10 December 2012

About Those Awful PaperJacks Covers



I don't mean to suggest that all PaperJacks covers were awful, but they did so often hurt the eyes. Consider the above, a detail from The Sixth of December, the subject of last Thursday's post.

Look away.

By far the worst cover PaperJacks ever produced was for Robert Kroetsch's The Words of My Roaring. One of their more attractive, it was ruined when the designer forgot to include Kroetsch's name.


The solution? Nasty-looking labels that look to have been cut and pasted by elementary school students. Here's another copy from Olman's Fifty.


One wonders when the folks at PaperJacks noticed? There are plenty of copies out there that have no trace of the offending label – and believe me, it would take an expert in paper conservation to remove that thing.


Competent, if uninspired, the cover for Kathleen Earle's Jenneth, Daughter of a Rebel is ruined by the pitch. Poor girl, "torn between the love of two men"... one of whom is a horse.


I've never known quite what to make of the quivering, friendly and freakish figure that graces the cover of Alan Fry's The Revenge of Annie Charlie.


Published in 1975, John Ballem's dark The Dirty Scenerio looks for all the world like a National Firearms Association annual report as designed by a poor man's Peter Max.


But for sheer awfulness, not one can hold a candle – or any similarly shaped object – to Marian Engel's phallus cover.


I call it One-Way Meat.

Related link:

06 December 2012

The Sixth of December


The Sixth of December
Jim Lotz
Markham, Ont.: Paperjacks. 1981

For your consideration, a Richard Rohmer-approved thriller that imagines Leon Trotsky responsible for the Halifax Explosion.

That's meant to be Trotsky on the front cover. Don't recognize him? How about here, in this detail from the back?


Don't believe me? Well, just read the cover copy. Blow it up if you wish.

No pun intended.


03 December 2012

Faith, Philanthropies and Verse for Air Raid Victims



Montreal in Verse:
     An Anthology of English Poetry by Montreal Poets
[Leo Cox, ed]
[Montreal]: Writers of the Poetry Group of the Canadian Authors Association, Montreal Branch, [1942]

A fundraiser in aid of the Queen's Canadian Fund for Air-raid Victims in Britain, this little chapbook of was published sixty years ago this month. Just in time for Christmas.


The Second World War looms large in these pages, but is dwarfed by Mount Royal.

(cliquez pour agrandir)
Thirty-two poets contribute thirty-two poems, and the hill that gives Montreal its name features in nearly half. I think the explanation may be found in the contributors' addresses. You won't find A.J.M. Smith, A.M. Klein or Leo Kennedy in these 48 pages, with few exceptions this is the verse of the city's privileged. And of this group, no one enjoyed greater status and comfort than Amy Redpath Roddick, whose family names kick off poetess Mildred Low's contribution, "Children of the McGill Campus":
Roddick and Redpath and old McGill,
Who, being dead, are living still,
How does it meet your kind intent
The way your benefice is spent?
Lady Roddick herself can't avoid same:


Six decades on, it's impossible to read this verse without thinking of F.R. Scott's "The Canadian Authors Meet" and the poets "measured for their faith and philanthropics". The good folks at Poetry Quebec have made a similar observation. That said, I'm not about to throw Montreal in Verse on the scrap heap. If anything, it reminds me of how much there is to explore of our literary past. Contributors Stella M. Bainbridge, Lily E.F. Barry, Warwick Chipman, Leo Cox, Lorraine Noel Finley, John Murray Gibbon, Christine L. Henderson, A. Beatrice Hickson, W.J King, Alice M.S. Lighthall, William D. Lighthall, Mildred Low, Margaret Furness MacLeod, Martha Martin, Dorothy Sproule, Jean Percival Waddell, Robert Stanley Weir and Margaret Ross Woods all had titles to their names, but I've yet to pick up even one of them.

Researching these names I discover that John Murray Gibbon once wrote a universally praised, yet entirely forgotten novel entitled Pagan Love (1922). Then there's R. Henry Mainer, whose Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road (1908) centres on a hard-as-nails widowed Upper Canadian tavern owner.


The most intriguing is A. Beatrice Hickson, whom Canada's Early Women Writers tells us not only founded and ran a school for "misdirected and wayward" girls, but "painted figurines which were unique in design and costume and whose popularity outran her ability to produce them."

In language and theme, Miss Hickson – she never married – stands apart from her polite and proper fellow poets:


Before reading this slim volume of verse I'd never heard of Leo Cox, who wrote these charitable lines in his Editor's Note:
As in all anthologies, quality and style vary considerably, but all the pieces possess in common a strong love of Montreal, of her history and infinite charm. These verses are a loving tribute from sensitive citizens.
Apparently Macmillan published a collection of Cox's verse in 1941. Must track it down. I'll pass on his  Story of the Mount Stephen Club.


Object: A nicely produced, staple-bound chapbook in red paper wraps, this copy comes to me from my father. The pencilled correction to Amy Redpath Roddick's poem is in an unknown hand. Dare I hope that it is the work of Lady Roddick herself?

The 1 May 1943 edition of the Gazette reports that nearly one thousand copies of Montreal in Verse had been sold, contributing $200 to the Queen's Canadian Fund. The selling price was 25¢.

Access: Not found in even one of our public libraries – those wishing to borrow a copy should look to our universities. Two copies are currently listed for sale online, the most expensive of which ($45) is dedicated and signed by contributor Jean Percival Waddell.

01 December 2012

The American Version: No Colours, Fewer Colors


The Colours of War
Matt Cohen
Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1977
The Colors of War
Matt Cohen
New York: Methuen, 1977

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28 November 2012

Bilingual Today, French Tomorrow and the Bigots of Yesteryear



Bilingual Today, French Tomorrow:

     Trudeau's Master Plan and How It Can Be Stopped
J.V. Andrew
Richmond Hill, ON: BMG, 1977
137 pages

This review now appears, revised and rewritten, in my new book:
The Dusty Bookcase:
A Journey Through Canada's
Forgotten, Neglected, and Suppressed Writing
Available at the very best bookstores and through

Related posts:

25 November 2012

This Year? Bust


Grey Cup or Bust
Tony Allan
Winnipeg: Stovel-Advocate, 1954

23 November 2012

A 19th-century Céline Dion and Her Horrible Hunchback Husband



'The Lane That Had No Turning'
The Lane That Had No Turning
     and Other Tales Concerning the People of Pontiac
Gilbert Parker
New York: A.L. Burt, 1900

This review now appears, revised and rewritten, in my new book:
The Dusty Bookcase:
A Journey Through Canada's
Forgotten, Neglected, and Suppressed Writing
Available at the very best bookstores and through


Related post: