The Dusty Bookcase at 1000

Last Tuesday's post marked the one thousandth since this blog began. I saw it coming, took my eye off the ball, and didn't notice when it hit. Nevertheless, that post, on a lost film adaptation of a once-popular work by one-time bestselling author Ralph Connor, seems appropriate enough. The Dusty Bookcase began in early 2009, with a review of novelist Brian Moore's suppressed debut Sailor's Leave (a/k/a Wreath for a Redhead). The idea back then, as it is now, was to read and review all the suppressed, ignored and forgotten Canadian books I've been collecting.

I'm falling behind.

One thousand. I thought I'd mark the start of second thousand by listing the ten most visited posts in this blog's history. For obvious reasons, older posts have an advantage. These aren't necessarily my favourites, you understand, but the fans have spoken!

1

Pictures of Harriet 

A collection of covers (with commentary) depicting the heroine of Governor General's Award-winning poet John Glassco's pornographic novel. I suspect it's popularity was boosted somewhat by a New York dominatrix's use of the same name. 

The post was later expanded upon – more images – for A Gentleman of Pleasure, the blog used to promote my Glassco biography of the same same. 

Buy it here! 

2

Alpha, Beta, Dada 

The first of four posts – here are the second, third, and fourth – on the surreal covers produced by rip-off artists VDM Publishing. Recommended reading for anyone who still needs convincing that Amazon knows no shame. 

3

Margaret's Marriage in Mass Market 

She haunts us still, I suppose, but then so do the rest of the family. Another Trudeau title features below, and pretty much everything I wrote that included the surname proved popular: Sex and the Trudeaus: The Bachelor Canada, Sex and the Trudeaus: Son and Hair, Pierre Trudeau's Letter to the Children of Troy, Trudeau Redux: Compare and Contrast, Trudeau Redux: Compare and Contrast II, Wishing the Prime Minister Dead, Trudeaumania II. 

My posts on Stephen Harper – on his forgotten speech and his forgotten hockey book – deserve more attention. 

A revised and expended version of the post on Margaret Trudeau: The Prime Minister's Runaway Wife features in my forthcoming book, The Dusty Bookcase. 

Buy it here!

4

Jalna's Dirty Little Secret (Parts I & II) 

I had an awful lot to say about this awful book and the awful television series that encouraged its publication – so much that I had to cut it in half. Both halves will feature – revised – in the forthcoming Dusty Bookcase book. 

Have I mentioned it can be bought here? 

5 

A POD Publisher's Alternate Universe 

Forget VDM, no print on demand publisher has given me more enjoyment than Tutis Classics. This was my first post about these crooks, though my favourite is It's Tutis Time, posted a few weeks later. Sadly, Tutis is no more. Fortunately, their covers remain.

6

Maria Monk's Immortal Book 

My earliest writing on Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk (1837), the oldest book reviewed here, proved to be one of the most commented upon posts in the blog's eight years. The book and associated scandale are also the subjects of ongoing research and a future book.

7

Galt's Damaged Pastor Novelist 

A post about the forgotten and unlucky Robert E. Knowles, whose debut novel, St. Cuthbert's, was the most torturous read of my life.

8

Canada's Olympians, Part III 

Who dares deny the popularity of Harriet Marwood? Posted less than a month into the blog, this piece on The English Governess was the third in a four-part series focussing on the four Olympia Press titles written by Canadians: Diane Bataille's The Whip Angels, John Glassco's complete of Aubrey Beardsley's Under the Hill (by far the most attractive volume the press ever produced), Glassco's pseudonymously published The English Governess, and Jock Carroll's Bottoms Up (inspired by his assignment to photograph Marilyn Monroe at Niagara Falls). 

The English Governess is the best of the lot. 

9

Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Ladies Man 

A slight post about a slim book of humour, I can't quite get over its popularity. Michelle Le Grand, Alison Fay, I'd love to hear from you!

10

Pornography of the Puritan 

It may be word "pornography". Seven years ago, a post I'd titled A Prudish Policewoman's Porn attracted visitors by the thousands. Click on the link and imagine their disappointment! 

Must say, I find the popularity of this old post, which draws on images from various editions of Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk, encourages work on my Maria Monk book. 

More to come. For now, I'd like to thank readers and fellow bloggers who have been supportive these past one thousand posts: Patti Abbott, John Adcock, Bowdler, Curtis Evans, Le Flâneur, Kristian Gravenor TracyK, Leaves & Pages, Jean-Louis Lessard, Melwyk, J.R.S. Morrison, J.F. Norris, Noah Stewart, and the late, much-missed Ron Scheer. The Dusty Bookcase would've become mouldy without you.

Behold! The Man from Glengarry!

A brief addendum to last Monday's post:

Given the once overwhelming popularity of The Man from Glengarry: A Tale of the Ottawa, it is curious that illustrations depicting its hero are so very few. Connor may have outsold Montgomery, but Ranald Macdonald is no Anne Shirley. I count only a few, beginning with the man on the cover of the Westminster first edition:

Toronto: Westminster, 1901

This is followed by the rather sinister-looking figure on the cover of Revell's first American:

Chicago: Revell, 1901

Then there's this depiction, which appears on a poster that Revell sent around to booksellers:

Of course, not one of these is so fantastic as that featured on the Tutis Classics' edition above. Here the God-fearing 19th-century lumberman is recast as some sort of futuristic warrior hovering over a barren wasteland. The effects of clearcutting, I suppose.

Sadly, Tutis is no more. The print on demand house responsible for some of the strangest covers ever closed shop years ago, but not before giving The Man from Glengarry a new cover. The image isn't the greatest, I know, but it's all we've got; in all likelihood there was no demand. Still, I've been able to identify the man meant to be Ranald Macdonald as George Washington. That isn't the Ottawa Valley, but Valley Forge.

Another time, another place.

I'm happy to say that I grabbed images of the other Tutis Connors before the company's website disappeared. Their offerings began with the author's second novel, The Sky Pilot: A Tale of the Foothills (1899), the story of missionary Arthur Wellington Moore, who travels west to convert cowboys and settlers in what would one day become the Province of Alberta.

In The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail (1914), Corporal Cameron, hero of Corporal Cameron of the North West Mounted Police (1912), faces the prospect of rebellion along the northern plains of the Saskatchewan.

Often misidentified as a sequel to The Sky Pilot, The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land (1919) has handsome Chaplain Barry Dunbar ministering to the troops in the muddy and bloody trenches of the Great War.

Finally, there's To Him that Hath (1922), a novel set just after the Great War in the fictional town of Black Water, Ontario. Connor drew his inspiration from the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike.

That's it. Just five of the author's twenty-six novels.

Come back, Tutis! I want to see what you'd do with The Girl from Glengarry, never mind The Gay Crusader.

Related posts:

Behind Every Successful Man from Glengarry
A POD Publisher's Alternate Universe
It's Tutis Time
POD Cover of the Month: The Sky Pilot
POD Cover of the Month: The Backwoods of Canada
POD Cover of the Month: Romany of the Snows

The Barefoot Fugitive and Other Mysteries

The Wild Olive
[Basil King]
New York: Harper, 1910

Basil King wrote the bestselling novel of 1909.

Who knew?

Hardly anyone.

That novel, The Inner Shrine, was published anonymously. Its story of a woman's reputation sullied by the base claims of a cad captivated readers almost as much as the mystery of its authorship. Speculation centred on Henry James, Edith Wharton and the daughter of William Dean Howells as King kept to the shadows. When The Wild Olive appeared the following year it was credited only to "the author of 'The Inner Shrine'." I'll be damned if the new work didn't do nearly as well. In its summary of sales for 1910, Publishers Weekly placed The Wild Olive third, behind Florence L. Barclay's The Rosary and A Modern Chronicle by Winston Churchill.

There's no accounting for taste. The Wild Olive is far better than the Barclay and the Churchill; it's also better than The Inner Shrine. In fact, The Wild Olive is the best

Basil King book I've ever read. It begins in mystery: a barefoot man, a fugitive, scrambles through darkness in the Adirondack wilds. Coming upon a tasteful, well-appointed house, he walks through open doors to find Judge Wayne, the very man who had just hours before sentenced him to death.

A great coincidence, I know. There will be others.

The fugitive – name: Norrie Ford – only entered the house because he thought he'd heard a noise made by one of his pursuers. 'Twas in fact the light tread of a lithe young woman dressed in white. Silently, she beckons Ford back outside, then leads him in silence to a remote artist's studio somewhere in the vicinity of Lake Champlain. There he's left, hidden from the law, surrounded by sketches and watercolours depicting trappers, voyageurs, Indians and nuns. The woman in white reappears daily, bringing food, clothing and companionship of a sort.

The clothes she brings belonged to her deceased father, a Virginian who made a great deal of money in the northwest of Canada. "I was born on the shores of Hudson Bay," she tells Ford. "My mother was married to a French-Canadian voyageur." Not a suitable topic for polite dinner conversation, perhaps, but Ford's saviour is proud of her past. Her present, however, is off-limits; she won't reveal so much as her name.

This mysterious figure may be a bastard born, but Ford recognizes her as the most refined of women; something to do with having been raised in a Quebec City convent, no doubt. And yet she retains such inhibition, such a spirit of freedom:

In her eagerness to buy the domestic place she had not inherited she reminded him of something he had read or heard of the wild olive being grafted into the olive of the orchard.

Ford is keen to impress that he is innocent of the crime for which he was convicted – the murder of an uncle – but to this wild olive his words means nothing:

"He was very cruel to you – your uncle? – wasn't he?" she asked, at last.
     "He was very cantankerous; but that wouldn't be a reason for shooting him in his sleep – whatever I may have said when in a rage."
     "I should think it might be." He started. If it were not for the necessity of making no noise he would have laughed.
     "Are you so bloodthirsty – ?" he began.
     "Oh no, I'm not; but I should think it is what a man would do. My father wouldn't have submitted to it. I know he killed one man; and he may have killed two or three."

Just as her mother helped her father escape from prison, so too the wild olive aids Ford in alluding the authorities. After an untold

number of days – a couple of weeks, I'm guessing – she serves as guide through dense forest to the shores of Lake Champlain. There he's handed a plan of escape to Canada, complete with canoe, map, money, train schedule and a ticket for England on RMS Empress of Erin (read: Empress of Ireland).

And so, Norrie Ford is given a second chance at life as "Herbert Strange", the... er, unusual name recorded on the steamer ticket. In this effort to make something of himself, Ford follows the mystery woman's suggestion that he make for the Argentine. "I happen to know a lot about it," said she. "Everybody says it's the country of new opportunities."

Indeed, it is. On a whim – he recalls passing mention made by the wild olive – the newly christened Strange seeks employment with Stephens & Jarrott, an American firm with offices in Buenos Aires. Eight years pass. Strange rises through the ranks, becomes engaged to a Jarrott relation, is transferred to New York, and then attends a dinner party at which he is seated to the left of the wild olive. To her right is Judge Wayne.

What are the chances?

Not bad, actually. One expects coincidences in an Edwardian novel, and there are several here, but setting aside the first, none beggar belief. The mystery woman's casual reference to Stephens & Jarrott, a firm to which she has the thinnest of connections, set Ford on a course that would bring him back to her. It was all quite unintentional on her part, but there you are... rather there he is.

I won't say any more for fear of spoiling the plot – it's so remarkably clever – except to say that the final page came as a complete surprise. The Wild Olive doesn't end so much as trails off leaving so many mysteries intact. What sent the wild olive's father to prison? How did her mother get him out? What of her French-Canadian husband? How did Ford escape his jailers? For goodness sake, what happened to his shoes?

Bloomer:

"You can't realize what all this means to me. If we succeed – that is, if you succeed – I hardly dare to tell you of the extent to which I shall be grateful."
     He felt already some of the hero's magnanimity as to claiming his reward.
     "You needn't think about that," he smiled. "I sha'n't. If by making Evie happy I can serve you, I shall not ask for gratitude."
     She looked down at her muff and smoothed its fur, then glanced up swiftly. "No; but I shall want to give it."

Trivia I: The most sympathetic character in the novel is Judge Wayne, a good soul who recognizes and struggles with the injustice of the justice system. When first we encounter the man – during Norrie Ford's first night on the lam – we see that he is going blind. Because he is beyond the help of the best German oculists, "poor Wayne" has descended into darkness by the time he and Ford share the same dining table. Ah, but the judge's hearing has grown more acute, right? I spoil things in revealing that he recognizes Ford's voice. However, Wayne keeps the knowledge to himself, choosing not to turn Ford in because, of course, justice is blind.

King himself was going blind when he wrote this novel.   

Moving Picture World
July 1915

Trivia II: In 1915, The Wild Olive became the first of seven Basil King novels to be adapted to the screen. A lost film, one of the very few images known to have survived is the publicity shot above of silent film star Myrtle Stedman as the Wild Olive. In the novel, she has a dog named Micmac. Forgotten English actor Forrest Stanley plays Norrie Ford.

Object: An attractive 346-page hardcover with eight illustrated plates by Lucius Hitchcock (who also provided illustrations for The Inner Shrine). My copy, a first edition, was purchased last month at Ottawa's Patrick McGaherne Books. Price: US$20.

Access: The Prince Edward Island Public Library Service succeeds were all other public libraries fail. Twenty-seven of our academic libraries have it in their holdings. Curiously, a third are found in Alberta.

Loads of copies being offered online at prices ranging from US$5 to US$564. Ignorance and greed aside, there is no reason for the wide range. Anyone looking to invest in a copy is warned that the Harper edition went through numerous printings, and was followed by a cheaply produced Grosset & Dunlap reissue. Those considering the later are warned that it features only one of the eight plates.

Speaking of ignorance and greed, print on demand vultures have been all over The Wild Olive. This post gives me an excuse to share an absurd old cover (right) from defunct Tutis Classics.

Good news is found in the fact that The Wild Olive can be read and downloaded here at the Internet Archive. I must add that an excellent audiobook recording read by Simon Evers is available gratis here through Librivox. Recommended!

Related posts:

Not Very Occult
RMS Empress of Ireland: 100 Years

Anne of the Island and Other Mid-Winter Fantasies

Just the thing to combat the seasonal blues, this new edition of Anne of the Island provides ample evidence of Tutis Classics' lingering influence. Fans of the defunct Indian print on demand house will remember the sunny Canada that graced so many of its covers.

They will also remember the wonderful imagination on display in its editions of Catharine Parr Traill, Ralph Connor, Gilbert Parker, Grant Allen, Agnes C. Laut and other giants of Canadian literature. Egerton Ryerson Young's By Canoe and Dog-Train is a personal favourite.

This post isn't about Tutis but ebook publisher HMDS Printing Press. Not yet three months old, and already they have a certain place in my heart. Their covers – if ebooks can be said to have covers – may not be quite so sophisticated as Tutus, but they demonstrate just as much creativity.

Remember the time Anne tried to dye her hair black? HMDS's Anne of Green Gables imagines a much happier result.

In Anne of Avonlea,  the series' second book, our raven-haired heroine gets a dog.

I was reminded of nothing so much as the dog that features on the cover – but not in the text – of Tutis Classics' Kilmeny of the Orchard.

With HMDS's Anne of Ingleside, our heroine returns to her original hair colour and introduces the mini-skirt to 19th-century Prince Edward Island.

Sadly, the covers deceive. Paragraph structure aside, HMDS's editions stick to Montgomery's text; Anne's hair still turns green, there is no dog, and skirts remain long and heavy. Happily, the publisher's claim that each is "COLOR ILLUSTRATED" is accurate. HMDS credits the interior art to Leonardo, but I spotted works by Sargent, Bougereau, Rossetti, Thomas Girtin, Margaret Sarah Carpenter and Herbert James Draper.

Selection and placement are intriguing.

Sure to keep Montgomery scholars busy.

I wish HMDS Printing Press well, and look forward to the day in which they actually print something. 

A Bonus:

As is so often the case, I thank JRSM for bringing HMDS to my attention. His own thoughts on the mess can be found at Caustic Cover Critic.

Related posts:

Much Ado About Anne

K is for Kindle
A POD Publisher's Alternate Universe

It's Tutis Time!

Washington Crossing the Niagara and Other Fantasies for the Fourth of July

George Washington and his Continental Army return from the dead to fight alongside William Lyon Mackenzie in the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837. "Remember the Caroline!"

Well, not really.

What we have here is just another inept print on demand package of John Charles Dent's 1885 history of the conflict. The guilty parties this time are Zhingoora Books and their enablers CreateSpace (read: Amazon). The talent behind the cover is the very same fellow who gave us this:

Address your complaints to Mandsaur's Court Collectorate.

When you do, please make mention of the font. I mean, really, just how much of this can anyone take?

Zhingoora Books aren't alone, of course. Old pros Nabu ask us to imagine a world in which the Rebellion brought to ruin buildings that pre-date the colonization of the Americas:

Meanwhile, BiblioBazaar again make use of Heathcliff's ever reliable girl's bicycle.

I'm losing focus. This day belongs not to us but our American cousins. In their Spirit of '76, here are a few of the fine publications offered by VDM and their bastard offspring Bookvita and Betascript:

How far our two great nations have come, bound in friendship, the longest undefended border and all that stuff... but it would be wrong not to acknowledge the many samurai who sacrificed their lives in the War of 1812. Lest we forget, Tutis Classics will remind.

Best Fourth of July wishes to all my American cousins.

A Bonus:

The Story of the Upper Canadian Rebellion

John Charles Dent

Toronto: C. Blackett Robinson, 1885

POD Cover of the Month: The Sky Pilot

Tutis Classics' edition of Ralph Connor's nineteenth-century novel about nineteenth-century settlers and ranchers in the foothills of nineteenth-century Alberta. At the centre of it all is Arthur Wellington Moore, a modest missionary come to convert cowboys. In the 1921 film adaptation he was played by tragic Hollywood figure John Bowers.

Some good soul has uploaded the entire thing to YouTube:

First edition:

The Sky Pilot: A Tale of the Foothills

Chicago: Revell, 1899

Runner up:

Tutis' take on The Man from Glengarry, the story of Ranald Macdonald, a nineteenth-century logger  who grows into manhood with the aid of a pious woman and the mighty Ottawa River.

Related Posts:

POD Cover of the Month: The Simple Adventures of a Memsahib

POD Cover of the Month: Romany of the Snows

POD Cover of the Month: The Backwoods of Canada