The Dusty Bookcase:A Journey Through Canada'sForgotten, Neglected, and Suppressed Writing
The latest issue of Canadian Notes & Queries is library-themed, and to celebrate its launch we’re holding an informal panel discussion on the role of libraries in Windsor and beyond. Want to learn more about the social challenges libraries face as one of the few remaining (free) public institutions? How librarians and publishers are negotiating rights for e-book lending? What the best arguments are in favour of growing a library’s physical archives? Join us for these discussions and more at the store.Everything else you need to know is on the poster above. Click for a larger view, 'tis a thing of beauty.
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| Gwethalyn Graham 18 January 1913 – 26 November 1965 |
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| Life, 19 February 1945 |
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| Ottawa Citizen 12 October 1946 |
At the risk of sounding ungrateful – which Heaven knows I am not – being so strongly identified with one book and one title gives one an awful feeling at times, and I should like to forget all about Earth and High Heaven and get on to something else if I can, and, with luck do a better job next time.Gwethalyn Graham never could forget Earth and High Heaven... and yet we did.
The Library occupies approximately 29 feet of shelf-space, and comprises 526 books and 88 periodicals – most of them signed and annotated – as well as hundreds of other printed items, letters, and manuscripts. Editions are usually First. Except for books or periodicals published before 1940, condition is usually Fine. On the rare occasions were pages are missing, these are indicated. The price of JOHN GLASSCO: A PERSONAL AND WORKING LIBRARY is Can$9500.That's right, $9500. And yet only one institution stepped forward. And it wasn't McGill, his alma mater.
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| The Metropolitan, 10 February 1894 |
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.
