01 January 2019

'A January Morning' by Archibald Lampman



A JANUARY MORNING
      The glittering roofs are still with frost; each worn
      Black chimney builds into the quiet sky
      Its curling pile to crumble silently.
      Far out to westward on the edge of morn,
      The slender misty city towers up-borne
      Glimmer faint rose against the pallid blue;
      And yonder on those northern hills, the hue
      Of amethyst, hang fleeces dull as horn.
      And here behind me come the woodmen's sleighs
      With shouts and clamorous squeakings; might and main
      Up the steep slope the horses stamp and strain.
      Urged on by hoarse-tongued drivers—cheeks ablaze,
      Iced beards and frozen eyelids—team by team,
      With frost-fringed flanks, and nostrils jetting steam.

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31 December 2018

An Old Year's Audience with Our Lord



Post-war verse for a year's end by Ida Randolph Spragge, wife of Maclean's editor Thomas B. Costain, from the magazine's January 1919 issue.

THE GIFT OF 1918
            The hour had struck and through the hall
            Echoed the summoning angels call:
            "Enter, your race is run. O year,
            The Lord awaits your presence here." 
            Hastening then to his command,
            Before the Throne to take his stand,
            The old year, tattered, thorn and grim,
            But yet triumphant, knelt to Him. 
            "I laboured long, O God to find,
            The door to Peace for all mankind,
            That hideous war on earth should cease
            And freedom, bound, find swift release. 
            "My task is done Thou bidd'st me do,
            A world from chaos springs anew,
            A world where people worship Thee
            I love and deep humanity. 
            "For when the thundering guns were hushed
            And evil beast were beaten, crushed,
            With bursting heart and brimming eye
            The earth game thanks to Thee on high.
            "So take this gift I bring to-day,
            Nor from it turn Thy face away—
            The hearts of men who worship Thee
            In love and deep humanity."

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27 December 2018

Best Book Buys of 2018 (four of which were gifts)



Twenty-eighteen was a year of great change. In April, we sold our home of ten years and started packing up our belongings. We moved in early July, settling several hundred kilometres to the northeast. The books that once surrounded now lie boxed in the dark basement of the house we're renting on the banks of the Rideau Canal.

Living in a house without bookshelves is disorienting. Where I once knew where everything was, passing by the same books day after day, month after month, year after year, I now spend hours hunting. This past summer I bought a copy of James M. Cain's Serenade because I wanted to reread it. There's a copy in the basement... but where?

I purchased fewer books this year. Why add to the confusion? This annual list of ten best buys – best acquisitions, really – was made strong through the generosity of friends.

Philistia
Grant Allen
London: Chatto & Windus, 1901

"A NEW EDITION" of Allen's first novel, published two years after his early death, this copy is well travelled. It began life in a Boots Booklovers Library, and somehow made its way to a British Columbia bookseller's shop. The book now sits on my desk, one hundred or so kilometres from Allen's birthplace.
Brother, Here's a Man!
Kim Beattie
New York: Macmillan, 1940

This birthday gift from my friend James Calhoun is the only biography of Joe Boyle. An extraordinary man, had Boyle been born south of the border, there would've been a movie and and a two-part American Experience documentary. We Canadians are so bad at these things.
Murder's No Picnic
E.L. Cushing
London: Wright & Brown, 1956

The first and only English edition of Cushing's 1953 debut novel, it vies Margerie Bonner's The Shapes That Creep as the worst mystery read this year. And yet my research into this forgotten Montreal mystery writer continues.
Maid-At-Arms
Enid Cushing [and Andre Norton]
New York: Fawcett, 1981

A curious romance about a closeted, corseted, petticoated poet and his masculine twin sister, written by an unsuccessful mystery writer in collaboration with a Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame member. Need I say more?

Rebound
Dick Diespecker
Toronto: Harlequin, 1953

After years searching for the great – only? – Vancouver post-war pulp, I asked my friend bowdler of Fly-By-Night if he might have a spare copy.  He did... and gave it to me as a gift. It didn't quite live up to expectations... but that cover!


The Magpie
Douglas Durkin
Toronto: University of Toronto
   Press, 1974

Reviewing Basil King's The Empty Sack here last month, I wondered whether it might just be the Great Canadian Post-Great War Novel. Beau not only suggested The Magpie, but gave me a copy. To be read after the holidays.


The Arch-Satirist
Frances de Wolfe Fenwick
Boston: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard,
   1910

A first novel by a journalist and elocutionist who once served as secretary to fellow novelist Sir Andrew Macphail. Described as a "clever novel" in the April 1910 Canadian Bookman.


The Complete Poems of
   John Glassco
John Glassco
London, ON: Canadian
   Poetry Press, 2018

A gift from Brian Treherne, who worked for over a decade editing this monumental work. Invaluable to any Glassco scholar.
The Street Called Straight
Basil King
New York: Harper, 1912

I read two Basil King novels this year, both of which made my annual list of three out-of-print books deserving reissue. This book was purchased in error from Babylon Revised Rare Books for US$75. What I'd meant to buy was their signed copy, listed at US$100. Je ne regrette rien
Christie Redfern's Troubles
[Margaret Murray Robertson]
London: Religious Tract Society,
   [c. 1866]

The most popular novel ever written by an instructress of the Sherbrooke Ladies' Academy, Sherbrooke, Canada East. Despite its commercial success, used copies are uncommon. I was fortunate in spotting this one being offered online from a UK bookseller.

Bonne année!


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