Limited Time, Limited Editions (4/6)

As for Me and My House

Sinclair Ross

Saskatoon: Fifth House, 1994

"This is an edition of 250 signed and numbered copies, of which the first 25 copies have been presented to the author."

The rise of As for Me and My House from forgotten to canonical is as curious as it is controversial. First published in 1941 by New York's Reynal & Hitchcock, the novel was all but ignored by critics and book-buyers, yet there it was sixteen years later as title #4 in the fledgling New Canadian Library. The novel has been a part of the series ever since; "a landmark work... essential reading for anyone who seeks to understand the scope and power of the Canadian novel," says current cover copy. I won't disagree, but do wonder as to its place. How is it possible that sixteen years after publication, fourteen years after the author's death, Fifth House has yet to run through the 225 copies for sale? Evidence of a disconnect between the academic's canon and the public's classic, or just another sad reflection of the deflated market for things CanLit?

A bit of both, I think.

Ross was eighty-six and suffering from Parkinson's when he signed the sheets used in this limited edition. Copies can be purchased directly from the publisher.

Addendum: In her Twayne study of Ross, Lorraine McMullen tells us that just a few copies of the 1941 Reynal & Hitchcock edition were imported into Canada. One ended up in Bayfield Public Library, was discarded and, finally, rescued from a leaky, mice-infested barn by yours truly. The "Date Due" slip indicates that it was only once ever checked out of the library.

The Talented Mr. Orenstein

Something for Saturday. Over at Fly-by-night, dedicated researcher Bowdler uncovers two illustrations by the late director Leo Orenstein, author of The Queers of New York. Good fun!

Limited Time, Limited Editions (3/6)

Venus in Furs [Venus im Pelz]

Leopold von Sacher-Masoch [John Glassco, trans.]

Burnaby, BC: Blackfish, 1977

"This book was printed in an edition of 1,500 copies on Byronic Text India paper. There is a special series of 26 hardbound copies printed on Byronic Text Grey paper, signed and lettered from A to Z by the translator."

Booksellers invariably mention the low print run of this, the finest English language translation of Sacher-Masoch's masterpiece. And why not? A full thirty-three years have passed and still it has never been reprinted.

Blackfish co-publisher Brian Brett once told me that the he wasn't so sure that all 26 copies of the signed and lettered edition were ever produced. Seems they were pretty much made to order... no order, no book.

This copy, which once belonged to Glassco, was bought for C$150 twenty years ago. The dab of liquid paper remains something of a mystery, though I do have my theories (most involving drink).

The remaining 1474 or so copies were published in both paper and hardcover. As might be expected, the former is less dear – Very Good copies go for US$30 to US$60 (ignore the copy currently listed online at C$125). The hardcover is more uncommon – expect to pay nothing less than US$150 (a bargain).

I've not seen another copy of the signed and lettered edition offered for sale.

Caveat emptor: A European collector emails asking my opinion on the inscribed paper copy of Venus in Furs that is currently listed on Abebooks at US$325. A fair price? Well, let's just say that amongst the thousands of handwritten documents studied in my eight years researching Glassco I never once saw anything that even remotely resembles the handwriting and signature found in this copy.

School's Out, Forever

True story:

Three years ago, during our last months in Vancouver, I was working on an anthology of historic Canadian speeches. Among the thirty-seven, I included an address delivered by Arthur Meighen in 1921 at Vimy Ridge. He wasn't much as a prime minister, but Meighen was a skilled orator... and his words were his own.

In the Introduction I wrote that as a boy Meighen had been a member of the St Marys Collegiate Institute Debating Society. The name meant nothing to me; I didn't even know where St Marys was. Four months later, we stumbled upon the town while house hunting in southern Ontario, and ended up buying a place right next to the old Collegiate Institute.

Since it opened 136 years ago, the building – now Arthur Meighen Public School – has lost its grandeur. Pretty much everything that made it beautiful has been stripped away or hidden behind bland extensions. Still, it was a smalltown school that produced a prime minister. There's something inspirational in that.

Friday saw the final classes at Arthur Meighen Public School. The building is too old, they say. Those studying in seventeenth-century buildings at Université de Laval will not understand. Never mind, the developers have spoken. Its replacement sits on farmland adjacent the town's new Meadowridge subdivision.

Out there are also the subdivisions named, by God, after what the contractors had to eradicate to build them – Birch Hills (named after the grove bulldozed away preparatory to laying the foundation), Vineyard Acres after the rows of Concord grapes plowed under to make way for them.

– Peter DeVries, Reuben, Reuben

Despite a good effort by some dedicated, intelligent souls, the honour bestowed on Meighen will not be transferred. The new school, which opens today, is named Little Falls. We're told that was the town's original name. It wasn't, of course.

So much for education; so much for history.

Thanks to my old pal Chris for hunting down the DeVries quote.

Addendum:

Discovered in the school dumpster.

Related posts:

Meighen as Monster

That's 'EN', Not 'AN'

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.