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| From Jean Blewett's Poems (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1922) |
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09 October 2016
Jean Blewett's 'Thanksgiving Prayer'
07 October 2016
Canadian Notes & Queries en couleur
The new Canadian Notes & Queries arrived in the post a couple of days ago. The first colour issue – after forty-eight years in glorious black, white and grey – 'tis truly a thing of beauty.
My contribution, this season's Dusty Bookcase on paper, was inspired by the centenary of Ted Allan's birth this past January. The Gazette did not recognize, but I did. Of all the Allan titles in my collection, the focus of the column was the one that had remained unread: Don't You Know Anybody Else? It's a slim volume of short stories, published in the wake of Allan's fraudulent Stephen Leacock Medal win. Disturbing, though perhaps not so much as his original Love is a Long Shot, Don't You Know Anybody Else? it is one of those books sold as something it is not.
In the same issue, I've contributed to a new feature: "What's Old: Notable CanLit reissues & offerings from the country's antiquarian booksellers". Still more retro goodness is to be found in Stephen Fowler's exhumation of Let's All Hate Toronto, a "narration, illustration and exhortation" by Jack McLaren.
Wish I could join in, but I can't... our daughter was born there. God Bless Women's College Hospital, I say!
Other contributors include:
Mark CallananPeter DubéAlison GilmourAmanda JerniganShaena LambertColette MaitlandDavid MasonShane NeilsonDiane ObomsawinLaura RitlandPatricia RobertsonAnakana SchofieldSethPatricia SmartJ.C. SutciffeBruce Whiteman
Finally, it would be a great mistake to not mention Jason Dickson's interview with bookseller and poet Nelson Ball. I've drawn on Nelson's extensive knowledge of obscure CanLit so very many times in writing the Dusty Bookcase; what's more, he has provided me with many of the books covered here over the years. Just last week, Nelson sent me these two by Kenneth Orvis, the subject of a future CNQ Dusty Bookcase.
How's that for a tease?
Subscriptions to Canadian Notes & Queries can be purchased through this link.
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06 October 2016
Tonight: A.M. Klein at the Writers' Chapel
Not Klein himself, of course, but an evening held in celebration of his life, culminating with the unveiling of a plaque in his honour.
Ian McGillis writes about the Chapel in yesterday's Montreal Gazette:
St. Jax Montréal (formerly St. James the Apostle)
1439 St. Catherine Street West (Bishop Street entrance)
Montreal
Montreal
The event begins at 6:00.
All are welcome.
04 October 2016
The Return of Frances Shelley Wees
Regular readers may recall last November's rave review of Frances Shelley Wees's 1956 The Keys of My Prison. Titled "A Rival for Margaret Millar?", it began with another question:
Is The Keys of My Prison typical Frances Shelley Wees? If so, she's a writer who deserves attention. If not, the worst that can be said is that she wrote at least one novel worthy of same.You may also remember passing mention last December of a novel I was hoping to return to print.
That novel is, of course, The Keys of My Prison. I'm pleased to announce it is shipping as I write. The eleventh Ricochet Books title, the new edition features an Introduction by Rosemary Aubert, author of the Ellis Portal mystery series. It marks a return to print of one of this country's earliest mystery writers. From The Maestro Murders (1931) to The Last Concubine (1970), Wees's career stretched nearly four decades.
Is The Keys of My Prison the very best of Frances Shelley Wees? I won't pretend to know. All I can say at present is that it is the best I've read. It is also one of the very best Canadian mysteries of the 'fifties.
Here's how I describe it in the catalogue copy:
A disturbing tale of identity and deception set in 1950s Toronto.
That Rafe Jonason’s life didn’t end when he smashed up his car was something of a miracle; on that everyone agreed. However, the devoted husband and pillar of the community emerges from hospital a very different man. Coarse and intolerant, this new Rafe drinks away his days, showing no interest in returning to work. Worst of all, he doesn’t appear to recognize or so much as remember his loving wife Julie. Tension and suspicion within the couple’s Rosedale mansion grow after it is learned that Rafe wasn’t alone in the car that night. Is it that Julie never truly knew her husband? Or might it be that this man isn’t Rafe Jonason at all?The Keys of My Prison is available in our very best bookstores and from publisher Véhicule Press.
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03 October 2016
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:
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| Toronto: Westminster, 1901 |
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| Chicago: Revell, 1901 |
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.
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.
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