02 July 2013

Of Old Books and (possibly) Mummy Paper



Delightfully charming, unconventionally sentimental schoolgirl verse from Ethel Ursula Foran, whose "New Year's Day" has proven to be by far the most popular poem posted on this blog. Here a very young Miss Foran turns her attention towards favourite things material:


The dead, the embalmed, the mausoleumed... I'm certain that this is the first verse I've read to feature the word "sarcophagi".
            You chat and live with dead men of thought
            As you sit and pursue the words they wrought.
            They are peaceful companions that never betray,
            Nor dispute, nor quarrel, for silent are they.
'Tis lovely, though one cannot escape the sad thought that Miss Foran is herself now a peaceful companion.

What I find most intriguing comes in the poet likening aging books to "Egyptian mummies of old." Might this be a clever allusion to the oft-repeated myth – or is it? – that linen wrappings of mummies were used by nineteenth-century New England papermakers?

I suppose we'll never know.

Never mind.

As we nurse our respective Dominion Day hangovers, I present the six oldest Canadian books in my collection.

The Poems of Thomas D'Arcy McGee
Thomas D'Arcy McGee
Montreal: D. & J. Sadlier, 1870

Purchased four years ago – US$8.00 – at an antique store in Point Pleasant, New Jersey. At my aunt's 88th birthday dinner the previous evening I'd bragged that only one Canadian politician had ever been assassinated: McGee. I am a joy at parties. No invitations declined.

Endymion
The Right Hon. Earl of Beaconsfield
Montreal: Dawson Brothers, 1880

Not by a Canadian, but it was published in Canada, I picked up Endymion three years ago for $1.99 at our local Salvation Army Thrift Store. The Dawson Brothers – Samuel and William – were once Montreal's preeminent publishers and booksellers; I came along a century later. A bookish lad raised in the oldish suburb of Beaconsfield, I knew Benjamin Disraeli's name before those of Messrs Wilson and Heath.

Tecumseh: A Drama
Charles Mair
Toronto: Hunter, Rose, 1883

A first edition of the Confederation Poet's epic about the great man, this was a gift from a friend who had rescued it from a box of rejected donations to the McGill Library Book Sale. Most generous, I think you'll agree.

A Popular History of the Dominion of Canada
Rev. William H. Withrow, D.D. F.R.S.C.
Toronto: William Briggs, 1885

How popular? Well, my copy ranks amongst the sixth thousand. Purchased in 2000 for forty dollars – I paid too much. Though I've never taken so much as a glance beyond the title page, I'll bet that it's a more interesting work than Neville Trueman: Pioneer Preacher, Rev Withrow's preachy War of 1812 novel.

The Other Side of the "Story"
[John King]
Toronto: James Murray, 1886

A new acquisition, found just last week at a bookstall in London, Ontario. Storm clouds were gathering. In his "INTRODUCTORY", Mr King describes this publication as a "brochure", but at 150 bound pages I'm going to say it's a book. I've not yet had a chance to properly investigate its contents, so know only that it is a critique of John Charles Dent's The Story of the Upper Canadian Rebellion (Toronto: C. Blackett Robinson, 1885). Price: 50¢.

Sam Slick, The Clockmaker
Thomas Chandler Haliburton
New York: John B. Alden, 1887

Purchased thirteen years ago for US$8.00 from a Yankee bookseller, this is surely the skinniest edition of the CanLit classic. Thin, pulpy and grey/brown in colour, the paper is typical of the publish and crumble era. I can write, with great certainty, that no mummies were destroyed in it's making.

01 July 2013

A 123-Year-Old Prayer for Dominion Day


Dominion Day, Vancouver, 1890
From Lays of the 'True North' and Other Canadian Poems
Agnes Maule Machar
London: Elliot Stock/Toronto: Copp, Clark, 1902

26 June 2013

To the Big House... or not



The Little Yellow House
Jessie McEwen
Toronto: Ryerson, 1953
249 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


24 June 2013

A Highly Inappropriate St-Jean-Baptiste Advert



Something for la Fête de la St-Jean – St-Jean-Baptiste Day to we Anglo Quebecers – this century-old advert from Ottawa's Gowling Business College.

(cliquez pour agrandir)
The English text suggests that the image ran elsewhere, but I've only seen it in the 1913 Programme officiel des fêtes, a commemorative booklet put together for  the sixtieth anniversary of la Société St-Jean-Baptiste d'Ottawa.


I dare say that once seen the Gowling Business College advert cannot be forgot, though the products sold by these fellow advertisers may just help.


If not them, a half dozen others are peddling similar products.

Bonne fête!


21 June 2013

The Poetic David Montrose



From Ottawa comes a new chapbook of hard-boiled epigrams drawn from the writings of one of our finest noir writers. The words this time belong to David Montrose, whose three Russell Teed mysteries – The Crime on Cote de Neiges, Murder Over Dorval, The Body on Mount Royal – were the first reissues in the Véhicule Press Ricochet Books series.

A limited edition of 25 copies, it follows last year's In The Darkness. Both are the work of J.C. Byers, who has produced what are by far the most elegant treatments of Canadian noir. An Easy Place to Die was printed with a Vandercook SP-15 press on St Armand Old Master, and features fourteen epigrams. My favourite comes from Murder Over Dorval, Montrose's second novel:
     She was a water dryad,
     And she came
     Dripping crystal sparks of light
     From the lake,
     And it was getting brighter,
     And that was good.
Montrealers will appreciate this:
     I couldn't sleep.
          Maybe
          because of the heat.
     It was hotter than hell.
     It was hotter than a fundamentalist
          thinks hell is.
     It was hotter than it had ever been
          before anywhere else in the world.
     It was almost as hot
          as it had been
          in Montreal
          last August.
Also included is a brief biography of David Montrose – Charles Ross Graham – in which Mr Byers considers Teed's misadventures:
Over the course of three novels Russell Teed's investigations taint him as a result of his contact with the criminal underworld. By the time the stories have ended he has been beaten, often, humiliated, and robbed. He has also seen strangers, friends, and lovers killed. He has nearly been killed and he himself has killed more than once, sometimes quite viciously.

"A Private Dick's Disturbing Descent into Darkness", I titled my piece on Murder Over Dorval. As the novels progress, the once upstanding McGill grad fairly comes apart. "The bottle becomes a refuge and it is easy to image Teed disappearing into it", writes J.C. Byers. "Indeed, one can hardly imagine an alternate fate."

Too right. He's done.

Those wishing to obtain copies of An Easy Place To Die may contact the publisher through Wollamshram's Blog.


Update: Back from the Ottawa Small Press Book Fair, Cameron Anstee has posted more photos of An Easy Place To Die. "My favourite purchase of the fair," says he.

Related post:

19 June 2013

Reverend Kerby Comes Upon a Blazing Bosom


This third part of my review of George W. Kerby's The Broken Trail 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:

17 June 2013

Reverend Kerby Warns Against the Dime Novel


This second part of my review of George W. Kerby's The Broken Trail 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
Ernest Cashel
c. 1882 - 1904
RIP
Related posts: