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| Maclean's, 15 December 1934 |
Library Loot: November 20 to 26
6 hours ago
25 December 2020
24 December 2020
'Old Lady Christmas Shopping' by Edna Jaques
21 December 2020
Best Books of 1920: Beware the Bolshevik Poets
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| The Globe, 4 December 1920 |
The 1920 Globe round-up of the year's best books was published on the first Saturday of that December. Twenty-four months had passed since the Armistice, and the introduction takes pains to position the conflict in the past:
This bold pronouncement follows:
The war has passed into history and even the "aftermath" is over.
Sure, but a good many titles concerning the Great War feature, and a new category makes its debut:
No, the conflict is still very much felt. Loss and sacrifice continue to inspire poetry, such as Our Absent Hero by Mrs Durie, the widow of Capt William Arthur Peel Durie.
Captain Durie died at Passchendaele on 29 December 1917 in an effort rescue wounded comrades in No Man's Land.
Captain Durie died at Passchendaele on 29 December 1917 in an effort rescue wounded comrades in No Man's Land.
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| Capt William Arthur Peel Durie 1881 - 1917 RIP |
Another of the newspaper's poetry selections, J. Lewis Mulligan's The Beckoning Skyline and Other Poems (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1920), includes fifteen pieces of verse inspired by the war.
The 1920 Globe list recognizes a total of seven Canadian books of poetry, the others being:
Acanthus and Wild Grape - F.O. CallLeaves on the Wind - Rev D.A. CaseyApple Blossoms - Carrie Wetmore McCollLady Latour - Rev W.I. MorseRhymes of a Northland - Hugh L. Warren
This is something of a return to form. Where in 1918, the paper gave notice to eight Canadian volumes of verse, the 1919 list featured all of two (one of which, Pauline Johnson's Flint and Feather, had been published seven years earlier).
As is so often the case in the paper's annual book list, the "Poetry" section brings columns of comment, much if it designed to distance we Canadians from our American cousins:
As is so often the case in the paper's annual book list, the "Poetry" section brings columns of comment, much if it designed to distance we Canadians from our American cousins:
We usually write in metre and dislike poetical as well as other kinds of Bolshevism. It is merely the affectation of free verse that makes American 'poetry' more distinctive – or notorious – than Canadian. It is a cheap substitute for originality.There has been a great deal more verse published this year than appears in the publishers' lists. Nearly all of it has been printed at the authors' expense, and it has been circulated largely 'among friends.' This practice is not to be despised or discouraged, unless it raises false hopes in authors who have merely the faculty of rhyming without possessing poetical talent or literary judgement.
There are 264 titles in the 1920 Globe list, fifty-three of which are Canadian. Just six of the fifty-three – all novels, no poetry – feature in my library:
Going by the Globe, 1920 was as good year for the country's novelists and short story writers; twenty of the 114 fiction titles are Canadian:
Aleta Dey - Francis M BeynonThe La Chance Mine Mystery - S. CarletonGlen of the High North - H.A. Cody
Sheila and Others - Winifred CotterThe Conquering Hero - Murray GibbonEyes of the Law - Ethel Penman HopeDaisy Herself - Will E. IngersollThe Luck of the Mounted - Sgt Ralph KendallThe Thread of Flame - Basil KingA Son of Courage - Archie P. McKishaleGraydon of the Windermere - Evan McKowanEvery Man for Himself - Hopkins MoorhouseThe Forging of the Pikes - Anson North
No Defence - Gilbert ParkerPoor Man's Rock - Bertrand W. SinclairDennison Grant - Robert SteadThe Prairie Mother - Arthur StringerThe Rapids - Alan SullivanThe Viking Blood - Frederick William WallaceStronger Than His Sea - Robert Watson
For the first time, the newspaper lumps together Canadian fiction, though it errs in failing to recognize Basil King, Prince Edward Island's second bestselling author, as a fellow countryman. The Thread of Flame, Rev King's sixteenth novel, is listed with This Side of Paradise under the heading "By Other Authors."
I've read all of two of the twenty. The Thread of Flame ranks as my favourite King novel after The Empty Sack. The other, Hopkins Moorhouse's Every Man for Himself didn't make so much of an impression. I found it even less interesting than described:
Of the remaining novels, The Prairie Mother was reprinted for a decade or so. In 1972, Alan Sullivan's The Rapids enjoyed a brief second life with the University of Toronto Press. It can' be argued that the most enduring Canadian novel of 1920 is Aleta Dey, which was revived in 1988 as a Virago Modern Classic. It remains in print to this day in a Broadview Press edition.
This country fares much worse in other categories. Where in 1919, Canadian authors took six of the coveted "Economics" titles, the 1920 showing amounts to A Study of Canadian Immigration by Prof W.G. Smith and Occupations for Trained Women in Canada by Mrs Vincent Massey. If forced to choose, I guess I'd read the latter. It might be interesting to see what advice Mrs Massey, daughter of Sir George Robert Parkin, wife of one of Canada's most privileged men — a future Governor General, no less — might have for the working woman.
The Canadian titles in the "Historical" category are a touch more tempting:
Hydro-Electric Development in Ontario - E.B. Biggar
The Cross-Bearers of the Sanguenay - Very Rev W.R. HarrisThe Evolution of the Oil Industry - Victor Ross
The Life and Times of Sir Alexander Tilloch Galt - O. D. Skelton
The Life and Work of Sir William Van Horne - W. Vaughan
A new edition of Katherine Hale's biography of Father Lacombe and a revised edition of George H. Locke's When Canada was New France. also feature, but the real standout is George T. Denison's Recollections of a Police Magistrate, which is deemed "our outstanding Canadian book of the year."
This is something new; the Globe had never before made such a pronouncement. Here's its description:
I haven't yet cracked open Recollections of a Police Magistrate — copies begin at $245 — but it can be read for free here thanks to the Internet Archive,
I prefer paper, myself.
Consider me old fashioned.
Tempted as I am to leave it there, this being 2020, I can't help but note that the 1920 Globe list — like those of 1918 and 1919 — features not so much a passing reference to the Spanish Flu.
Not one mention,
Not one book.
14 December 2020
The Dusty Bookcase Christmas Gift List
A trying year all around, right? The Westons have been making out like bandits while we've been obsessing over our PC Optimum points balances. If any good has come out of this pandemic, it's found in communities coming together. Our family isn't alone in choosing to buy our meat, eggs, fruits, vegetables, jams, and honey directly from local farmers.
Take that, Galen Weston!
While we have no local book publishers in Merrickville, Ontario, our household has become even more focussed in spending its money on titles published by Canadian houses. And so, for the first time in Dusty Bookcase history, I present a list of Christmas gift recommendations, beginning with limited editions offered by Biblioasis. The pride of Windsor, the publisher has this year been offering attractive numbered and signed hardcovers of some of its most recent titles.
I took out a subscription myself, and then found myself spoiled by all sorts of additional treats, like this collection of Indie Bookseller Trading Cards.
No fool I, my package of cards remains unopened. Imagine how much it'll be worth in 2040!
The most recent limited edition, Jason Gruriel's Forgotten Words, was accompanied by advance reader's copies of Randy Boyagoda's Original Prin and Rain and Other Stories by Mia Couto. Also included was this brilliant chapbook:
Take that, Jeff Bezos!
Give a loved one a subscription, if you can. If you've got more or less to spare, the rest of this inaugural Dusty Bookcase Christmas Gift List is as follows:
They Have Bodies
Barney Allen
Ottawa: University of
Ottawa: University of
Ottawa Press
The literary debut by a novelist I've suggested is Canada's strangest. First published by Macaulay in 1929, I'd been on the hunt for an affordable copy for years. At $29.95, this reissue is a steal. Gregory Betts' informative introduction and notes made me feel I'd really got away with something.
Swallowed [L’Avalée des
avalés]
Réjean Ducharme [trans
Réjean Ducharme [trans
Madeleine Stratford]
Montreal: Véhicule
L’Avalée des avalés was taught in my Québecoise wife's high school, but not mine; this anglo-Montrealer was well into his thirties before he'd so much as heard of it. The greatest French Canadian novel of the 'sixties is here in the hands of one of our most talented translators.
English-Canadian
Women in Print and on
the Air, 1914-1960
Peggy Lynn Kelly & Carole
Gerson
Ottawa: Tecumseh
A study of unjustly neglected English Canadian women novelists, short story writers, humorists, historians, journalists, and broadcasters, including Dusty Bookcase favourites Edna Jaques and Isabel Ecclestone Mackay.
The Complete Adventures
of Jimmie Dale, Volume
Two
Frank L. Packard
[np: Michael Howard]
The second in Michael Howard's series of annotated Gray Seal adventures, this volume covers The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale and Jimmie Dale and the Phantom Clue. It all leads me to wonder why the Gray Seal hasn't made it to television. Walt Disney would agree.
[np: Michael Howard]
The second in Michael Howard's series of annotated Gray Seal adventures, this volume covers The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale and Jimmie Dale and the Phantom Clue. It all leads me to wonder why the Gray Seal hasn't made it to television. Walt Disney would agree.
07 December 2020
Ten Best Book Buys of 2020 (& Three Great Gifts)
As might be expected, most of the books added to the bookcase this strange year were bought online. You'll see I was particularly drawn to signed copies – something to do with the daily reminders of mortality, I suppose.
What follows are the nine other titles in this year's top ten.
An African Millionaire
Grant Allen
New York: Edward Arnold,
New York: Edward Arnold,
1897
The first American edition, this isn't the best of copies – I am not a wealthy man – but at US$27.00 it was a great find. Responding to my review of Allen's The Woman Who Did, a friend suggested that An African Millionaire is the author's better-known book. Perhaps, but is it as good?
Mon cadavre au Canada
Martin Brett [Douglas
Sanderson; trans Bruno
Martin]
Paris: Gallimard, 1955
The French translation of our greatest post-war noir novel. The story is abridged and Bruno Martin is clumsy, but that didn't stop me from also buying Estocade au Canada, his translation of Sanderson's A Dum-Dum for the President.
Pascal Berthiaume
Francis DesRoches
Francis DesRoches
Quebec: Elite, 1932
A novel brought to my attention by Jean-Louis Lessard of Laurentiana. His review of this short novel of romance and small town politics intrigued. I was not disappointed!
Signed by the author.
Married, Yet No Wife;
A novel brought to my attention by Jean-Louis Lessard of Laurentiana. His review of this short novel of romance and small town politics intrigued. I was not disappointed!
Signed by the author.
Or, Told in the Twilight
Mary Agnes Fleming
Mary Agnes Fleming
New York: Street &
Smith, [c. 1916]
A fragile paperback published during the Wilson administration, it crumbles to the touch. The nineteenth-century Carleton editions hold up better, but I do like that cover. The title, which predates same-sex marriage in Canada by more than a century, intrigues.
Fred Jacob
Toronto: Macmillan, 1928
Bland boards, lacking dust jacket – please tell me one has survived – and still this ranks as one of my favourite finds. I've been meaning to read poor Fred Jacob for ages. The first sentence grabbed me: "In the Hortop family, innovation was looked upon as something to be combated."
Victor Lauriston
Toronto: McClelland &
Stewart, 1922
An early Canadian mystery, this is Lauriston's only novel. Amongst his other books are A Century of Milling, 1848-1948: the story of the T.H. Taylor Company Limited, Chatham, Ontario and Blue Flame of Service: A History of Union Gas Company and the Natural Gas Industry in Southwestern Ontario. Inscribed by the author.
An early Canadian mystery, this is Lauriston's only novel. Amongst his other books are A Century of Milling, 1848-1948: the story of the T.H. Taylor Company Limited, Chatham, Ontario and Blue Flame of Service: A History of Union Gas Company and the Natural Gas Industry in Southwestern Ontario. Inscribed by the author.
Frederick Niven
Toronto: Dent, 1945
Niven never had much of a profile, so how is it that Mine Inheritance, of which I'd never heard, was once abridged and edited as a school text? This copy, found in an Ottawa bookstore, came from the library of Henry C. Miller, founder of the legendary Graphic Publishers.
Arthur Stringer
Indianapolis: Bobbs-
Merrill, 1944
The last of Stringer's forty-four novels, I purchased this on a whim, sight unseen, from an online bookseller located in author's birthplace (Chatham, Ontario). Hollywood figures, as it did in the life of the author. Will you look at that cover! Signed by Stringer!
The last of Stringer's forty-four novels, I purchased this on a whim, sight unseen, from an online bookseller located in author's birthplace (Chatham, Ontario). Hollywood figures, as it did in the life of the author. Will you look at that cover! Signed by Stringer!
Phyllis Brett Young
Toronto: Longmans, 1959
The first edition of the author's first novel – signed by the author, with a gift inscription from her mother – how this ended up in a Wallingford, Oxfordshire bookshop is anyone's guess. It has now been repatriated. I made the purchase while working on the Ricochet reissue of The Ravine, Phyllis Brett Young's only thriller.
Three generous souls sent books which, had they not been gifts, would have been considered amongst the year's best buys:
Atomic Plot
Joe Holliday
Joe Holliday
Toronto: Allen,
[1959]
Of the fourteen Dale of the Mounted books, this is the one I'd most wanted to read. I mentioned as much when reviewing Dale of the Mounted: Atlantic Assignment. Chris Otto of Papergreat heard my wish.
Wilson MacDonald
Toronto: The Author, 1930
Number 449 in this "AUTHOR'S EDITION, WHICH IS LIMITED, NUMBERED AND AUTOGRAPHED." The poet inscribed this copy to Healey Willan. A gift from Fiona Smith, does this go in my MacDonald collection or my Willan collection? I can't decide!
Jacket Coates
Herbert Fairly Wood
Toronto: Longmans,
Herbert Fairly Wood
Toronto: Longmans,
1966
A gift from old pal James Calhoun, who worked with me in returning Peregrine Acland's All Else is Folly to print. The Private War of Jacket Coates is Canada's only novel of the Korean War. How is it that there was only one? And why is he title so bad? I aim to find out.
There's more to my purchase of Arthur Beverley Baxter's The Blower of Bubbles. On that day I was in Perth for the celebration of the 101st birthday of André Hissink, my grandfather.
A man born in 1919, in the midst of the Spanish Flu pandemic, two months after his 101st birthday he came down with COVID-19... and he beat it.
Here's hoping I share those genes.
Here's hoping you all are safe and well.
Related posts:
02 December 2020
Nazis Threaten from Beyond the Grave!
The Sleeping Bomb
James Moffatt
London: New English Library, 1970
James Moffatt
London: New English Library, 1970
125 pages
Jim used to say, "It's a business, it's the way I make my money, and I can live this way. I mean, people who write hardbacks can take a very, very long time to write them, which is very nice if you've got a good income behind you. Jim didn't have. I mean, he simply wrote to live, and he enjoyed doing it.— Derry Moffatt, 1996
The Sleeping Bomb appeared at news agents a few months after the author's pseudonymously published Skinhead. I wonder whether Moffatt knew by that time that he'd scored a smash hit. Skinhead was easily his biggest seller, spawning Suedehead (1971), Boot Boys (1972) Skinhead Escapes (1972) Skinhead Girls (1972), Top Gear Skin (1973) Trouble for Skinhead (1973) Skinhead Farewell (1974), and Dragon Skins (1975).
The Sleeping Bomb is a lesser work. Bereft of braces and Doc Martins, it begins on the other side of the pond – beneath the Hudson River, to be exact – with the discovery of a thirty-year-old one-man Nazi submarine during the construction of a new tunnel linking New York and New Jersey.
CIA agent Paul Henderson is assigned the case.
Why the CIA?
I have a theory – which is mine – that Moffatt knew he was out of his element when it came to responsibilities, jurisdictions, command structures, and the like. For this reason, he sets the novel in not-so-distant 1975, a year in which the armed forces of Canada, the United States, Mexican, and the United Kingdom fall under the centralized authority of the North Atlantic Defence Alliance. Intelligence agencies are being unified in a similar manner, which explains how Henderson ends up working under a Brit named Silas Manners
Why the CIA?
I have a theory – which is mine – that Moffatt knew he was out of his element when it came to responsibilities, jurisdictions, command structures, and the like. For this reason, he sets the novel in not-so-distant 1975, a year in which the armed forces of Canada, the United States, Mexican, and the United Kingdom fall under the centralized authority of the North Atlantic Defence Alliance. Intelligence agencies are being unified in a similar manner, which explains how Henderson ends up working under a Brit named Silas Manners
Not Silas Marner.
Not Miss Manners.
Because the sub is armed and booby-trapped, its hull cannot be breached. Dials, some broken, indicate that it contains a time bomb that is set to explode at some point in 1975. Whether government, intelligence or military, no one knows just just what will happen, but everyone is sure it'll be really, really bad.
Because the sub is armed and booby-trapped, its hull cannot be breached. Dials, some broken, indicate that it contains a time bomb that is set to explode at some point in 1975. Whether government, intelligence or military, no one knows just just what will happen, but everyone is sure it'll be really, really bad.
The situation is so dire that I wondered why Henderson and Manner were left on their own to figure it all out. Restructuring, perhaps. As in any Richard Rohmer novel, the pair spend a good amount of time flying from place to place in an effort to get to the bottom of things. In their travels, they learn that the sub carries a "parasitic bomb" which will kill everyone within an area amounting to 250,000 square kilometres.
The Americans published The Sleeping Bomb as The Cambri Plot. I mention this because because Cambri – "Project Cambri" – is referenced a couple of times early in the novel.Sure seems important. The ABC Movie of the Week President of the United States has a conniption when Paul Henderson let's slip that he's heard about it:
"WHAT!! Where did you hear that name, Henderson?"Paul wished to hell he'd kept his big mouth shut. "In General Herschfeld's office, sir. I overheard it when I paid a visit to him...""Have you mentioned this to your colleagues?""No, sir!""Thank God!" The president's heavy breathing could be heard clearly.
Project Cambri involves rockets that can land on a pinprick. Their purpose is to carry documents and diplomats that might otherwise be intercepted by the Soviets.
That Project Cambri – note: not "The Cambri Plot" – is barely mentioned must have seemed strange to American readers. It vanishes in the early pages, only to reappear as the climax approaches. With three pages to go, I was interrupted by Kiefer, our nine-month-old Schnauzer. We played, and then went for a long walk.
As we made our way along our lonely rural road, I thought of everything that was wrong with the novel. I wondered whether visitors to East Germany were never searched. I tried to imagine Henderson piloting a locomotive across several hundred meters of railway ties, and then managing to get it back in the tracks.
Yeah, that happens.
Yeah, that happens.
More incredible was the Nazi plan, which involves planting a time bomb during the dying days of the Second World War and then waiting, waiting, waiting... The detonation, thirty years later, is intended to both bring about the reunification of a country that hadn't yet been divided and bring the world to its knees. Why not just set the bomb off in 1945? Why not kill millions and threaten millions more? Wouldn't that have brought the war to a sudden end? Wouldn't that have given Hitler the upper hand?
I'll never understand Nazis; James Moffatt's Nazis included.
Favourite passage: "CRAAAAASH! Wood splintered, flew in every direction. CRUUUUMP!"
Trivia I: New English Library's cover copy (below) was clearly written by someone who had not read the novel. The bomb would cover 250,000 square miles, not one thousand.
No neo-Nazis figure.
No neo-Nazis figure.
Trivia II: Silas Manners reappears in Moffatt's Justice for a Dead Spy (London: New English Library, 1971).
Object: A slim, cheap mass market paperback. The novel itself is followed by three pages of adverts for other New English Library books.
Isn't this tempting!
Access: The Sleeping Bomb enjoyed one lone printing. Five copies are listed for sale online at prices ranging from £3.95 to £6.19. Condition isn't much of a factor.
The Cambri Plot was published in 1973 by Belmont Tower. Copies of that edition range from US$4.10 to US$55.42.
The novel last appeared as a Spanish translation, La Vengganza de Hitler, "una novela escalofriante," published in Mexico City in 1974 by Novaro.
Whether academic or public, not one copy of any is held by a Canadian library.
01 December 2020
Just like a paperback novel...
If I could read your mind, loveWhat a tale your thoughts could tellJust like a paperback novelThe kind the drugstore sellsWhen you reach the part where the heartaches comeThe hero would be meBut heroes often failAnd you won't read that book againBecause the ending's just too hard to take
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