The Dustiest Bookcase: W is for Wiseman

The Dustiest Bookcase:

Short pieces on books I've always meant to review (but haven't).

Testimonial Dinner
Adele Wiseman
Toronto: Prototype, 1978
58 pages

Adele Wiseman died thirty years ago today.

Still unread – by me, anyway – this copy of Testimonial Dinner was brought out of storage by a savvy bookseller the next day.

$15.00

Signed. 

I was an easy mark.

A play, Testimonial Dinner has the very look of a self-published book. Perhaps it was. In The Force of Vocation: The Literary Career of Adele Wiseman (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba, 2006), Ruth Panofsky, writes that it was "printed privately for the author."

I may not have read Testimonial Dinner, but I have read and reread the back cover. In my twenties, it seemed unbelievable. Thirty years later, Wiseman's experience doesn't surprise me in the least.

I really should read this book.

Ralph Connor's Canada Dry

Corporal Cameron of the North West Mounted Police:
   A Tale of the MacLeod Trail
Ralph Connor [Charles W. Gordon]

Toronto: Westminster, 1912
454 pages

We begin on an Inverleith rugby pitch. Scotland is up against Wales in the International. It's a close contest, in part because Allan Cameron, fierce-fighting half-back of the Scottish line, hasn't been playing up to snuff. In the dying minutes, the Scots get a lucky break when the ball comes tumbling Cameron's way. He hesitates, and the promise of victory turns to defeat.

"Oh-h-h-h, Cam-er-on!" is the novel's first sentence. What has happened to Scotland's star player?

The answer is drink.

This is not to suggest that Cameron was under the influence during the game, rather that "he was out of condition; he had let himself run down last week, since the last match, indeed, got out of hand a bit."

The loss isn't the worst of it. Days later, Cameron faces arrest for passing a forged cheque. He doesn't remember doing so, but is unable to deny the charge because... well, you know, drink. 

The half-back is saved from arrest by Miss Brody, rugby-loving niece of the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bank of Scotland, and Cameron's conscience is later cleared when a dishonourable drinking buddy owns up to the crime. However, the damage has been done; Cameron has decided to give up drink, give up his studies, and make a new life for himself in Canada, envisioning himself "a wealthy rancher, ranging over square miles of his estate upon a 'bucking broncho,' garbed in the picturesque cowboy dress."

Instead, he ends up a low-level clerk at a Montreal shipping company.

The job doesn't last long – something to do with losing his temper and throwing his superior against a wall – and so, newly unemployed, Cameron does what we've all done in the same situation by taking in a travelling circus. There he chances upon farmer Tom Haley and his son Timmy who've come to the city to take in the show and purchase provisions for the family farm. Sadly, young freckle-faced Timmy winds up outside one of the drinking tents dotting the circus grounds as inside his father – rather sloshed – begins dipping into the money meant for baking flour and such. Cameron comes to the rescue by dragging Tom out, beating back "circus toughs" in the process.

Grateful and somewhat sobered by the violence, Tom offers our hero a position on his farm, twelve miles outside of town. Cameron accepts. Before long, he's proven himself an expert milker of cows, hoer of beets, player of bagpipes, and temperate role model to young Timmy. Over the course of the growing season, unrefined Mandy, the farmer's daughter, falls for the new hired hand, which scares Cameron into setting out for the West.

Corporal Cameron of the North West Mounted Police is divided fairly evenly into three books, each with very different settings: Inverleith, Montreal and surrounding countryside, and the Canadian West. As a reader I found the first the most entertaining. As a Montrealer, the second held some interest, but only because it depicted a unilingual city that never existed. The last third, in which our hero finds an enemy in a whiskey trader, held the most action, but there's only so much fisticuffs and gunplay I can take. Its depiction of "our Indians" and mythologizing of the NWMP was particularly hard to stomach:

To the whole country the advent of the police proved an incalculable blessing. But to the Indian tribes especially was this the case. The natives soon learned to regard the police officers as their friends. In them they found protection from the unscrupulous traders who had hitherto cheated them without mercy or conscience, as well as from the whiskey runners through whose devilish activities their people had suffered irreparable loss.
     The administration of the law by the officers of the police with firm and patient justice put an end also to the frequent and bloody wars that had prevailed previously between the various tribes, till, by these wild and savage people the red coat came to be regarded with mingled awe and confidence, a terror to evil-doers and a protection to those that did well.

In the introduction to his anthology Best Mounted Police Stories (Edmonton: U of Alberta Press, 1978), Dick Harrison writes that Connor "did more to create the literary image of the Mountie than any other writer." He doesn't say whether this is a good thing, but I'll suggest it is not.

At the end of it all, I was left wondering whether early readers of Corporal Cameron of the North West Mounted Police were a touch disappointed. As Connor's title suggests, Cameron does indeed join the force, but this doesn't happen until the twenty-second of the novel's twenty-five chapters. By this point, I'd long since lost interest; the late introductions of Big Bear, Crowfoot, Louis Riel, and other historic figures to Cameron's story only irritated.  

Ultimately, Corporal Cameron of the North West Mounted Police turned out to be another of those novels that gets off to a fairly good start, but quickly loses momentum, grows tired and begins to wander, much like Cameron on the pitch at Inverleith.

I've nothing more to add. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get a drink.

Bloomer: "When a fellow gets on the bum and gets into a hole he knows well that there'll be a lot of people tumbling over each other to get him out, hence he deliberately and cheerfully slides in."

Trivia: The novel was adapted to the silent screen in 1921 as Cameron of the Royal Mounted; an interesting title change given that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had replaced the North-West Mounted Police (note the hyphen) just the previous year.

Filmed in Banff, directed by son of Toronto Henry MacRae, unlike the vast majority of silent-era films Cameron of the Royal Mounted is not lost!

Well, not entirely.

The first three of its nine reels are preserved at Library and Archives Canada.

Object and Access: An embossed hardcover, typical of its time, mine is a first Canadian edition. The book was purchased eight years ago in London, Ontario. At most, it set me back two dollars.

Used copies are plentiful and cheap. Of those listed for sale online, Doran's first American edition in uncommon dust jacket is the one to buy. Price: US$40.00.

The Internet Archive offers several editions online, including the Westminster, which can be be read through this link. Sadly, there was no photoplay edition.

Related posts:

Dale's Dumb Luck; or, A Mountie Messes Up

The Atomic Dale; or, The Mounties Mess Up?

Queen Remembers a Forgotten Book

A is for Amtmann

I complain.

The narrow focus of this exercise – this casual exploration of our suppressed, ignored and forgotten – has prevented comment on the contemporary, the celebrated, and even the passing of friends. I made an exception once, when it didn't seem too personal. I'm doing so again in recommending The Pope's Bookbinder, a new memoir by antiquarian bookseller David Mason.

One might expect that such a book would find good company amongst Canada's ignored, but this has been far from the case. The National Post, The Toronto Star, Quill & Quire... attention has been paid. Here's the Washington Post review:

David Mason’s ‘Pope’s Bookbinder’ features lively recollections of a life filled with books

Buy it.

For someone like myself, a buyer not a seller, the book has provided an entertaining and informative look into a culture with which I have much to do, but of which I am not a part. I've come away with an even greater appreciation of those in the business... the honest ones, at least. It's proven to be my favourite read this summer.

Buy it.

One of the honest souls mentioned in the book is Bernard Amtmann, whom Mason describes as "the father of the Canadian antiquarian book trade". Thirty-four years after Amtmann's death, collectors chase his catalogues, so you'll understand my delight last month in coming across the nondescript items pictured at the top of this post: twenty-four catalogues dating mostly from 1961 and 1962, with a few more from the late 'sixties. Bound in black card stock, the two volumes set me back two dollars.

Always fun looking through old catalogues, imagining a time when, say, George Vancouver's A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and Round the World... (London: Robinson, 1798) was going for $650 (the equivalent of $5,080 today). A cursory look online reveals five copies on offer right now, beginning at US$58,500. The most expensive, yours for US$95,000, includes free shipping!

As they say – antiquarian booksellers, I mean – condition is everything, so it surprised me to discover that Amtmann's listings provide little in the way of description. This, from the earliest catalogue (#146), is typical:

CAMPBELL, Wilfred. Ian of the Orcades... New York [etc.] [n.d.] $3.00

The inside back cover of each catalogue features this blanket notice:

Books and other material listed may be assumed to be complete and in very good condition unless otherwise stated.

All this has me wondering about dust jackets. Not a one is mentioned in the twenty-four catalogues. Surely some were missing. Take Ian of the Orcades, which was published in 1906 – you don't see many dust jackets from that year. I turn to Mason, who in an anecdote from his earliest years in the trade writes that the dust jacket was once much less significant, "not yet having reached the ludicrous point it occupies today."

The Campbell is typical of the prices found in these catalogues. The vast majority of the items are priced between $2.00 and $5.00 (roughly $15.50 to $39.00 today). Here are a few of the items that caught my eye:

ALLEN, Grant. The British Barbarians, a Hill-top novel. London, 1895. 2d ed. Cf Watters, p.170.    $5.00
BARTON, Samuel. The battle of the swash, and The capture of Canada. New York, Dillingham [1888] 131 p. Not in Can.Arch. $7.50
BARTON, Samuel. same. with: [also a patriotic speech by Dr. W. George Beers, of Montreal, in reply to the toast of "professional annexation." Authorized Canadian edition.] Montreal, Robinson [1888] 137 p. Can.Arch.II, 1253.    $7.50
CHINIQUY. Why I left the Church of Rome. London: Protestant Truth Society [n.d.] 24 p. cover-title.    $2.50
GREGORY, Claudius. Valerie Hathaway. Toronto, 1933.    $5.00
RIEL. Poesies religieues et politiques, par Louis "David" Riel. Montreal, 1886. 51, [1] p.    $10.00

Bargains all, even when converted into 2013 dollars. That said, anyone thinking that books are a sure investment is advised consider this listing from catalogue #151 (1961):

DUMBRILLE, Dorothy. Stairway to the stars. Toronto: Allen [1946] vii, 72 p. (verse) Watters, p. 44.    $3.00

By coincidence, I purchased this very book as part of the very same haul that brought the catalogues. It cost a buck, less than 13¢ in 1961 dollars.

And it's signed.

I was a high school student when Bernard Amtmann died. The most valuable book I then owned was probably a first of Two Solitudes ($3.00 in catalogue #146). Though I'd inherited it from my father, back then I cared much more about Ian Hunter's Diary of a Rock 'n' Roll Star. My first encounter with Amtmann's name came years later when I first began researching John Glassco. The bookseller had several dealings with the poet/pornographer, selling various rare books and the odd letter. On three occasions, he handled collections of Glassco's papers. It was in this role, the Amtmann received the most revealing letter ever penned about Memoirs of Montparnasse:

Dear Mr Amtmann 

     Re: Documents in the Glassco Collection 

With regard to the first item (A. 1) of the list I supplied you last month, I would like to make it clear that these six scribblers of Memoirs of Montparnasse date, to the best of my recollection, from somewhere between 1960 and 1961, and not from 1931-2 as might be inferred from the Prefatory Note to the published book. They comprise of course the first, only and original manuscript of the book itself, and its only holograph record. 

                    Yours sincerely 

                                    John Glassco

Dated 28 September 1973, the letter is just one of 147 found within The Heart Accepts It All, the forthcoming collection of correspondence edited by yours truly.

Buy it.

Enough about me. In his book, David Mason writes that much is owed Bernard Amtmann, "not just by the Canadian book trade but by the whole country." He then adds some words of caution:

Bernard did himself enormous damage by his unceasing attack on the institutions who ignored or denigrated Canada's cultural heritage. He died broke in the honourable tradition of the trade but his influence is still felt amongst those who care about Canada's heritage.

Oh dear.

Hanged 125 Years Ago Today

Prophet of the New World, I

Do the work of the Most High.

I assert it with no pride.

I live in humility.

Is there any one to side

With me? Yes. Sincerity

Will gather up its recruits.

And we will soon taste its fruits.

Louis Riel

22 October 1844 – 16 November 1885

RIP

Serving Up Louis Riel

A few final words on Swan Publishing. The company put out only four books by Canadian authors, but this wasn't one of them. A shame we can't claim it; Fanny aside, Strange Empire was the best book on their list. Author Joseph Kinsey Howard was a Montanan, a local historian whose interests clearly recognized no borders. The biography a very strong work and a good read, though it suffers greatly from a lack of references. Strange Empire was first published by Morrow in 1952, a year after Howard's death of a heart attack. He was 45 years old.

Swan's cover image comes from Riel, a 1961 CBC drama that featured Bruno Gerussi as the Métis leader. Forgotten today, it was a big deal at the time. One reviewer described the actor's performance as career defining, likening it to countryman Raymond Massey's portrayal of Abraham Lincoln. In other words, we should be remembering Gerussi as Louis Riel, not log scavenger Nick Adonidas. Still, is the image not an odd choice? The programme aired four years before the book appeared, so it could hardly be considered a tie-in. What's more, the future Beachcombers star looked nothing at all like Riel. Swan seem to have figured all this out when reprinting the book in 1970, replacing Gerussi's photo with text, text and more text – even the title is longer. As far as I've been able to determine, the reprint marked the end of Swan as a publisher.

Digestif: Writing this I was reminded of Celebrity Cooks, the show Gerussi hosted at the height of his fame. I never watched the thing – as a kid I had no idea who these people were. Mary Travers? Wilf Carter? Judy La Marsh? The only name that meant anything to me was Margaret Trudeau. Eartha Kitt one week, Peter C. Newman the next, it was such a mixed bag. That said, the years have passed – older, taller and wiser, I long to see these episodes. YouTube only whets the appetite, offering nothing more than opening credits and eight minutes and eleven seconds of champagne-swilling celebrity cook Toller Cranston.

Interesting to see that the figure skater dressed the same whether on or off the ice. Then again, it was the 'seventies; Gerussi's ensemble is all that different.

The show spawned Celebrity Cooks, Recipe Book I (Vancouver: Initiative, 1975), Celebrity Cooks, Recipe Book II (Vancouver: Initiative, 1977) and The New Celebrity Cooks Cookbook (Agincourt, ON: Methuen, 1979). I'll be on the lookout for these. What better way to wow dinner guests than to serve them Toller Cranston's cheese cake. He calls it "Tolly's Folly".

Later that same day: YouTube has removed Toller Cranston's Celebrity Cooks appearance, thus depriving my daughter of the joy of watching the catsuited figure skater down glass after glass of bubbly. A coincidence? I like to think so – though it was on the site for nearly three years. Dare I try a second clip? Yes, I dare.

Related posts:

Anything for a Buck (or Thereabouts)

Gay Swans

Bizarre Love Triangle

The Story of Louis Riel, the Rebel Chief

[J. E. Collins]

Toronto: Rose, 1885

Instant books, those slapdash things designed to capitalize on death and doom, nearly always raise a sneer. Still, I can't help but admire the industry involved. To go from standing start to published volume in nineteen days, as did the team behind 9/11 8:48 AM: Documenting America's Greatest Tragedy, demonstrates such energy and determination. Of course, the 9/11 8:48 AM folks, whose book was spewed forth by POD publisher BookSurge, had the advantage of 21st-century technology. Not so this relic from the days of stereotypes, electrotypes and composing rooms.

Transplanted Newfoundlander J. E. Collins wrote The Story of Louis Riel, the Rebel Chief in the spring of 1885, while the North-West Rebellion was being fought. In fact, he laid down his pen sometime in those few days between the Battle of Batoche and Riel's surrender on 15 May. The finished product, 176 pages in total, was available for purchase well before the start of the Métis leader's trial in late July.

How did they do it?

Collins does his part through overwrought prose, evident the the first sentence: 'Along the banks of the Red River, over those fruitful plains brightened with wild flowers in summer, and swept with fierce storms in winter-time, is written the life story of Louis Riel.'

Yes, look to the banks of the Red River because you'll find little of the Métis leader's life in this book. Collins fabricates events, characters and dialogue, creating a world that will seem to students of Canadian history like something from an alternate universe. Key is the relationship between Riel and Thomas Scott, the Orangeman executed during the Red River Rebellion. Collins portrays this unstable, violent eristic as a likable fellow, a whistler, with 'a very merry twinkle in his eye'. In this account, the true nature of the conflict between the two men has less to do with the future Red River Colony than it does with a beautiful Métis maiden named Marie. Her preference for the goodnatured adventurer over the uncouth Riel seals Scott's fate.

While historians refer to The Story of Louis Riel, the Rebel Chief as fiction, it wasn't always accepted as such. Blame falls squarely on the author, who pads the book with footnotes, including Riel's 'Proclamation to the People of the North-West' and Bill of Rights, lengthy excerpts from Alexander Begg's The Creation of Manitoba (identified incorrectly as 'History of the North-West Rebellion') and a comprehensive list of the non-Métis who had lost their lives or had been wounded in the conflict.

The Rose Publishing Company provided further padding with a dozen or so etchings. Only a handful have any relevance to the text – in fact, Riel appears in only one. Though captioned 'REBELS [sic] ATTACKING MAJOR BOULTON'S SCOUTS', a reference to the shared fate of men under the command of Charles A. Boulton, the final image has nothing at all to do with the Rebellion and everything to do with trouble in the republic to the south.

Collins later wrote that The Story of Louis Riel, the Rebel Chief held 'no historic truth', and that he chose to leave his name off the book because he was 'unwilling to take responsibility for the literary slovenliness.' Yet, the author demonstrated no hesitation in appending his monicker to his next book, Annette, the Metis Spy: A Heroine of the N. W. Rebellion (1886) Here Collins not only repeats the plot device that has Riel and Scott as romantic rivals, but lifts whole sections from his previous work. Of this second kick at the can, Collins writes, 'I present some fiction in my story, and a large array of fact. I do not feel bound, however, to state which is the fact, and which is the fiction.'

Trivia: It is said that after Collins' death from drink at age 36, he maintained contact with his mentor Sir Charles G. D. Roberts through the aid of mediums.

Object (and a curious link): Issued in dark green cloth, sans dustjacket, the first edition was published by the Rose Publishing Company, a wing of Toronto printers and bookbinders Hunter-Rose and Company. After Riel's 16 November execution, Collins' work was reissued to include 'The Trial and Execution of Louis Riel', a 16-page Appendix. Though this second edition was also printed by Hunter-Rose, the book bears the imprint of J. S. Robertson. The new publisher not only knew Riel, but as a journalist had been imprisoned by the Métis leader during the Red River Rebellion. Labeled a 'dangerous character', Robertson was later forced to leave the settlement; not that this prevented him from reporting on the rebellion for Toronto's Daily Telegraph.

Access: Our larger public libraries have copies of one edition or another, invariably housed in their history sections. The Rose first is scarce; even Fair copies sell for over C$300. The Robertson edition, with Appendix, can often be found for much less than half the price. In 1970, it was reproduced – in cloth and paper – as part of the Coles Canadiana Collection. Both can be had for under C$30. Coles reissued the work again in 1979 – this time in paper only – with a historically inaccurate cover that offends the eye.