Blue Plaque Special: Maritime Edition

The latter half of October was spent on a long road trip through Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Anyès and I travelled over four thousand kilometres in all, and yet didn't come close to hitting Prince Edward Island or Cape Breton. My European cousins would laugh at the notion that the Maritime provinces are small.

A first leg of the drive, getting to New Brunswick from our eastern Upper Canadian home, involved a stopover at Quebec City. We spent the first night at le Monèstere des Augustines, in which we'd stayed two years earlier. This time, instead of a suite, we chose to sleep a nun's cell. As I discovered, I'm considerably taller than a seventeenth-century woman.

I won't dwell on our time in Quebec City, though I would like to share a plaque I'd somehow missed on our previous trip.

I'm pleased to report that plaques are every bit as common in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

Fredricton, New Brunswick (pop. 58,200) may have more plaques per capita than any other Canadian city. Amongst the earliest is one affixed to the side of a house that once belonged to Loyalist poet Jonathan Odell.

The plaque honouring Odell can found across from Christ Church Fredericton's Anglican cathedral. Its former rectory once served as home to Sir Charles G.D. Roberts.

Across the street, a few doors down, we found the home of sister Elizabeth. This discovery brought us to a very interesting news story:

A name of one's own:

Heritage plaque celebrating Fredericton writer will finally identify her

In fact, the heritage plaque was not altered to identify her, as the headline suggests, rather it was replaced with another:

Can't help but feel the Fredericton Heritage Trust missed a teaching opportunity there.

Remarkably, there are no plaques dedicated exclusively to Sir Charles G.D. Roberts, though I know of one in Westcock, New Brunswick. It would appear brother Theodore Goodrich Roberts has no plaques at all! The home in which cousin Bliss Carman was raised has two, the earliest of which was installed at his Shore Street home by the Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire in New Brunswick.

The more recent is the doing of the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada.

Halifax was the easternmost point of our travels. We found blue plaques aplenty, including this one affixed to the house in which we stayed:

Sadly, the city's blue plaques aren't terribly informative.

I doubt Halliburton House has anything to do with Thomas Chandler Haliburton, but can't say for sure.

Curiously, given its rich literary history, Halifax has little in the way of plaques honouring writers. The only one I encountered was affixed to the mothballed Court House.

That's me taking a photo at the top of this post.

The discovery surprised in that it honoured Philippe-Ignace-François Aubert de Gaspé. The author of L'Influence d'un livre, Canada's first French-language novel, lived his final months in Halifax.

The last night of our trip was spent in Rivière-du-Loup. We had trouble sleeping, and so got up early. The place I'd most wanted to visit this trip was the reconstructed Aubert de Gaspé manor, but St-Jean-Port-Joli was pitch black when we passed.

Next year.

I'm a huge Aubert de Gaspé fan.

Related posts:

Blue Plaque Special

Blue Plaque Special: Quebec City Edition

Gothique Canadien

Ten of the Best: Spanking Good Book Buys of 2015

Early morning on Boxing Day and I'm lying comfortably in bed. My late mother is to thank. She taught that there is something unseemly in leaving family Christmas dinner to wait overnight for the chance at a $9.99 blu-ray player at Best Buy.

Because I'm done with buying books for this year, the time has come to present my ten favourite acquisitions, beginning with the 1907 Routledge edition of The Clockmaker pictured above. Bought for a buck a couple go months back, the series title, "Half-forgotten Books", did attract.

Half-forgotten books are what this blog is all about… the three-quarters-forgotten and entirely forgotten, too. What follow are the nine others:

The British Barbarians
Grant Allen
London: Lane, 1895

A second printing of Allen's second biggest book, this one has slowly risen to the top of the pile on my night table. The oldest addition to my collection this year – our literature is still so very young – I won this for one pound in an ebay auction. Shipping charges tempered the victory.

Kalee's Shrine
Grant Allen
New York: New         Amsterdam, [1897]

Another Allen. One hundred and sixteen years after his death, books by this son of Kingston are becoming scarce, so I was pleased to get this one for just US$4.99. I understand it takes place primarily on the East Anglian coast and features an oculist.

The New Front Line
Hubert Evans
Toronto: Macmillan, 1927

A gift from James Calhoun, with whom I collaborated in writing the Introduction to Peregrine Acland's Great War novel All Else is Folly. I'm embarrassed to reveal – and reveal I must – that I was unaware Evans too had served in the conflict.

Hath Not a Jew…
A.M. Klein
New York: Behrman's         Jewish Book House,         1940

The first edition of the first book by the first great poet of Jewish Montreal, I found this for a dollar.

King of Egypt, King of              Dreams
Gwendolyn MacEwen
Toronto: Macmillan, 1971

The poet's novel of ancient Egypt and Akhenaton, I came across this copy – inscribed by MacEwen – whilst volunteering at our local library's book sale. In the words of the immortal Lou Reed, "you're going to reap just what you sow."

The Three Roads
Kenneth Millar
New York: Dell, [n.d.]

I purchased this first paperback edition at London's Attic Books, a very pleasant walk from the University of Western Ontario, at which Millar studied English literature.

The Damned and the          Destroyed
Kenneth Orvis
London: Dobson, 1962

A second novel from a Montreal writer who seems entirely forgotten. I'd never heard of him, and yet Orvis was published internationally and managed to limp on into the 'eighties. See: Over and Under the Table: The Anatomy of an Alcoholic (Montreal: Optimum, 1985).

A Japanese Nightingale
Onoto Watanna [pseud              Winnifred Eaton]
New York: Harper, 1901

Another second novel, this one written by the most accomplished member of Montreal's remarkable Eaton family. A true joy to hold and behold, I purchased my copy just two months ago at Attic Books.

The Keys of My Prison
Frances Shelley Wees
London: Jenkins, 1956

This Millaresque mystery set amongst the privileged of Toronto is a great read. My pristine first English edition, purchased from a bookseller in Lewes, adds to the delight. Seeing something older than myself in such fine form brings hope for the New Year.




And on that note… A Happy New Year to one and all!

Update: The British Barbarians read and reviewed.

Related post:

Done with Buying Books

Of Old Books and (possibly) Mummy Paper

Delightfully charming, unconventionally sentimental schoolgirl verse from Ethel Ursula Foran, whose "New Year's Day" has proven to be by far the most popular poem posted on this blog. Here a very young Miss Foran turns her attention towards favourite things material:

The dead, the embalmed, the mausoleumed... I'm certain that this is the first verse I've read to feature the word "sarcophagi".

            You chat and live with dead men of thought
            As you sit and pursue the words they wrought.
            They are peaceful companions that never betray,
            Nor dispute, nor quarrel, for silent are they.

'Tis lovely, though one cannot escape the sad thought that Miss Foran is herself now a peaceful companion.

What I find most intriguing comes in the poet likening aging books to "Egyptian mummies of old." Might this be a clever allusion to the oft-repeated myth – or is it? – that linen wrappings of mummies were used by nineteenth-century New England papermakers?

I suppose we'll never know.

Never mind.

As we nurse our respective Dominion Day hangovers, I present the six oldest Canadian books in my collection.

The Poems of Thomas D'Arcy McGee

Thomas D'Arcy McGee

Montreal: D. & J. Sadlier, 1870

Purchased four years ago – US$8.00 – at an antique store in Point Pleasant, New Jersey. At my aunt's 88th birthday dinner the previous evening I'd bragged that only one Canadian politician had ever been assassinated: McGee. I am a joy at parties. No invitations declined.

Endymion

The Right Hon. Earl of Beaconsfield

Montreal: Dawson Brothers, 1880

Not by a Canadian, but it was published in Canada, I picked up Endymion three years ago for $1.99 at our local Salvation Army Thrift Store. The Dawson Brothers – Samuel and William – were once Montreal's preeminent publishers and booksellers; I came along a century later. A bookish lad raised in the oldish suburb of Beaconsfield, I knew Benjamin Disraeli's name before those of Messrs Wilson and Heath.

Tecumseh: A Drama

Charles Mair

Toronto: Hunter, Rose, 1883

A first edition of the Confederation Poet's epic about the great man, this was a gift from a friend who had rescued it from a box of rejected donations to the McGill Library Book Sale. Most generous, I think you'll agree.

A Popular History of the Dominion of Canada

Rev. William H. Withrow, D.D. F.R.S.C.

Toronto: William Briggs, 1885

How popular? Well, my copy ranks amongst the sixth thousand. Purchased in 2000 for forty dollars – I paid too much. Though I've never taken so much as a glance beyond the title page, I'll bet that it's a more interesting work than Neville Trueman: Pioneer Preacher, Rev Withrow's preachy War of 1812 novel.

The Other Side of the "Story"

[John King]

Toronto: James Murray, 1886

A new acquisition, found just last week at a bookstall in London, Ontario. Storm clouds were gathering. In his "INTRODUCTORY", Mr King describes this publication as a "brochure", but at 150 bound pages I'm going to say it's a book. I've not yet had a chance to properly investigate its contents, so know only that it is a critique of John Charles Dent's The Story of the Upper Canadian Rebellion (Toronto: C. Blackett Robinson, 1885). Price: 50¢.

Sam Slick, The Clockmaker

Thomas Chandler Haliburton

New York: John B. Alden, 1887

Purchased thirteen years ago for US$8.00 from a Yankee bookseller, this is surely the skinniest edition of the CanLit classic. Thin, pulpy and grey/brown in colour, the paper is typical of the publish and crumble era. I can write, with great certainty, that no mummies were destroyed in it's making.