'Autumn, 1917' and 'Autumn, 1917'

For this first day of the season, two century-old poems of the Great War, both titled "Autumn, 1917," both written by women on the homefront. The first, by Helena Coleman, the pride of Newcastle, Ontario, is found in her chapbook Marching Men (Toronto: Dent, 1917):

AUTUMN, 1917

(A.L.T.)

               We know by many a tender token
                    When Indian-summer days have come,
               By rustling leaves in branches oaken
                    And by the cricket's sleepy hum. 

               By aspen leaves no longer shaken,
                    And by the river's silvered thread,
               The oriole's swinging cup forsaken,
                    Emptied of music overhead. 

               By long slant lines on field and fallow.
                    By mellowing portals of the wood,
               By silences that seem to hallow
                    Inviting us to solitude.... 

               Are there young hearts in France recalling
                    These dream-filled, blue Canadian days,
               When gold and scarlet flames are falling
                    From beech and maple set ablaze? 

              Pluck they again the pale, wild aster,
                   The bending plume of golden-rod?
              And do their exiled hearts beat faster
                   Roaming in thought their native sod? 

              Dream they of Canada crowned and golden,
                  Flushed with her Autumn diadem?
              In years to come when time is olden,
                  Canada's dream shall be of them — 

              Shall be of them who gave for others
                   The ardour of their radiant years; —
              Your name in Canada's heart, my brothers,
                   Shall be remembered long with tears! 

              We give you vision back for vision,
                  Forgetting not the price you paid,
              O bearers of the world's decision,
                  On whom the nations' debt was laid! 

              No heart can view these highways glowing
                  With gold transmuted from the clod,
              But crowns your glorious manhood, knowing
                  You gave us back our faith in God.

Miss Coleman's poem also features in John W. Garvin's Canadian Poems of the Great War (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1917), in which we find another "Autumn, 1917." This one comes from the pen of Elizabeth Roberts MacDonald, sister to fellow poets Sir Charles God Damn, Theodore Goodrich, and William Carman Roberts.

AUTUMN, 1917 

                       The rain and the leaves together

                            Go drifting over the world;

                       Autumn has slipped his tether

                            And his flag of death unfurled. 

                       'Tomorrow — tomorrow — tomorrow — '

                            Hear how the grey wind cries!

                       Tomorrow the stark bare branches,

                            Tomorrow the steel-cold skies. 

                       The garnet leaves and the golden

                            Are tossed and trampled and thrown

                       As the hopes of man when the trumpets

                            Of crimson war are blown. 

                       Unleashed are the hounds of anguish

                            That hunt the heart of man

                       To tear its dream-bright garments,

                            To rend its valiant plan; 

                       Honour and valour, the priceless

                            Blood of our heroes slain, —

                       Shall their offering all be wasted,

                            Their sacrifice be vain? 

                       No; for the great ideal

                            For which our hearts have bled

                       Lives — by each field of honour,

                            Lives — by our countless dead; 

                       And a wind of Life is blowing,

                            A golden trumpet calls:—

                       'Rally — rally — rally, — 

                            Till the dark fortress falls!'

Related posts:

'A New Year comes white-winged, unstained, a star...':

Bethune Hallowell Bowen's 'The New Year, 1917 A.D.'

Verse from an April a Century Past:

Bernard Freeman Trotter's 'An April Interlude — 1917'

'Canada to England, July 1st 1917' by Horace Bray

'Over the Top: Ypres, July 31, 1917',

a War Poem by Sergeant Stanley B. Fullerton, Returned Soldier

Timely Verse from Christmas a Century Past:
Elizabeth Roberts MacDonald's 'A Christmas Star

The Honesty's Too Much: Dan Hill's Comeback

My promised review of Comeback, the 1983 novel by singer/songwriter Dan Hill is now available at the Canadian Notes & Queries website. An excerpt:

I hesitate in describing Comeback as an extraordinary novel because it is not very good; what I mean to say is that it’s unlike anything I’ve read. Let’s begin by recognizing that the author modelled protagonist/rapist, singer/songwriter Cornelius Barnes IV on himself. Like his creator, Barnes achieves fame in his early twenties with a hit considered by some as “the most romantic song of the decade,” but his star soon falls into the gutter. Now pushing thirty, it’s been five years since his last hit, and Barnes is without a recording contract. The other characters of note come from the author’s life: Cornelius Barnes III is modelled on his father, Daniel Hill III. Timothy Reynolds, Barnes’ high school friend and musical collaborator, is based on music producer Matthew McCauley. Timothy’s father bankrolls Barnes’ first album, just as McCauley’s did for Hill. Bernie Fiedler, owner of the legendary Riverboat Coffee House, plays himself.
     Sadly, Lawrence Hill, the author’s Giller Award-winning younger brother, does not feature.

You can read the whole thing here:

The Honesty's Too Much

Related post:

Sometimes When we Touch: Dan Hill Writes Six Sex Scenes

Ten Dusty Favourites from The Dusty Bookcase

Brian shares ten noteworthy finds on his bibliophilic journey, including gossip about the Eaton family, radish-heavy dialogue, and "the worst sex scene in all of Canadian literature."

The good folks at All Lit Up have just posted my overview of ten favourite Dusty Bookcase finds. You can read it through here.

Yep, the worst sex scene in all of Canadian literature – and it wasn't written by Dan Hill.

Related posts:

The Dusty Bookcase – The Book!

The Dusty Bookcase in the Toronto Star

Sometimes When We Touch: Dan Hill Writes Six Sex Scenes (NSFW)

Things have been pretty quiet here, I know. Much of these past two weeks has been taken up by other writing and promotion of The Dusty Bookcase – the book. This is not to say I haven't found time to read. Just yesterday I finished Comeback, the 1983 novel by Dan Hill, brother of Lawrence. It's one of the most unusual books read in this journey through Canada's forgotten, neglected, and suppressed writing. For reasons outlined in my review, which should follow in a few days, it is also one of the most disturbing. A roman à clef infused with self-loathing and sex scenes, at time of publication Maclean's dismissed Comeback as "soft-porn."

Because used copies listed online begin at C$115 ("20 pages throughout the book have splatter stains" – coffee, I hope), I present these excerpts.

You may wish to close your eyes and hide.

1

She felt awkward – no man had undressed her before. Her legs were pressed so tightly together that he finally had to pull off her suit in hurried jerky motions. She felt his warm breath against the opening of her vagina. As his hands opened her legs she shuddered and whispered. "No – please – don't."
     "It's alright," he murmured, his breath pounding into her, "it's alright."

2

Her nipples felt as soft and pliant as the erasers at the tip of a pencil, but her breasts were hard and unyielding – like a pair of Prince Edward Island potatoes

3

She drew my mouth against hers, kissing me with unusual tenderness, but the moment I closed my eyes she slid her hand into the salad bowl, scooped up a handful of grapes, and dropping them down the front of my pants. I squawked indignantly, sliding down the refrigerator and toppling on the floor, pulling her down on top of me as I fell. The salad bowl hit the floor with a crack and I slid it out of our way, leaving Maria and me a good double bed's worth of space to flop around in.

4

"You can touch it if you like."
     I timidly obliged.
     "Now trace your way down...slowly...softly...until you reach the opening.... That's right...hmmmmm...hmmmm...that's right, you're catching on...just a little at a time.... Oooohhhh, that feels like...hmmmm...like you've got the knack of it...."

5

She started running her hand up and down my thigh, as if I were nothing more than an extension of the bedspread, something that needed to be unwrinkled, smoothed over.

6

I felt her hands pull down my pants, felt her mouth take me in – gradually, a little at a time. My body stiffened, coiling itself up for impending release. I tried to step away. But she clasped her hands around my buttocks and drew me closer, deeper, and I lost myself to the sensation sweeping through me like a waterfall. I started falling to the floor – I didn't care – and my hands grabbed hold of her shoulders, pulling her with me. Somehow her mouth stayed fastened to me – my body curled around either side of her face – her mouth still sucking long after the last drop had trailed down her throat.

Sadly, this has now lost its innocence:

Related post:
The Honesty's Too Much: Dan Hill's Comeback

The Dusty Bookcase in the National Post

An extremely positive write-up by writer and editor Michael Melgaard in this weekend's National Post. "Anyone interested in the odd, the peculiar or the just plain fun will find something worth reading in The Dusty Bookcase," writes the reviewer. He concludes:

Even if you're not interested in reading the books, The Dusty Bookcase's tour through an alternate New Canadian Library is well worth reading for Busby's good humour. But if you're the sort of person who spends time digging through used bookshop dollar bins looking for forgotten gems, this is an indispensable guide to the hits and misses of Canadian literature's past.

Once again, the head doth swell!

Related posts:

The Dusty Bookcase - The Book!

The Dusty Bookcase in the Toronto Star

The Dusty Bookcase — The Book!

The Dusty Bookcase arrived at our home this past Friday, meaning copies are now making their way to bookstores across the country.

I'm a lucky man.

This blog began as a place to record and share my thoughts on obscure Canadian writing. At most, I was hoping to hear from others who had, say, read Brian Moore's pulp thrillers, or perhaps someone who'd encountered the mysterious David Montrose (né Charles Ross Graham). I didn't expect this blog would find life as a column in Canadian Notes & Queries. I wouldn't have dreamed it would lead to a gig as Series Editor of Véhicule Press's Ricochet imprint, through which the very obscurities I'd been writing about – Montrose included – would be returned to print.

As I say, I'm a lucky man.

Now comes The Dusty Bookcase book, published this week by Biblioasis, a collection of over one hundred of my favourite reviews, revisited and revised. I didn't expect this, either.

"Please tell me Bilingual Today, French Tomorrow made the cut." writes a friend. Indeed it did! What follows is a Table of Contents:

INTRODUCTION 

ALLEN
For Maimie's Sake - Grant Allen
The Devil's Die -Grant Allen
Michael's Crag - Grant Allen
Under Sealed Orders - Grant Allen
Hilda Wade - Grant Allen 

AWARD-WINNERS
The Unreasoning Heart - Constance Beresford-Howe
The Plouffe Family - Roger Lemelin
Mr. Ames Against Time - Philip Child
Fasting Friar - Edward McCourt
The Sin Sniper - Hugh Garner
The Secret of Jalna - Ronald Hambleton
Orphan Street - André Langevin 

BIGOTS & BUSINESSMEN
The Destiny of The British Empire and The U.S.A. -
"The Roadbuilder"
The Canada Doctor - Clay Perry and John L.E. Pell
The Squeaking Wheel - John Mercer
The Happy Hairdresser - Nicholas Loupos
Bilingual Today, French Tomorrow - J.V. Andrew
Retaliation - Richard Rohmer
Enough! - J.V. Andrew 

CATHOLICS & CLERGYMEN
Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk - Maria Monk
Neville Trueman - W.H. Withrow
The Master Motive - Laure Conan
The Broken Trail - George W. Kerby
The Abolishing of Death - Basil King
The Pyx - John Buell
Jean Rivard - Antoine Gérin-Lajoie
Arming for Armageddon - John Wesley White 

DICKS & DRUGS
Up the Hill and Over - Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
Bannertail - Ernest Thompson Seton
Artists, Models and Murder - Tedd Steele
The Penthouse Killings - Horace Brown
Die with Me, Lady - Ronald Cocking
Hot Freeze - Martin Brett
The Darker Traffic - Martin Brett
Return to Rainbow Country - William Davidson 

EROTICA, PERVERSION & RIBALDRY
The Door Between - Neil H. Perrin
Touchable - Lee Scott and Robert W. Tracy
The Whip Angels - Selena Warfield
A Stranger and Afraid - Marika Robert 

FUTURE PAST
Erres boréales - Florent Laurin
The House that Stood Still - A.E. van Vogt
The Lord's Pink Ocean - David Walker
The Last Canadian - William C. Heine
For My Country - Jules-Paul Tardival
Fermez la porte, on géle - René Carrier 

GOTH
The Midnight Queen - May Agnes Fleming
The Lane That Had No Turning - Gilbert Parker
Cattle - Winnifred Eaton
Crazy to Kill - Ann Cardwell
The Little Yellow House - Jessie McEwen
Satan's Bell - Joy Carroll

THE MILLARS
I Die Slowly - Kenneth Millar
The Iron Gates - Margaret Millar
Vanish in an Instant - Margaret Millar
An Air That Kills - Margaret Millar
The Fiend - Margaret Millar 

MOORE
Disowned and Distant
Sailor's Leave - Brian Moore
This Gun for Gloria - Bernard Mara
Intent to Kill - Michael Bryan
Murder in Majorca - Michael Bryan 

POLITICS
The Land of Afternoon - Gilbert Knox
Forgotten Men - Claudius Gregory
The Governor's Mistress - Warren Desmond
Margaret Trudeau - Felicity Cochrane
How Do You Spell Abducted? - Cherylyn Stacey  

POP & PULP
The Adventures of Jimmie Dale - Frank L. Packard
The Hohenzollerns in America - Stephen Leacock
Manhandled - Arthur Stringer and Russell Holman
Love is a Long Shot - Ted Allan
Soft to the Touch - Clark W. Dailey
Sugar-Puss on Dorchester Street - Al Palmer
Present Reckoning - Hugh Garner
Flee the Night in Anger - Dan Keller
A Body for a Blonde - Ken McLeod
Dale of the Mounted: Atlantic Assignment - Joe Holliday
The Quebec Plot - Leo Heaps 

ROMANCE
The Story of Louis Riel, the Rebel Chief - Anonymous
Barbara Ladd - Charles G.D. Roberts
The Chivalry of Keith Lancaster - Robert Allison Hood
The Wine of Life - Arthur Stringer
Miriam of Queens - Lilian Vaux MacKinnon
The Window-Gazer - Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
He Will Return - Helen Dickson Reynolds
Firebrand - Rosemary Aubert 

STRANGE SISTERS & LAVENDER MEN
Dark Passions Subdue - Douglas Sanderson
Murder Without Regret - E. Louise Cushing
The Queers of New York - Leo Orenstein 

TRUE CRIME
Bad Men of Canada - Thomas P. Kelley
Adopted Derelicts - Bluebell S. Phillips
The Confessions of a Bank Swindler - Lucius A. Parmalee 

VERSE
The Four Jameses - William Arthur Deacon
Everyday Children - Edith Lelean Groves
Poems of Arthur Henry Ward Jr. - Arthur Henry Ward 

WAR
In the Midst of Alarms - Robert Barr
Similia Similibus - Ulric Barthe
The Hidden Places - Bertrand W. Sinclair
The Runner - Ralph Connor
The Sixth of June - Lionel Shapiro 

THE WRITING LIFE
Toronto Doctor - Sol Allen
The House on Craig Street - Ronald J. Cooke
The Errand Runner - Leah Rosenberg
I Lost It All in Montreal - Donna Steinberg

This lucky man thanks Seth for the cover and design. I thank Chris Andrechek, who not only typeset the book but dealt with the 150 or so images I kept sending his way. My editor, Emily Donaldson, made me seem less stupider than I really is. Finally, I thank publisher Dan Wells for having faith in this book and my other crazy ideas.

There are more to come, I'm afraid.

Available at the very best bookstores and through

Biblioasis, Amazon, Chapters/Indigo, and McNally-Robinson.

Soldiering On with Edith Percival

Caught in the Snare: The Sequel to Edith Percival
May Agnes Fleming
New York: Street & Smith, [c. 1917]
215 pages

Describing Caught in the Snare as the sequel to Edith Percival is like saying that the last twenty chapters of Two Solitudes is Two Solitudes Two. Really, Caught in the Snare is just the second half of Edith Percival, a novel publisher Street & Smith divided in two because the length didn't fit its New Eagle Series format. It begins where Street & Smith's Edith Percival (reviewed here last week) left off, with virtuous Edith the captive of Ralph de Lisle. If all goes according to the villain's devious plan, she will soon be forced to marry him with fellow captive Frederic Stanley, her one true love, as witness. The publisher provides a helpful synopsis for those new to the story:

To be frank, I didn't much care to continue with Edith's story, though I did want to know what mysterious words were whispered by the Hermit of the Cliffs in saving Fred Stanley from execution. I made something of this when I wrote my review, adding that I thought the hermit "the most interesting character in Edith Percival."

I've changed my mind.

The hermit is hardly seen in the first half of the novel, but is here, there and everywhere in the second, used as a rudder to steer both characters and plot from a premature end. Depicted here in this cover detail from the 1890 Upton edition, he appears at the Percival family home with information as to where the kidnapped Edith is being held. The hermit next appears as Fred again faces execution – this time as our hero is in the process of being burned at the stake by de Lisle and a tribe of "savages." Once again, Fred's life is spared; once again Fred is in awe:

''Your power extends over more than superstitious savages,'' said Fred, "my father, stern and haughty as he is, quails before you as he has never done before any other living man. Would I knew the secret of your mysterious power!"
     A shadow passed over the face of the hermit, and when he spoke again his voice was unusually low and solemn:
     "Some day, ere long perhaps, you will learn all. Until that time, rest in peace, and believe this mystery is all for the best. I go now to my home on the cliffs, but something tells me we will soon meet again."

The chance that Fred – and, presumably, the reader – would one day "learn all" didn't provide much incentive, and still I tramped onward.

I'm glad I did, because the second half of Caught in the Snare is a wild ride, complete with crossdressing, attempted murder, arson, suicide, a trial, a marriage, more crossdressing, and another marriage. As one character remarks, "this sems [sic] so strange – so improbable – so like an Eastern romance." On the final page, the author manages to slide in one final marriage before the concluding paragraph:

And now, reader, farewell We have journeyed together long; but nothing can last forever. All things must have a close, and the characters who have passed before you must disappear from your view at last. I, too, must go from your sight, for the daylight is dying out of the sky, and my task is ended. I trust, however, we may, ere long, meet again.

We will, May Agnes Fleming, we will.

Object: A 218-page book (adverts included) printed on cheap paper and bound in thin glossy wraps. The cover model is not the same as that used on Street & Smith's Edith Percival. She bears no closer resemblance to the heroine described in the novel. On the other hand, it is possible that the woman on the cover is meant to be Elva Snowe (whom I've not mentioned for fear of spoiling the plot).

I won my copy for one American dollar in an eBay auction last summer. There were no other bidders.

Access: The University of Toronto, the University of Alberta, and the University of Victoria hold copies of Caught in the Snare, but not one has Street & Smith's Edith Percival. This leads me to wonder whether those in charge of acquisitions were taken in by the publisher's claim that it is a sequel.

At the time of this writing, one copy of Caught in the Snare was being offered for sale online. Price: US$25.00. It can be read for free through this link thanks to the good folks at the Internet Archive.

Related posts:

The Parents of the Children of the Revolution

Falling for May Agnes Fleming