A Matter of Some Debate

The Greatest Event in Canadian History: The Battle of the Plains
J.M. Harper
Toronto: Musson, 1909

Pornography of the Puritan

Much of these past two months has been consumed by research into Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk, its supposed author and the clergymen who perpetrated the hoax. Words are nearly always accompanied by images that are disturbing and, in some cases, unintentionally comical. The Disneyesque depiction of Maria above, taken from the cover of an undated 20th century English edition, ranks with the most tame. Time and again, I'm reminded of Richard Hofstadter's observation that 'anti-Catholicism has always been the pornography of the Puritan'.

Most 19th century editions feature the same 38 engravings, all depicting characters and scenes in the book. There is, for example, the 'inhuman priest' Bonin in action pose. According to the book, it is he who, with an undisclosed number of nuns, trampled Sister St. Frances to death. Many of the images feature tormented nuns, women who have endured rape and torture, such as the 'melancholy' Sister St. Martin and 'Mad Jane Ray'. In the illustration below we see Maria herself, recovering from 'the cap', an instrument of punishment described as 'small, made of a reddish looking leather, fitted closely to the head, and fastened under the chin with a kind of buckle.' The reader is told that it was 'common practice to tie the nun's hands behind, and gag her before the cap was put on, to prevent noise and resistance.'

While the reader is shown the convent's tools of torture, the closest we get to an actual depiction accompanies a detailed description of the punishment inflicted upon poor Jane Ray. Remarks our heroine, 'I could not help noticing how very similar this punishment was to that of the Inquisition.' And so, we're provided with an engraving.

Bondage, flogging, branding... it's no wonder that the 'awful disclosures' found readers amongst those attracted to the works of Sacher-Masoch, Sade and Mirbeau. Indeed, the book has at times been packaged to attract just such an audience. Here, for example, is a 1971 edition from London's Canova Press (publishers of The Order of the Rod and Harriet Marwood, Governess).

The most egregious illustration I've yet come across comes not from a copy of Awful Disclosures, but a tract promoting the book's claim that the Hôtel-Dieu convent contains a lime pit into which the infants of nuns and priests are thrown.

Perhaps a bit of comic relief is in order. I recognize and appreciate that there will be some who will not recognize this last example as such, but like the ranting of conspiracy theorist and crazy man Glenn Beck, I find it pretty amusing. In 1854, an earlier loon named H.M. Hatch self-published Popery Unmasked, a 76-page booklet intended to expose the 'debasing tendency of Roman Catholicism'... and, it seems, Pius IX as Satan. The author references Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk as one of five works that 'stand as high as any historical works now in use'. Not that the authority conferred by Hatch in any way prevents him from tampering with the text – he abridges here and adds a phrase or two there, pretty much making a mess of things. For Hatch, like Beck, there isn't a lie that can't be improved upon.

Related posts:

Maria Monk's Immortal Book

Maria Monk and the Kennedy Campaign

Men Without Anglosaxony

The most recent post at the unfailingly informative and entertaining Bookride concerns Anglosaxony: A League that Works by Wyndham Lewis. Whether or not one considers Lewis Canadian – he certainly did – the pamphlet holds a place in our literary history as the most valuable published by the still-mourned Ryerson Press. What cost 75¢ in 1941 is today estimated at between US$1200 and US$1500. Copies are, it appears, rare as hen's teeth. Blame lies not with Messrs David Bowie and Bryan Ferry – both collectors – but with a disinterested press and unresponsive public. Not that Ryerson didn't try. Below is the company's 1941 Christmas advert, in which we see Anglosaxony sandwiched between war correspondent Leland Stowe's No Other Road to Freedom and They Got Their Man, a collection of mountie tales by Philip H. Godsell.

The Globe and Mail, 6 December 1941

All this provides an excuse to present this link to Tom Hawthorne's very fine profile of Lewis collector extraordinaire Cy Fox, first published in the 27 May 2009 edition of the Globe and Mail.

Author and Publisher as Forgotten Men

Forgotten Men

Claudius Gregory

Hamilton: Davis-Lisson, 1933

For Labour Day, a Depression-era story of strife, struggle and messianic fantasy. Christopher Ward is a young man of wealth and privilege. The son of a steel mill owner, he lives life adrift until happening upon an impromptu meeting of unemployed men in a public park. Wonderment is reawakened. He devotes his life to some hazy idea called 'the Cause', becomes close friends with the unemployed Peter Bronte, is mentored by holy man Reverend John, and meets a prostitute named Mary. 'Mary. That is my mother's name, too', Christopher says when introduced. Well before he amasses his group of twelve, known as the Society of Forgotten Men, the reader senses that things will end quite badly. It comes as no surprise when he's betrayed by Society member Jude Braithwaite and is arrested while having that one last supper in a modest eatery.

That said, the reader is left wondering at the charge: sedition. Christopher is long on describing the suffering of the working man, short on its causes and silent as to the solution. This is not to say that the messianic figure hasn't been proposing something, but that Gregory, for all his verbiage, chooses not to reveal the goal of the Society of Forgotten Men. Christopher's thoughts only hint at the answer:

Beginning. 'In the beginning.' But, of course, everything must have a beginning. It was plain now, quite plain, the task he must undertake, the part he must play. Millions of forgotten men were depending upon them, men whose very souls had ben exploited because they did not understand what was theirs by right. Yes, there was a thought in that. One should say, by birthright. There it was again. A man's birthright: something which came to him in the beginning. There were millions of men who would be powerful enough, once they understood, to select leaders among themselves to govern, to select men incapable of being influenced by the taint of party politics. He had no socialistic ideas; that was not the thought.

No, but if that is not the thought, what is? The answer is invariably cloaked. In this passage, for example, we see it in the next to last sentence with Christopher's dreams of leaders untainted by party politics. To put it more plainly, the publisher's next book was Is Fascism the Answer?, a work praising Benito Mussolini, penned by Brampton police magistrate and corporal punishment advocate S. Alfred Jones.

Gregory dedicated Forgotten Men to its publisher, Thomas Dyson Lisson, adding a dense three-page Acknowlegement devoted to 'the man whose collaboration gave the story.' Here Gregory tells us something of the novel's failure by revealing that the plot was woven around Lisson's 'outstanding thoughts', as expressed in self-published brochures, such as 'Did You Ever Look at it This Way?' (1931) and the more ominous 'Eventually You Will Look at it This Way' (1933).

Forgotten Men was the first book for both Gregory, a transplanted Brit, and Lisson, co-owner of a successful Hamilton printing business. Despite their friendship, the author's next two novels, Valerie Hathaway (1933) and Solomon Levi (1935), were published by other houses. All were reviewed in the pages of the the New York Times, yet Gregory's life, literary career and death (1944) were ignored by the dailies in his adopted city of Toronto. Lisson, on the other hand, received some notice. During the Great War, it was reported that he may have thwarted a dastardly German plot to poison the good citizens of Hamilton.

The Globe, 13 September 1918

Then, in 1932, Lisson's printing plant was damaged in a fire so spectacular that it was front page news in Toronto – 'Exploding Celluloid Showers Hot Glass Upon Firefighters', reads the headline. Three year later, he returned to the front page as co-founder of the short-lived Reconstruction Party, lead by difficult once and future Tory H. H. Stevens.

The Globe, 12 July 1935

Lisson, seated across from the other leaders of the fledgling Reconstruction Party, Thomas M. Bell, H.H. Stevens and Warren K. Cook.

Lisson's own writing attracted little attention, though the arguments set forth in his 1937 pamphlet, 'Gold', were considered and dismissed by the mining editor of the Globe. Sadly, my search for his self-published titles hasn't borne fruit. Just as well – having read the ideas put forth in Forgotten Men, I can't imagine 'Birth Control and Scrap Labor-Saving Devices' is nearly as interesting as the title suggests.

Object and Access: A heavy, well-bound book, it's found in academic libraries across the country, but only two of our public libraries (predictably, Hamilton and Toronto) have copies. Library and Archives Canada fails us, yet again. Online booksellers describe the book as 'scarce', 'uncommon' and a 'hard find'. Don't you believe it. Very Good copies go for as little as US$15, while signed copies can be found in the US$20 range. I purchased mine – with damaged dust jacket – a couple of weeks ago from my local used bookstore for C$15.