith;
  • Edith declares her love for Fred and refuses to marry De Lisle;
  • De Lisle kidnaps Edith so as to force her into matrimony;
  • Fred, Gus, and Nugent attempt to rescue Edith, and are captured in the process;
  • De Lisle delays killing Fred because he wants him to witness his marriage to Edith.  
Things become dark, and darker still. I was riveted right up to the very last until sentence:
In No. 1036 of the NEW EAGLE LIBRARY, there will be found a sequel to "Edith Percival," under the title "Caught in the Snare."

Fortunately, my dealer was able to supply a copy.


To be continued, I guess.

About the cover: The work of an unknown artist who seems to have been unfamiliar with the text. Edith is described as a woman with "golden hair."

"That cover is gorgeous," writes a friend. "But why are her cheeks so red? Must be a food allergy."

Object: A fragile 215-page novel printed on cheap newsprint, bulked up by eight pages of adverts for other Street & Smith books. Mrs Fleming is well represented with thirty-three titles. It is one of the very oldest paperbacks in my collection.

Access: Edith Percival first appeared in 1861 editions of the New York Mercury. As The Hermit of the Cliffs, the Upton edition appears to mark its earliest appearance in book form. In 1893, New York publisher G.W. Dillingham issued the novel under its original title. I believe Street & Smith's Edith Percival and Caught in the Snare editions are the only to divide the novel in two. In whole or in part, it would seem that the novel has been out of print ever since.

Whether whole or divided in two, the only copies of Edith Percival listed for sale online are products of print on demand vultures. Prices range from US$13.01 to US$66.20. I won my century-old copy on eBay last summer for US$2.24.

The novel is held by twelve of out university libraries, but not in the Street & Smith edition. Library and Archives Canada fails entirely.

It can be read online here – gratis, in its entirety – thanks to the good folks at the Internet Archive.

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18 October 2010

Limited Time, Limited Editions (4/6)



As for Me and My House
Sinclair Ross
Saskatoon: Fifth House, 1994

"This is an edition of 250 signed and numbered copies, of which the first 25 copies have been presented to the author."

The rise of As for Me and My House from forgotten to canonical is as curious as it is controversial. First published in 1941 by New York's Reynal & Hitchcock, the novel was all but ignored by critics and book-buyers, yet there it was sixteen years later as title #4 in the fledgling New Canadian Library. The novel has been a part of the series ever since; "a landmark work... essential reading for anyone who seeks to understand the scope and power of the Canadian novel," says current cover copy. I won't disagree, but do wonder as to its place. How is it possible that sixteen years after publication, fourteen years after the author's death, Fifth House has yet to run through the 225 copies for sale? Evidence of a disconnect between the academic's canon and the public's classic, or just another sad reflection of the deflated market for things CanLit?

A bit of both, I think.


Ross was eighty-six and suffering from Parkinson's when he signed the sheets used in this limited edition. Copies can be purchased directly from the publisher.



Addendum: In her Twayne study of Ross, Lorraine McMullen tells us that just a few copies of the 1941 Reynal & Hitchcock edition were imported into Canada. One ended up in Bayfield Public Library, was discarded and, finally, rescued from a leaky, mice-infested barn by yours truly. The "Date Due" slip indicates that it was only once ever checked out of the library.