This review now appears, revised and rewritten, in my new book:The Dusty Bookcase:A Journey Through Canada'sForgotten, Neglected, and Suppressed WritingAvailable at the very best bookstores and through
Most dust jackets add to the confusion in trumpeting "The All-Canada Fiction Award".THE RYERSON FICTION AWARDThe All-Canada Prize Novels
If this is the "All-Canada Fiction Award" as the dust cover asserts, it has been a slim year for the novel, or at least for the publisher who has the presumption to imply that this is the best work of fiction published in Canada in the past year.Edward McCourt's Music at the Close is the only title to have been included in the New Canadian Library. Tellingly, I think, the author used the opportunity to revise the text. NCL has since dropped the novel.
A novel covering four decades of Canadian life, set in Canada, France and Britain. "The author is merciless in his handling of shoddy Top Hats, fake Utopia Builders, spurious Abundant Lifers and Crack Pots of all sorts." – jacket."I remember when this was a very common book that no one wanted," continues Mr Temple. "It is surprisingly scarce, and saleable, in the market today. But it ain't no four figure book, not even close."
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| Here Stays Good Yorkshire Will R. Bird 1945 |
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| Day of Wrath Philip Child 1945 |
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| Music at the Close Edward McCourt 1947
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| Desired Haven Evelyn M. Richardson 1953 |
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| Immortal Rock Laura Goodman Salverson 1954
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| Repent at Leisure Joan Walker 1957 |
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| The King Tree Gladys Taylor 1958
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The court-house clock boomed five times and Mr. Ames performed the rite of taking out his watch. It never failed to give him a small satisfaction to find that his watch was exactly on time, for he was a man who liked things in order: watch in order, clothes however shabby in order, conscience neatly in order.At the right, we can see the Urania Burlesque Theatre, at which Mr. Ames serves as doorman.
A dog chased a cat across Mr. Ames' path...
In opposition to company policy during these early years, Steven was able to discreetly insert his name or an initial on the occasional dust jacket or illustration, something that appears to have been easier in the early 1950s. The jackets for Philip Child's Mr. Ames against Time [sic] (1949), J.V. McAree's Cabbagetown Store (1953), and William Arthur Deacon's The 4 Jameses (1953), among others, are signed "Steven" in very small letters; Isabelle Hughes' The Wise Brother (1954) and the map endpapers of Marjorie Freeman Campbell's Niagara: Hinge of the Golden Arc (1958) are signed with a very small 'S' in the lower right corner. These "signatures" are the first indicators of a consistent design presence at Ryerson in the post-Thoreau MacDonald years.This, of course, has sent me running to the bookcase. Sure enough, I found "STEVEN" by the side of the road on the cover of Cabbagetown Store.
The Dusty Bookcase:A Journey Through Canada'sForgotten, Neglected, and Suppressed Writing
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| from Open Water (New York: John Lane, 1914) |
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| from The Poems of Wilfred Campbell (Toronto: William Briggs, 1905) |
From the information available in our records, the informant for the passing of Mr. William Wilfred Campbell was his son in law [sic] Mr. E. Malloch. He is probably the person who provided the information on Mr. Campbell to the funeral home (‘Rogers & Burney Fineral Home’) and to the cemetery. Our records indicate that Mr. Campbell was 56 when he passed, that is why you get the ‘abt 1862’ year of birth on the ancestry website. We do not have any other details on the date of birth.Confidence is further shaken by the plaque itself, which sums up Campbell's life in just two sentences:
AN OUTSTANDING FIGURE IN CANADIAN POETRY, CAMPBELL HAD A LONG AND DISTINGUISHED CAREER AS A WRITER, CLERGYMAN AND CIVIL SERVANT. HE AUTHORED MANY NOVELS AND WAS APPOINTED INTO THE DEPARTMENT OF MILITIA IN 1883 AND THEN IN 1897 MOVED TO THE PRIVY COUNCIL OFFICE."HE AUTHORED MANY NOVELS"?
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| from Fires of Driftwood (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1922) |
