The Season's Best Books in Review – A.D. 1917: The String of Canadian Patriotism is Fingered

The "Globe 100" of its time, I've long been interested in the Globe & Mail's "Season's Best Books in Review," which ran annually in the early part of last century. Regulars may remember me writing about it here and here. After all these years, I thought I knew the feature, and so was taken aback by the opening paragraphs of the 1917 edition, published one hundred years ago today. Unlike others, it begins with a focus on children's books, as recommended by Miss Lillian Smith of Toronto's Reference Library. E. Boyd Smith's The Story of Noah's Ark tops the librarian's list, followed by new illustrated editions of Uncle Remus, The Black Arrow, Kidnapped, and The Prince and the Pauper.

The Great War, the subject of the three previous introductions, intrudes only briefly – "There are war books for boys, though Miss Smith declares that girls, too, read them constantly. One of the best of these is 'The Post of Honor' by Richard Wilson" – and then it's back to Pinocchio, The Real Mother Goose, and the "Mary Frances" books by Jane Sayre Fryer.

Lest anyone think Canadians were beginning to tire reading of the war, I point out that the most prominent element of the feature's first page is "The Dead," by early casualty Rupert Brooke.

Brooke was himself over two years dead by then. A more recent loss – May 7, 1917 – was Bernard Freeman Trotter, whom McClelland, Goodchild & Stewart positioned as "the Canadian Rupert Brooke." He wasn't, of course, which is not to say that his poems do not affect. Consider "A Kiss":

Several column inches are devoted to Trotter's lone book, Canadian Twilight and Other Poems of War and of Peace, which was published just in time for Christmas gift giving. It came in its own box.

Of the seventy-six books listed in the 1917 "Season's Best," twenty were about or directly inspired by the war... and of those, the one I'd most like to add to my collection is Crumps: The Plain Tale of a Canadian Who Went. A book I've put off buying for far too long, it was written and illustrated by editorial cartoonist turned soldier Louis Keene. He seems to have been a lucky man, but not lucky enough, returning from the war with a mangled right hand. Here's hoping he was a lefty.

Keene is one of ten Canadians whose books made the thirty-one title non-fiction list. An impressive showing, but it pales when compared to our poets:

The year 1917 has been fruitful of good verse. Poetry was given a marked impetus at the beginning of the year by the publication a few weeks before of John W. Garvin's "Canadian Poets" (McClelland, Goodchild & Stewart). This notable work, which as steadily made its way in Canada, the United States and Great Britain, was recently referred to by the editor of The Poetry Review, London England, as a "monumental collection," and as "the one permanent celebration of the jubilee of the British North American Provinces."

Such was the force unleashed by Garvin's "permanent celebration" (last printed in 1917) that Canadian poets took up all twelve spots, pushing aside Eliot's Prufrock, and other observations, Gurney's Severn and Somme, Sassoon's The Old Huntsman, and Other Poems, Yeats' The Wild Swan's at Coole, and posthumous collections by Alan Seeger and Edward Thomas. Lt Trotter's Canadian Twilight and Other Poems of War and of Peace is joined by:

In a Belgian Garden - F.O. Call
Marching Men - Helena Coleman
Irish Lyrics and Ballads by Rev James B. Dollard
The New Joan - Katherine Hale
Songs of Ukrania by Florence Randall Livesay
Idylls of the Dane - Irene Elder Morton
The Piper and the Reed - Robert Norwood
Songs from a Young Man's Land by Clive Phillips-Wolley
Carry On - Virna Sheard
The Shell - A.C. Stewart
Heart of the Hills - Albert Durrant Watson

The 1916 "Season's Best" had wonderful things to say about new talent Robert Norwood, and his praises continued to be sung in 1917, but it seems much of the love had moved on:

Of recent years no Canadian poet has made more solid progress than Albert D. Watson of Toronto. His 'Love and the Universe' (1913) established him among the leaders of the new school of Canadian verse; and 'Heart of the Hills', recently published, contains several poems of great originality and power. Of these, the most outstanding is 'To Worlds More Wide.' It is aglow with a divine spirit and message.

In best "Season's Best" tradition, Canadian fiction is given short shrift. The most that can be said is that the fiction list leads with an enthusiastic review of Ralph Connor's The Major:

There is in it every element required: noble men, lovely women, a villain or two; also the string of Canadian patriotism is fingered, not tone harped upon; and there is an attempt to show the influence on a man of his early training and environment.

Discussion of The Major is several paragraphs longer than any other novel. And why not? After all, Connor was then our biggest author, outselling even Gilbert Parker and L.M. Montgomery (whose Anne's House of Dreams failed to make the list).* Other novels considered to be of note include works by foreigners H.G. Wells, Mary Robert Rinehart, Arthur Conan Doyle, Joseph Conrad, Phyllis Bottome, J.C. Snaith, Stephen McKenna, William MacHarg and Edwin Balmer. I'm sorry to report that only one other Canadian novelist, Basil King, is so much as mentioned. The description of his latest, The High Heart, is brief: "A love story of a Canadian governess with the war as a background."

I'm not quite sold on The Major or The High Heart. This may have something to do with the 1916 "Season's Best" dismissal of Canadian fiction as stagnant and undeveloped. But then, under "Books for Juveniles," the feature's final section. I came upon a novel that sounds as exciting as anything by J.C. Snaith. I refer here to Frank Lillie Pollock's Northern Diamonds, described as "an exciting and realistic story of three Canadian boys – one a young medical student, a big Scotch-Canadian – who comes with a wondrous tale told him by a sick Indian of the discovery of diamonds found in the country north of the Abitibi River, a packet of which had been left in a certain cabin; the Indian leaving hurriedly on an alarm of smallpox, deserting the prospectors a like strait. The boys are, of course, fired with the idea of of resuming the precious stones. The account of the start with steel-shod toboggan, piled high with 'grub,' and on skates to fly the frozen waters; and carrying snowshoes for their many portages; the making of camps, the game shot, the perils of land and water; the fight with the ruffians who come to the cabin; an especially exciting chase after a deer by 'Jack Light'; the trapping of some black foxes; the fearful cold; all go to make up a capital boy's book for a holiday gift."

Indeed! This boy would like to receive a copy as a holiday gift.

But, I wonder, would Miss Smith approve?

Lillian Smith
1887-1983
RIP

* Other Canadian novels that did not make the list include Frank L. Packard's The Adventures of Jimmie Dale (not surprising) and Up the Hill and Over by Isabel Ecclestone Mackay (somewhat surprising), both of which are reviewed in my new book.

Related posts:

The Season's Best Books in Review – A.D. 1916

The Season's Best Books in Review – A.D. 1915;

Featuring the Best Canadian Book Ever Published

The Halifax Explosion: Vultures Move In

The Globe & Mail, 8 December 1917

Related posts:

'Halifax in Ruins' by Stanley Burton Fullerton

Trotsky: The Accidental Terrorist

'Halifax in Ruins' by Stanley Burton Fullerton

Verse for the one hundredth anniversary of the Halifax Explosion by Stanley Burton Fullerton of Amherst, Nova Scotia. A carpenter by trade, the poet enlisted the month before his forty-seventh birthday. He was serving overseas at the time of the disaster.

Halifax in Ruins

It was on the sixth of December,
     The Day I never forget,
When steaming up our harbour,
     Came that Fatal Ship.

Then came the sound of fire
     What ever can it be?
It is on board that fatal ship,
     Loaded with that dangerous T.N.T.

Then came the roars like thunder,
     What ever can it be
Some thought it was the Germans
     From far across the sea.

Then came a flash like lightning,
     That swept over our town,
And crumbled up our buildings,
     And played them to the ground.

Then came the sound of weeping,
     And goals from everywhere.
My God! It is so dreadful to see
     Our loved ones perish there.

Then thousands came from everywhere,
     To help those loved ones in despair,
My God, To see that dreadful sight,
     With bodies strewn along the streets that night.

Such sights that were seen, can never be told
     From the ones that were rescuing those poor wounded souls.
Weeping and crying came from everywhere,
     And mothers offered up to God their favourite prayer.

The lights went out, the streets were dark,
     And groans were heard from every part.
Helping hands came from every where,
     To rescue those who were suffering there.

They toiled all night till break of morn,
     And then came down that dreadful storm.
And willing hands that worked so fast,
     Rescued those poor souls at last.

Doctors and nurses came from everywhere,
     Dressed the wound of the sufferers there.
In homes of comfort they were placed,
     With smiling courtesies on their faces.

The undertakers came from everywhere,
     And washed and dressed those who perished there.
Into their coffins they were laid,
     And taken to the resting place.

The tale of the rescuers can hardly be told,
     Of the brave ones, who worked in the storm and the cold.
They worked night and day and never gave up,
     Till the bodies were taken from under the stuff.

Here's to Capt. Harrison, who was thoughtful in mind,
     He saw there was danger in the ship that was moored.
So he cut her adrift and steamed out of the bay,
     And sailed her to safety, where no danger lay.

Now we come to the Steamer, that was ruined that day.
     Her anchor stock was blown two and a half miles away
Even box cars were blown across the wide waves,
     And her big guns were carried 'way out in the bay.

Now she is gone and will sail never more,
     Her big iron plates are all over out shores.
The game will be remembered for long years to come,
     The great wreck and ruin and sadness she done.

Now our people are cared for in huts everywhere,
     And their homes that were ruined, will soon be repaired.
And they will  be placed in their homes once more,
     And dwell by the harbour in peace ever-more.

Thanks to our Government, who thoughtfully responded
     Sending the needed with every-thing wanted.
In money and food stuffs that hastily came,
     To those who were homeless and deserving of same.

Even Australia responded to the call,
     And sent us their gold from that far off land.
To those who were suffering from that dreadful day
     And helped to build up their homes that were blown away.

And even dear England with her troubles at hand,
     She sent us assistance to built up the land
We'll never forget what she has done,
    And always be true to her. As true as the Sun.

Here's to the Star Spangles Banner that waves in the breeze,
     That stands for Liberty, over land and seas.
For the help they gave  in our time of need,
     And binds fighter the friendship for so noble a deed.

When the word was flashed across the line.
     That a helping and was needed.
How nobly the call was answered,
     From those true friends across the seas.

They sent us relief in abundance,
     It came from every-where.
To comfort our homeless loved ones.
     That were so sadly in despair.

Half of our town is lying in ruins,
     And our buildings are badly smashed.
But President Wilson says to build them up again
     And they will send over the cash.

Here's to that good old Union Jack,
     And to the Allies that are it'd defenders.
We thank the Star Spangled Banner
     For the help that they rendered.

The Union Jack and Stars and Stripes,
     I pray will always wave together,
God bless them for evermore,
     And our Maple Leaf Forever.

"Halifax in Ruin" appeared in the Fullerton's sixteen-page chapbook Poems (1918). It can be read in its entirety here, through the Internet Archive.

Note: "SGT. S.B. FULLERTON" is incorrect; in fact, the poet never rose above the rank of private. Let's just say it was a printer's error.

Related posts:

'Over the Top: Ypres, July 31, 1917', a Great War Poem

by 'Sgt. S.B. Fullerton, Returned Soldier'

Trotsky: The Accidental Terrorist

RIP NCL: A Multinational Reacts to a Eulogy

It has been a month since the publication of "For All Its Faults," my essay on the death of the New Canadian Library (CNQ 100).

The response was immediate. Penguin Random House replaced its NCL webpage, featuring Jane Austen, Herman Melville, Edith Wharton, W. Somerset Maugham,  and T.S. Eliot, with this:

It's an improvement, I suppose.

"For All Its Faults" is now available online – gratis – at the CNQ website. It can be accessed through this link.

Related posts:

Young Mister Richler on the New Canadian Library

Devolution, Evolution and Lateral Moves

About Those Ugly NCL Covers

Winning with the Erotic W.E.D. Ross

Congratulations go  to Eric Wilkinson, winner of last week's contest for a copy of The Dusty Bookcase. Eric's name was drawn from those who correctly guessed that Lust Planet – and not Airport Nurse, Arctic Nurse, Backstage Nurse, Bermuda Nurse, Front Office Nurse, Hotel Nurse, Night Club Nurse or even Operating Room Nurse – was the W.E.D. Ross book read for my next Canadian Notes & Queries Dusty Bookcase column.

Ross's second and final work of erotica, how could I resist? Sure, his first, The Case of the Naked Diver tempted, but Lust Planet promised a combination of erotica and science fiction!

I give something of the column away in writing that it may be the last W.E.D. Ross book I ever read.

The issue featuring my review – number 101! – will be coming out in the New Year. In the meantime, enjoy this cover image of the 1963 first edition of Ross's pseudonymously published Backstage Nurse. I find it strangely compelling.

Related posts:

The Erotic Brian Moore

The Erotic Mordecai Richler

The Homoerotic A.E. van Vogt
The Homoerotic E.J. Pratt
The Pornographic Edna Jaques

Win a Copy of The Dusty Bookcase!

Part of this past weekend was spent writing a new Dusty Bookcase column for the next issue of Canadian Notes & Queries. This time out I'm reviewing a book by W.E.D. Ross, Canada's most prolific novelist. The man is known to have written at least 358 novels, most of which were published under pseudonyms like Rose Dana, Rose Williams, Ruth Dorset, Olin Ross, and Jane Rossiter. As "Marilyn Ross" he penned thirty-two Dark Shadows tie-ins, including:

The book I reviewed for CNQ is not Barabas, Quentin and Dr. Jekyll's Son, but it is one of W.E.D. Ross novels below.

In the spirit of the season, I'm giving away a copy of my new book, The Dusty Bookcase, to a lucky person who guesses correctly the title that is the subject of my next column. Send me the title via email – the address is in my Blogger profile – and, if correct, I'll enter your name in a draw. The contest closes Sunday at midnight. The winner will be announced next Monday.

Bon chance!

Related posts:

The Dusty Bookcase in Publishers Weekly
The Dusty Bookcase in the National Post

The Dusty Bookcase in the Toronto Star
The Dusty Bookcase - The Book!

Winning with the Erotic W.E.D. Ross

Twenty-three Centuries of Freaky Fridays

Grandma's Little Darling
Stephen R. George
New York: Zebra, 1990
320 pages

Horror hasn't much figured here, yet the genre dominated my adolescent reading. James Herbert was my favourite author; there was something in the rhythm to his work – one chapter focusing on horror, the next on sex, then back to horror, then sex – that appealed. One particular passage from his second novel, The Fog, was read over and over. I would blush in revealing which one.

Other novelists of those awkward teenage years included Max Ehrlich (The Reincarnation of Peter Proud), Frank De Felitta (Audrey Rose), Stephen King (Carrie), Colin Wilson (The Space Vampires), Christopher Isherwood (Frankenstein: The True Story), Peter Benchley (Jaws), Richard Woodley (It's Alive), Arthur Herzog (The Swarm), Jeffrey Konvitz (The Sentinel), John Farris (The Fury), John  Russo (Night of the Living Dead), David Seltzer (The Omen), and Joseph Howard (Damien: Omen II). I'm tempted to include The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson... but, you know, it's a true story.

The only Canadian horror novel I read, Satan's Bell, was written by  Joy Carroll, a woman better known as the co-author of a pink-coloured book of etiquette entitled Mind Your Manners. It was published in 1954 by Harlequin.

We Canadians were slow to capitalize on the horror paperback craze. The first to make repeated stabs was Michael Slade with Headhunter and Ghoul, but these were published in the mid-eighties, by which the market had begun to wane and my interest had vanished. The decade was almost over when Stephen R. George, appeared on the scene. His debut novel, Brain Child, was published in 1989, as were his second (Beasts) and third (Dark Miracle). The following  year saw Dark Reunion and Grandma's Little Darling, a novel I bought for its cover illustration. A riff on Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 (Whister's Mother), it had me thinking that the novel might be set in nineteenth-century New England or Victorian London.

I was wrong.

Grandma's Little Darling begins twenty-three centuries ago in the Egyptian boudoir of Lamena, trophy wife of wealthy merchant Fasim Konar. Once "the most beautiful woman in Sandakla," she's been overtaken by her daughter Maline. Such is the girl's beauty that it has attracted the eyes of Riamon, a prince from neighbouring Zhima. Lamena cannot deny the signs of aging reflected in her polished silver looking glass.

Deepening lines calling for desperate measures, she visits the wizard Yashim. "I want to become young again," says she. "I want the life my daughter is about to have."

On the condition that he be granted access to Prince Riamon's court – "I long for the company of men." – Yashid casts a spell that will make it so mother and daughter switch bodies. On what would have been her wedding day, Maline awakens in horror to find herself in her mother's body, being caressed by her father.

Prince Riamon is pleased because his new wife, though clearly a virgin, exhibits "expertise in the bedchamber." True, every once in awhile he wonders about his young wife's mature ways... but, you know, "expertise in the bedchamber." Besides, the prince is exhausted.

Lamena’s downfall comes when she betrays Yashim. Concerned that the wizard will blab, she has him banished from the court. As might be predicted, this causes Yashim to do the very thing she sought to prevent. The wizard tells Riamon that his bride’s body is occupied by his mother-in-law, adding that Lamena is now able to leap from body to body.

The two search the palace, ending up in the common room of all the prince’s wives. There they find Maline – or the body of Maline – foaming at the mouth. Lamena has moved on!

“Wizard, you have brought evil to this place, and you shall pay for it,” says the prince. To be safe, he has his other wives taken to the courtyard, where they are soaked in pitch and set alight. Having fled to the body of a newborn girl, Lamena hears their screams.

This is all part of a prologue lasting less than six pages. It’s a lot to take in, though readers are afforded more than enough chance to catch their breaths in the sluggish pages that follow.

The first chapter skips to fin du millénaire – the last one – and the Minneapolis Children’s Home, where we’re introduced to twelve-year-old Nora Harris, the girl depicted on the cover in Ruth Bader Ginsburg garb. Four years earlier, her parents and only sibling were killed. She’s had a rough go of it ever since. Social worker Cheryl Gibson has been doing her best to place the girl with couples interested in adoption, but nothing has quite worked out. Nora is about to begin her seventh placement in suburban Minneapolis. She’s told this is her last chance, so the pressure is on. Prospective parents the Johnsons are okay, and their son, Buddy, proves a pal, but Grandma – everyone calls her Grandma – looks to be a challenge.

Recently widowed, Grandma has suffered a stroke or something that has left her not quite right. What really happened is that Lamena has taken over her body… and now has her sights set on Nora!

"BE AFRAID, NORA… BE VERY AFRAID!"

Because I no longer read horror novels, and don’t remember much of those tackled in my teens, my criticisms may be unfair:

• Prologue aside, the first half of the novel is slow and repetitious; the horrific is pretty much limited to old lady smells;
• Lemena aside, the characters – Nora Harris, Dr Gibson, the Millers, and the Johnsons – are as unique as their surnames;
• Cheryl’s live-in boyfriend just happens to be the editor of Unnatural Journal, a newsletter devoted to the paranormal.

Because I'm all about being fair, credit is due the author in setting the climax in the shopping court of  Minneapolis’s IDS Centre (which looks to be a special kind of hell).

There's also a bit of a twist ending. George gives a few too many hints in advance, but it is interesting. The most intriguing part of the novel comes mid-point with the revelation that Lemena had been found out a century earlier – resulting in the murders attributed to Jack the Ripper.

Seems a brilliant idea for a novel. Has it been written?

As I say, I no longer read horror novels.

Favourite passage:

She kept thinking of Nora. Of the girl, trapped inside that old woman’s body. Of the thing inside Nora’s body.
     Oh, God, what a story.
     Even if others did not believe her, she could not leave the situation as it was. She owed it to Nora to do something.
     The question was what?

Bonus:

Object and Access: A cheap mass market paperback with raised gold foil. Sadly, the cover illustration is uncredited.

Library and Archives Canada has a copy, but that's it as far as our libraries are concerned. Those looking to purchase a copy will find five listed for sale online beginning at US$7.50. The second cheapest is listed at US$11.52. The remaining three copies range in price from US$52.43 to US$134.45. Needless to say, condition is not a factor.

Related posts:

Our Stephen
Ontario Gothic Romance (with the scent of Brut)

Reading and Remembering Katherine Roy