Evelyn M. Richardson
Toronto: Ryerson, 1953
286 pages
Contemporary newspaper accounts record Evelyn M. Richardson's surprise when her first book, We Keep a Light, received the 1945 Governor's General Award for Creative Non-Fiction. I wonder whether she felt something similar when her second book, Desired Haven, won the All-Canada Fiction Award.
A debut novel, Desired Haven revolves around Mercy Nickerson, the desirable daughter of a Nova Scotia sea captain, and her romance with "Dan Redmond, the handsome son of an Irish gentleman."*
I'm pretty sure that's meant to be Mercy and Dan on the jacket, as depicted by American illustrator Walter Seaton.
My copy was rescued seven years ago from an outdoor book stall on a sunny, busy street in London, Ontario. You'll note that the dust jacket doesn't quite fit. This may be because it's a Sears' Peoples Book Club jacket wrapped around a Ryerson Press book.
Desired Haven was published the year after Sears – as part of Simpsons-Sears – began operating in Canada. Was its Peoples Book Club also operating in Canada?
I've yet to uncover evidence.
The copy I picked up all those years ago in London adds intrigue by including this, which I took to be the front flap torn from the Ryerson jacket:
It led to the discovery that Walter Seaton's cover illustration was not the original. This is the cover of the Ryerson edition:
I'm betting it's the work of Arthur Steven.
Note the difference in trim sizes between the People Book Club edition (left) and Ryerson's:
There's so much to explore, including this, which appears on the front free endpaper:
Desired Haven set me back a dollar.
Clearly, I've more got more than my money's worth... and I haven't even read it.
* Here I quote the Peoples Book Club jacket.
What a difference between the two jacket illustrations. And isn't that first one charming?
ReplyDeleteI've had a few books from the People's Book Club (sounds enticingly leftish, doesn't it, but no...) pass through my hands, and some are on my shelves still. They seemed to focus on reprinting fairly enjoyable reads of the middlebrow persuasion, with decent production values, along with colourful jacket and endpaper art and enticing promotional pamphlets.
Do read it and let us know, eh?
Knowing what little I did of the author's life, I thought People's Book Club might have been religious. Alas, no. It is a curious name.
DeleteI keep telling myself I'll get to Desired Haven next year. Should be a New Year's resolution.