Well, for one, it has the most inept introduction I've ever encountered. These jackets to books by writers who are not so much as recognized will provide further clues.
Phantom Wires
Arthur Stringer
Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merril, 1923
The Shadow
H. Bedford-Jones
New York: Fiction League, 1930
The Blue Door
Vincent Starrett
New York: Doubleday, 1930
The Maestro Murders
Frances Shelley Wees
New York: Mystery League, 1931
The Hidden Door
Frank L. Packard
New York: Doubleday, 1933
Trouble Follows Me
Kenneth Millar
New York: Dodd, Mead, 1946
Exit in Green
Martin Brett [pseud Douglas Sanderson]
New York: Dodd, Mead, 1953
Much of this past weekend was spent in preparation for Christmas, but I did manage a couple of hours with the December 1918 edition of Maclean's. The first to hit news stands after the Armistice, it makes for very interesting reading. The opening piece, a column titled "The Business Outlook," reminds that Maclean's started out as The Business Magazine. It begins:
Peace came with a suddenness that has left the world a little breathless. Men of discernment had predicted from the very first that, when Germany once began to crack, the end would follow within a short period. But who was there bold enough at any time before September of the present year to stand out and say that the break-up would have come before the New Year?
I doubt Maclean's editor Thomas B. Costain saw the break-up coming. How else to explain American John J. Pershing instead of, say, Sir Arthur Currie, on the magazine's first post-war cover? Even the advertising department appears to have been caught off guard:
"Now That the War is Won" by Lieut-Col J.B. Maclean, is the only article that looks to have been commissioned après la guerre. And it's very short. Other articles include "An Unsolved Mystery: A Story of Warfare Under the Earth" by Lieut C. W. Tilbrook and an interview with the U.S. Secretary of War conducted by Pvt Harold R. Peat (Mrs Peat has an article of her own in the "Women and Their Work" section). Fiction fairly dominates the issue, with short stories and serialized novels by W. Victor Cook, W.A. Fraser, Allan C. Shore, Arthur Stringer and Alice Muriel Williamson. Sadly, Shore's "Santa Clause in Petticoats" isn't nearly as titillating as its title, but Stringer's story is fantastic.
All this fiction! As the advert suggests, something to take a soldier's mind off the grim realities that he faces:
The same could be said for those on the home front, though neither would've found escape in 'The Wife' by Robert Service, the issue's only verse. I thought I knew the poem, but I was wrong. An unfamiliar note at the end had me hunting for my copy of Service's Ballads of a Bohemian (1921), in which 'The Wife' was reprinted. Sure enough, the note isn't there – and there are other significant differences:
THE WIFE
[Maclean's, December 1918]
"Tell Annie I’ll be home in time
To help her with her Christmastree."
That’s what he wrote. . . Now hark the chime
Of Christmas bells—and where is he?
And how the house is dark and still!
And Annie’s sobbing on my knee.
The page beside the candle flame
With cramped and cruel type was filled;
I read and read, until a name
Leapt at me. . . Oh! my heart was stilled!
My eye crept up the column, up
Unto its hateful heading: KILLED.
And there was Annie on the stair:
"And will he not be long?" she said.
Her eyes were stars and in her hair
She’d tied a bit of ribband red;
And every step was Daddy’s sure;
Till wearied out, she stole to bed.
And in the quiet of the night
Alone I decked the Christmas tree.
On every little ticket bright,
My tears were falling bitterly;
And in the street I heard them call.
"Another Splendid Victory."
A Victory! What care I now?
A thousand victories were vain.
Here in my ruined hearth I vow
From out my black abyss of pain,
I’d rather, rather red defeat,
And have my man, my again.
Aye, cowering by my cold fireplace,
My orphaned child upon my knee,
What care I for their Empire's pride,
Their pomp and power beyond the sea?
I'd gladly see it lost and lost
Could that bring back my dead to me.
"But come, my dear; we will not wait.
Each tiny candle pink and white.
We'll set aglow—he may be late,
And we must ave all gay and bright."
(One makes mistakes. I’ll tell myself
I did not read that name aright.)
"Come, Annie, come, We two will pray
For homes bereft of happiness;
For husbands fighting far away;
For little children fatherless.
Beside the shining tree we'll pray:
"'Oh, Father dear, protect and bless. . . Protect and bless. . .'"
* * * *
What’s that? A step upon the stair!
A rush! The door thrown open wide!
My hero and my love! He's there,
And Annie’s laughing by his side. . .
I'm in his arms. . . I faint. . . I faint. . .
"Oh, God! Thy world is glorified."
NOTE.—The author wishes it understood that the sentiments expressed with reference to duty and the war are to be taken as an uncontrollable outburst in the first moments of bereavement, and not as in any sense an expression of opinion.
THE WIFE
[Ballads of a Bohemian, New York: Barse & Hopkins, 1921]
"Tell Annie I’ll be home in time
To help her with her Christmas-tree."
That’s what he wrote, and hark! the chime
Of Christmas bells, and where is he?
And how the house is dark and sad,
And Annie’s sobbing on my knee!
The page beside the candle-flame
With cruel type was overfilled;
I read and read until a name
Leapt at me and my heart was stilled:
My eye crept up the column—up
Unto its hateful heading: Killed.
And there was Annie on the stair:
"And will he not be long?" she said.
Her eyes were bright and in her hair
She’d twined a bit of riband red;
And every step was daddy’s sure,
Till tired out she went to bed.
And there alone I sat so still,
With staring eyes that did not see;
The room was desolate and chill,
And desolate the heart of me;
Outside I heard the news-boys shrill:
"Another Glorious Victory!"
A victory. . . . Ah! what care I?
A thousand victories are vain.
Here in my ruined home I cry
From out my black despair and pain,
I’d rather, rather damned defeat,
And have my man with me again.
They talk to us of pride and power,
Of Empire vast beyond the sea;
As here beside my hearth I cower,
What mean such words as these to me?
Oh, will they lift the clouds that low’r,
Or light my load in years to be
What matters it to us poor folk?
Who win or lose, it’s we who pay.
Oh, I would laugh beneath the yoke
If I had him at home to-day;
One’s home before one’s country comes:
Aye, so a million women say.
"Hush, Annie dear, don’t sorrow so."
(How can I tell her?) “See, we’ll light
With tiny star of purest glow
Each little candle pink and white."
(They make mistakes. I’ll tell myself
I did not read that name aright.)
Come, dearest one; come, let us pray
Beside our gleaming Christmas-tree;
Just fold your little hands and say
These words so softly after me:
"God pity mothers in distress,
And little children fatherless."
"God pity mothers in distress, And little children fatherless."
* * * *
What’s that? – a step upon the stair;
A shout! – the door thrown open wide!
My hero and my man is there.
And Annie’s leaping by his side. . .
The room reels round, I faint, I fall. . .
"O God! Thy world is glorified."
The original is better, don't you think? The note's disappearance speaks volumes to the differences between wartime and peacetime.
A note of my own: Lest anyone complain that the title of this post spoils the final stanza of 'The Wife,' I point out that this C.W. Jefferys illustration accompanied it's appearance in Maclean's:
Of all the Basil King books I own, my favourite by far is The Contract of the Letter (New York: Harper, 1914). It's not the author's best novel, but it is his most beautiful. Credit goes to James Montgomery Flagg, who provides the illustrations.
Flagg's artwork also graces King's 1917 novel The Lifted Veil, but with The Empty Sack the honour goes to lesser-known artist J. Henry, about whom I can find nothing.
It pains me to write that Henry was the right choice. Comparisons are easily made as Flagg was commissioned to illustrate The Empty Sack in its initial six-month run in Cosmopolitan. Gone are the artist's fine lines, often replaced by a cartoonish crudeness.
Curiously, one of the weakest illustrations depicts an artist, Hubert Wray, urging Jennie Follett to pose nude.
I can't account for this change in style, though I do wonder whether it was imposed by the magazine. Either way, despite the disappointment, it is interesting to to see the novel's characters, settings, and situations through another mind's eye. The living who have read The Empty Sack will find the following of interest. The living who have not read The Empty Sack will find spoilers.
I'm told that Cosmopolitan no longer publishes fiction in serial format.
An annus horribulus, the death of David Bowie ten days in cast a pall that just wouldn't lift. These have been days of loss and unwelcome surprises, and November 8 killed all hopes for a better New Year.
The evening before the American election, the great Leonard Cohen died. I'd found his Flowers for Hitler a week earlier, squeezed between neglected books in a sidewalk dollar cart. Storm clouds were just about to burst. It's a first edition, but the condition is not the best; booksellers would describe it as a "reading copy." I'm all for reading copies. Books are meant to be read, as this one clearly has. My favourite purchase of 2016, this is how I choose to remember the year... rescuing a book from the rain.
This was the year my collection of Canadian literature took over the ninth of our nine bookcases.
You always knew there was more than one dusty bookcase, right?
Foreign authors have been relegated to the attic, though some sit in the basement of the St Marys Public Library awaiting the semi-annual Book Sale. Anyone looking for a century-old set of Conrad will find themselves in luck this spring.
.
Yes, this proved a particularly good year for buying books, despite an increasingly tightening budget. Case in point: the first American edition of Hilda Wade: A Woman of Tenacity of Purpose pictured above. Typically priced comfortably in the three digits, I paid US$6.00 after winning it in an online auction. With ninety-eight illustrations by Gordon Browne, I don't exaggerate in describing it as one of the most beautiful in my collection.
What follows are the eight other favourite acquisitions. You'll note that some weren't book buys but gifts. Given my name, you'll understand that I'm drawn to alliteration.
Linnet: A Romance Grant Allen New York: New Amsterdam, 1900
"Allen's last substantial novel," writes biographer Peter Morton. I first learned of this work while researching my first book, Character Parts, and have been hoping to score a copy ever since. Another online auction victory, I won this first American edition for US$16.00.
Black Feather Benge Atlee New York: Scribners, 1939
Atlee served in the Royal Army Medical Corps during the Great War. In civilian life, he served as Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Dalhousie. His only novel, this was a gift from James Calhoun, my collaborator on the reissue of Peregrine Acland's All Else Is Folly.
Josie of Montreal Florian Delorme Montreal: Bodero, 1967
Despite the (implied) success of Aprés-Ski, I had no idea this fine example of "ADULT READING" existed until it was given me by author Fraser Sutherland.
One of the three books I'm urging publishers consider returning to print, The Midnight Queen is the one of the most entertaining novels I've read since beginning this exploration. It's no small wonder that Mrs Fleming (1840-1880) was our first bestselling author. You can read my review here.
Edith Percival; Or, Her Heart or Her Hand? May Agnes Fleming New York: Street and Smith, [n.d.]
A later edition – perhaps the last – of Mrs Fleming's 1893 bestseller... But wait, didn't she die in 1880? Is it really hers? This is one of five Street & Smith Flemings won for US$1.99 each on eBay. Mine were the only bids.
Legends of My People the Great Ojibway Norval Morrisseau Toronto: Ryerson, 1965
Bought for a dollar earlier this month at the Stratford Salvation Army Thrift Store. Signed by the artist.
A book I'll be handing down to my daughter.
Dust and Ashes A.C. Stewart n.p.: Published by the Author, 1910
The 2016 Globe 100 was published last week. As with any other, one could quibble with this year's list – whither John Metcalf's The Museum at the End of the World? – but it's really quite good. I was pleased to see Kathy Page's The Two of Us and Willem De Kooning's Paintbrush by Kerry Lee Powell. The Party Wall, Lazer Lederhendler's translation of Catherine Leroux's Mur mitoyen, was also welcome. And then there's Madeleine Thien's Do Not Say We Have Nothing, though that was pretty much a given. An embarrassment of riches.
How far we've come.
Consider "THE SEASON'S BEST BOOKS IN REVIEW" above, published a century ago in the very same newspaper. It begins on a fairly upbeat note:
The third year of the war finds no appreciable diminution in the output of books. The demand for good reading grows apace, although publishers are in difficulties over the increased cost of production. One result of the paper shortage across the border is the growing tendency to place orders for printing and binding in Canada. The examples of workmanship recently turned out by Canadian printers show what this country may yet accomplish in the production of books.
The downer comes with the next paragraph:
Canadian fiction is still in a stagnant condition. The attractions of the American market have proved too strong as yet to admit the development of a Canadian school of novelists.
Take heart, our poets are being recognized south of the border:
In a New York publisher's circular the following appeared: "Canadians or Americans? In 'Canadian Poets and Poetry,'* an anthology collected by John Garvin and recently published by Stokes, the verse of Bliss Carman and Arthur Stringer along with that of Roberts and more generally recognized Canadians somewhat surprise the average reader who thinks these poets are native Americans. It is true, however, that Arthur Stringer's birthplace is Fredericton, New Brunswick, and his A.B. [sic] is from the university there, while Carman was born in Ontario and educated at the Universities of Toronto and Oxford."
Though the copywriter has confused Stringer and Carman – the former is the Ontario boy and Oxford man – this is just the sort of recognition that makes glowing hearts glow. The anonymous Globe reviewer – William Arthur Deacon, I'm betting – fans the flames in writing that the war has brought "a renaissance of Canadian poetry," as exemplified by Canon Scott's In the Battle Silences and Rhymes of a Red Cross Man by Robert W. Service (the lone book I own on the list).
Meanwhile, on the home front, "Canada is discovering fresh talent. Two gifted writers have attracted notice in the past year – Robert Norwood and Norah M. Holland."
Being somewhat familiar with his verse, I dismissed Robert Norwood. I couldn't do the same with Norah M. Holland because I'd never heard of her. Imagine my surprise in learning that Miss Holland, a native of Collingwood, Ontario, was a cousin of Yeats.
Spun-yarn and Spindrift
Norah M. Holland
Toronto: Dent, 1918
"THE SEASON'S BEST BOOKS IN REVIEW" features no books by Holland because she had none.The intrigued waited two years before publication of Spun-yarn and Spindrift, the first of her two collections. Even without Holland, our poets dominate the 1916 list; nine if the twenty volumes of verse listed are at least kinda Canadian:
Canadian Poets* – John Garvin, ed. In the Battle Silences – F.G. Scott Rhymes of a Red Cross Man – Robert W. Service The Witch of Endor – Robert Norwood The Watchman and Other Poems – L.M, Montgomery Maple Leaf Men and Other War Gleanings – Rose E. Sharland Lundy's Lane and Other Poems – Duncan Campbell Scott Rambles of a Canadian Naturalist – S.T. Wood The Lamp of Poor Souls and Other Poems – Marjorie Pickthall
I read nothing into the misspelling of Miss Pickthall's Christian name (nor the brevity of the review).
There are 127 best books in "THE SEASON'S BEST BOOKS IN REVIEW", thirty-six of which are Canadian. Stephen Leacock leads the very short of list of Canadian fiction with Further Foolishness. The Secret Trails by Charles G.D. Roberts, H.A. Cody's Rob of the Lost Patrol, and Marshall Saunders' The Wandering Dog follow. Though I've not read the last, I like to think it served as inspiration for The Littlest Hobo.
We writers of non-fiction aren't particularly well represented. Ten more volumes of the sketchy Chronicles of Canada series feature, as does R. Burton Deane's Mounted Police Life in Canada (a book I helped return to print – briefly – fifteen years ago). Much is made about William Boyd's With a Field Ambulance in Ypres, which I really should've read... but haven't.
Still more is made of the fact that the year saw not one but two biographies of Sir Charles Tupper.
Of course, we all remember Tupper as our sixth prime minister. He served for 59 days.
Not a single one of the Canadian books on the 1916 Globe list is in print today.
Not a single one.
* In Canada, the anthology was published as Canadian Poets (Toronto: McClelland, Goodchild & Stewart, 1916).
Verse for the month from the 1949 McClelland & Stewart edition of Arthur Stringer's The Woman in the Rain and Other Poems.
Don't know it? You should.
The London Free Press had this to say of the 1907 Little, Brown first edition:
The Woman in the Rain is a volume without which now no collection of poetry in Canada, meant to be representative of the best, written by Canadians, can be complete.
Every so often I'm asked about the difference between this blog and my Dusty Bookcase column in Canadian Notes & Queries. The answer is that I save all the really good stuff for the magazine.
I kid.
In truth, the CNQ pieces are longer and generally focus on books about which I'm particularly passionate. Case in point, last summer's column on Arthur Stringer's 1921 roman à clefThe Wine of Life. The tragic love story shared by the author Owen Storrow and wife Jobyna Howland Torrie Thorssel, I've come to think of it as the most depressing Canadian novel ever written.
The Pittsburgh Press, 24 October 1921
Illustration by James Montgomery Flagg
The new issue of Canadian Notes and Queries has landed in my Wellington Street post office box, bringing with it my thirteenth Dusty Bookcase column.
Lucky thirteen.
The subject this time is The Wine of Life, Arthur Stringer's dispiriting 1921 novel about the doomed marriage of Owen Storrow and Torrie Thorssel. Substitute Arthur Stringer for "Owen Storrow" and Jobyna Howland for "Torrie Thorssel" and you get some idea.
Like Owen and Torrie's, the Stringers' relationship played itself out in the papers. Together they were fêted as New York's handsomest couple; apart they were irresistibly tragic figures.
The Times Dispatch [Richmond], 23 March 1913
The Times Dispatch [Richmond], 8 November 1914
"Peculiar Romance-Tragedy of an Actress and a Poet", which appeared in newspapers across the United States the year after the couple split, paints Stringer "a man of sorrows":
For know you, all girls and women who have wept and glowed and smiled over the poems of Arthur Stringer, that he is living a romance as sad and as surcharged with longing love as ever were any of his poems.
The new CNQ has me thinking about The Wine of Life again. In truth, the book never left me. It's hard to forget such a depressing a novel – doubly so a roman à clef. I won't mention Mencken's descriptions of the latter day Jobyna; it would only spoil your day.
But just look how sunny Seth's cover is! Sure to cheer you up. Also contributing to the new CNQ are:
Caroline Adderson
Chris Arthur
Marc Bell
Emily Donaldson
Kathy Friedman
Douglas Glover
Jason Guriel
Kim Jernigan
David Mason
Susan Olding
Peter Sanger
Robin Sarah
Carrie Snyder
JC Sutcliffe
Jess Taylor
Anne Marie Todkill
As always, subscriptions can be had through the CNQ website. A bargain!
A writer, ghostwriter, écrivain public, literary historian and bibliophile, I'm the author of Character Parts: Who's Really Who in CanLit (Knopf, 2003), and A Gentleman of Pleasure: One Life of John Glassco, Poet, Translator, Memoirist and Pornographer (McGill-Queen's UP, 2011; shortlisted for the Gabrielle Roy Prize). I've edited over a dozen books, including The Heart Accepts It All: Selected Letters of John Glassco (Véhicule, 2013) and George Fetherling's The Writing Life: Journals 1975-2005 (McGill-Queen's UP, 2013). I currently serve as series editor for Ricochet Books and am a contributing editor for Canadian Notes & Queries. My most recent book is The Dusty Bookcase (Biblioasis, 2017), a collection of revised and expanded reviews first published here and elsewhere.
