Thanksgiving Day Advice

from Good Reading, Second Reader (Toronto: Educational Book Co., 1931)

"Prescribed for supplementary reading in British Columbia"

Limited Time, Limited Editions (2/6)

No Man's Meat

Morley Callaghan

Paris: Edward W. Titus at the Sign of the Black Manikin, 1930

"I have had printed of this edition five hundred and twenty-five copies on Verge de Rives, of which five hundred copies for subscribers and twenty-five copies, numbered 501 to 525, for the press. The entire edition is signed by the author. This is no: 165 E.W.T."

I'm pretty sure that this is the first signed, numbered edition I ever bought. At the time I was writing for television – a daytime soap, if you must know – and felt pretty flush with cash. How flush? Well, I plunked down US$125 for this novella from Callaghan's summer in Paris.

It's that old familiar story. A husband and wife entertain a female friend. The guest ends up sleeping with the man to pay off a gambling debt. Everybody is unhappy... until the wife realizes that she's in love with her gal pal and the two run off together. Saturday night, Sunday morning.

The novella didn't appear in Canada until 1978 when Macmillan published it in No Man's Meat & The Enchanted Pimp. Its dust jacket makes for interesting reading:

...when No Man's Meat first appeared in 1931, its frank treatment of perverse sexuality [whoring? bisexuality?] made it unsuitable for a commercial house, and it was privately published in Paris by an avant-garde press. Since then the limited edition of four hundred copies [525, actually] has gained widespread fame by word of mouth. Its early notoriety has been softened by Edmund Wilson's description of the piece as "a small masterpiece", and the original edition as become an underground classic, changing hands for two hundred dollars and more.

Thirty-two years later, there are plenty of copies listed online for US$60 (US$35 without slipcase). How to explain its decline. The internet has certainly played a part, but I think the real blame lies with Macmillan. In making the novella more accessible, the new edition took away much of the mystery – No Man's Meat isn't nearly as risqué or quirky as the title suggests.

Stoddart re-resurrected the novella in 1990, but you'd never know it from their jacket copy, which implies that No Man's Meat is a new work. I believe it was the last book that Callaghan lived to see published.

Note: That's Titus not Tutis.

This:

Not this:

Limited Time, Limited Editions (1/6)

Hetty Dorval

Ethel Wilson

Vancouver: The Alcuin Society, 1967

Typographer: Charles Morris/ Illustrator: Gus Rueter

"This is number 230 of an edition limited to 375 copies which was produced especially for members of the Alcuin Society."

Anyone looking for evidence of the neglect shown Ethel Wilson, British Columbia's greatest novelist, might want to consider the prices being asked for this unusual edition. An elegant production, with a five-page author's introduction that appears nowhere else, it can be bought online for as little as US$25. Twenty years ago, during those heady days of bookseller catalogues, I paid C$75 for this copy. At the time, I thought it was a fantastic bargain.

And it was.

October 1st

October looks to be a month of deadlines. There'll be fewer words and more pictures, beginning with Frank Newfeld's cover illustrations for The Journal of Saint-Denys-Garneau.

I'm intrigued by this book. Hector de Saint-Denys-Garneau stands with Émile Nelligan as the country's great French language poet; his journal provides some disconcerting glimpses into the soul of a man who was plagued by inner turmoil and self-doubt. That said, I admit that much of my attraction has to do with the book's publishing history. The Journal of Saint-Denys-Garneau appeared in 1962, yet there had never been an English language collection of his verse. In fact, John Glassco, spent more than a decade trying to interest publishers.

When finally published by Oberon in 1975, The Complete Poems of Saint-Denys-Garneau won the Canada Council Award for Translation.

The Journal and The Complete Poems enjoyed just one printing each. Isn't it time they were reissued? An obvious bind-up, I think.

On a somewhat related note: Last week, the 28th John Glassco Translation Prize was awarded to Louis Bouchard and Marie-Elisabeth Morf for their work on Verena Stefan's Fremdschläfer, published as D’ailleurs by Editions Héliotrope. Now, there's news you won't see in today's revamped Globe & Mail.

On another somewhat related note: Saint-Denys-Garneau has been on my mind since Jean-Louis Lessard's recent series on the man's work, and because I'm right now preparing my biography of Glassco for publication. Consider this the first plug.

Trudeau Redux: Compare and Contrast

John Lennon, Yoko Ono and Pierre Trudeau, Parliament Hill, 23 December 1969.

Chad Kroeger and Stephen Harper, 24 Sussex Drive, 11 April 2010.

Related post:

Trudeau Redux: Compare and Contrast II

Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Ladies' Man

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden:

A Study in Public Seduction

Michelle Le Grand and Allison Fay

Don Mills, ON: Greywood, 1972

It was ten years ago today that Pierre Trudeau died. Does he haunt us still? I suppose so, though his influence has diminished... as has the country's. Let's face it, the man never encountered a reception like this from last week:

Enough.

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden is a sequel of sorts – "a study in public seduction" from the same publisher that four years earlier told us "how pierre elliott trudeau seduced canada with the lights on". Readers of Private Eye will be familiar with the content: a photo with wacky word balloon. This one looks like it could have come from the magazine's 18 December 1970 issue (cliquer pour agrandir).

You get the idea. The picture sets the theme, mixing politics with personality, casting Trudeau as Casanova.

The pseudonymous authors, apparently "two very political and disillusioned housewives", pitch some pretty varied attempts at humour. At times they venture into sensitive territory...

... before descending into jokes one would not dare make today.

There are no knee slappers here, though political types will be interested in the photos, most of which I've not seen elsewhere. Thumbing through the thing I caught myself ignoring the captions, returning in time to catch this:

Poignant and prophetic, n'est ce pas?

Object and Access: A 64-page staple-bound paperback. Ten copies sit on university library shelves, with a further two at Library and Archives Canada and the Toronto Public Library. A half-dozen copies are listed online at between US$4 and US$10. One Winnipeg bookseller has pulled away from the pack, asking US$25 (and adds US$12.25 shipping when three bucks will more than cover it).

Fuddle duddle.

Community Service

The Globe & Mail, 26 September 1953