The Very Best Reads of 2022: Ladies First

Late last night, as Christmas festivities drew to a close, I pulled Victor Lauriston's The Twenty-first Burr (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1922) from the shelves. It seemed appropriate way to end the holiday. One hundred years earlier, my copy was presented by the author to a woman named Olive Shanks.

I enjoyed the first four of its twenty-eight chapters, but know I won't be finishing the novel before year's end, meaning it's time for the annual Dusty Bookcase recap of best reads, books to be revived, etc.

This was a year unlike any other in Dusty Bookcase history. For the first time, women wrote a majority of the titles; twelve of the twenty-two reviewed here and in the pages of Canadian Notes and Queries.

Sara Jeannette Duncan's A Daughter of To-day and Joanna E. Wood's The Untempered Wind stand well above the other twenty. Both are available in Tecumseh's Early Canadian Women Writers Series, which goes some way in explaining how it is that only male authors feature in my annual selection of the three books most deserving of a return to print:

Philistia
Grant Allen

London: Chatto & Windus,

   1901

It was publisher Andrew Chatto who encouraged Allen to try his hand at fiction. This debut novel, first published in 1884, furthers the author's writing on philosophy,  naturalism, religion, and socialism. Ironically, its ending was spoiled by Chatto's intrusion. 

Whispering City
Horace Brown
Pickering, ON: Global

   Publishing, 1947

A noir thriller set in Quebec City, Whispering City pre-dates Hitchcock's I Confess by five years. Both have their weaknesses. Brown's adaptation of the former – likely the first novelization of a Canadian feature film – improves upon its source material.

Moonbeams from the

   Larger Lunacy

Stephen Leacock
Toronto: S.B. Gundy, 1915

Leacock's legacy suffered a blow this year when McGill announced that the building named in his honour, would be renamed after a venture capitalist who had pledged $13 million to the the university.

It's the stuff of a Leacock story.

As series editor of Véhicule Press's Ricochet imprint, I was involved in reviving Arthur Mayse's 1949 debut novel Perilous Passage. 'Telling the Story,' the introduction provided by the author's daughter, Susan Mayse, is one of my favourite in the series. Reprinted in Canadian Notes & Queries, it can be read through this link.

Recognition this year goes to England's Handheld Press for its reissue of Marjorie Grant's 1921 novel Latchkey Ladies.

I knew nothing of Marjorie Grant or Latchkey Ladies before reading this March 22 review in The Times. 

Finally, sadly, I report that the New Year's resolutions made last December didn't go far:

• I resolved to focus more on francophone writers, yet read just one: Philippe-Joseph Aubert de Gaspé (and then only in translation).
• I resolved to feature more non-fiction, and yet this writer of non-fiction reviewed nothing but fiction.
• I resolved to keep kicking against the pricks. This was easily done. Witnessing the  miscreants of the Freedom Convoy roll past on its way to Ottawa gave extra incentive.

This December I make no resolutions.

Here's to the New Year!

Bonne année!

Related posts:
The Very Best Reads of the Second Plague Year (2021)
The Very Best Reads of a Plague Year (2020)
The Very Best Reads of a Very Strange Year (2019)
Best Books of 2018 (none of which are from 2018)
The Year's Best Books in Review - A.D. 2017
The Year's Best Books in Review - A.D. 2016
The Year's Best Books in Review - A.D. 2015
The Christmas Offering of Books - 1914 and 2014
A Last Minute Gift Slogan, "Give Books" (2013)
Grumbles About Gumble & Praise for Stark House (2012)
The Highest Compliments of the Season (2011)
A 75-Year-Old Virgin and Others I Acquired (2010)
Books are Best (2009)

An Egotist of Yesterday

A Woman Who Did
Spoiled by a Publisher

Quebec City Noir

Lunar Attractions; or, The Leacock I Like

Just Kids

West Coast Canadian Noir

Joan Suter, Angus Hall, and the Collector in Me

I've got several paying projects on the go, all with tight deadlines, meaning there won't be any reviews here for the next month or so. Something to do with feeding the family, you understand.

However, I did want to share a few things about one of those paying projects: a review of Joan Suter's novel East of Temple Bar for my column in Canadian Notes & Queries. 

Until this year, Joan Suter's name meant nothing to me; I encountered it while researching Joan Walker, whose 1957 novel Repent at Leisure I reviewed here in January. Not much has been written about Walker or her career; most of what has, jacket copy included, refers to Repent at Leisure as a debut novel.

Marriage of Harlequin
Joan Walker
Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1962

I have Daryn Wright and Karyn Huenemann to thank for setting me straight. Their Joan Walker entry at Canada's Early Women Writers brings the revelation that Repent at Leisure wasn't the author's first novel, or even the second, but the third. Published in 1946 under her maiden name, East of Temple Bar was Walker's true debut. The same year saw her follow-up, Murder by Accident, which appeared under the pseudonym "Leonie Mason."

Copies of East of Temple Bar aren't plentiful, but they are inexpensive. I wanted the dust jacket, so and splurged all of £7.50 on mine. Money well spent, it brought this front flap:

East of Temple Bar was published in London by C & J Temple. A fragile pale green hardcover with thin pages, its worthy of study by those interested in supply constraints faced by printers in post-war England. My copy, purchased online from London's Small Library Company, once belonged to British novelist Angus Hall (1932-2009). As he would have been thirteen or fourteen when it was published, I'm guessing Hall bought it used when he was a young Fleet Street journalist.

East of Temple Bar revolves around Eve Smith and Hugh Fenwick, two friends who meet while working on Fleet Street. Like Hugh, Angus Hall became a film and theatre critic. Like Eve, he eventually left Fleet Street for a life as a novelist.

Hall's first novel, Love in Smoky Regions, was published in 1962 by Constable. It appears to have been very well-received; just look at the TLS quote on the cover of this paperback edition:

The High-Bouncing Lover (Hammond, 1966) was his second novel. Apparently, it's about a failed writer. I can't help but note that The High-Bouncing Lover was one of the working titles for The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald's first commercial failure.

By the time the 'seventies hit, Hall had made a reputation for himself as a horror writer. His 1969 novel Devilday was adapted to the screen as Madhouse (1974), starring Vincent Price.

He also wrote the novelization of this 1971 Hammer Horror:

And then there's this, which may frighten some readers:

I count sixteen titles in total, though it's hard to say for certain. Sadly, like Joan Walker (née Suter), Angus Hall is more or less forgotten. What remains of his personal library now rests with the Small Library Company. How it ended up there is an interesting story, told through this Abebooks podcast. One of the Company'a goals is "to find good homes for the books."

Angus Hall's copy of East of Temple Bar has found a good home on my Upper Canadian bookshelves. My only disappointment is that he didn't write his name in it.

Related posts:

On the High Heels of Desire

The Incomplete Repent at Leisure