Case 5 - Publishing
Case 5 – Publishing
Writers spend considerable time and effort on their work. Drafts are written, and then re-written and re-shaped, and maybe reworked several more times. An editor may then have their own suggestions and revisions, more drafts are generated, and then edited again. Finally, when a manuscript is completed to everyone’s satisfaction, it is time to get it published. After all, though the act of writing may well be a solitary affair – with perhaps some collaborative editing help along the way – seeing one’s carefully crafted words in print, and read by others, is the ultimate goal of almost every writer. This case will explore publishing, including self publishing in the first four items, along with material from two legendary Toronto-based small press publishers.
Al Purdy. Contained within the small collection of Al Purdy Papers at Fisher is a soft-leather bound book, seen here, consisting of over 80 typescript pages and 40 poems. There is little information beyond the title – The Blue River: A Legend of Plains Indians – and a handwritten inscription on the notebook’s first page: “Alfred W. Purdy, Front St., Trenton Ont, Jan 22nd 1939. First Edition.” Based on the date, this collection was put together by a 21-year old Purdy, a full five years before the publication of his first collection of poems, The Enchanted Echo (1944). Self-publishing was not uncommon for Purdy: he printed and bound several collections of his poetry, many of which are now held at Western University.
Margaret Atwood (1939- ). It should not come as a surprise that the Fisher, being the archival repository for Margaret Atwood’s literary archives, holds several copies of her first published work, from 1961: the self-published Double Persephone, seen here. This copy on display belonged to Al Purdy, and contains a signed dedication to him: “For Al – hope you understand it – I don’t anymore – Best, Peggy 1970.” Consisting of seven poems, the book – attributed to M.E. Atwood on the title page – was handset and printed by Atwood herself, with help from fellow poet David Donnell. She also designed the linoblock cover. Only 220 copies were made, originally priced at 50 cents. Atwood and Donnell did the distribution as well, offering copies to book shops on consignment: “We walked into bookstores and asked if they would take it. That’s it,” Atwood has said.
Crad Kilodney (1948-2014). Subversive cult author Crad Kilodney took a guerilla approach to distributing his work, selling his books on Yonge Street or Bloor Street in Toronto, often wearing eye-catching signs, sometimes with the title of the book he was selling, like Excrement (1988) or Putrid Scum (1991), or sometimes with a sign that simply read: “Shabby ‘No-Name’ Writer.” The Fisher holds Kilodney’s archives, including drafts of published and unpublished works, notes, correspondence, business records, cassettes of readings, scrapbooks, and journals. Crad Kilodney was the pen name of Lou Trifon, an American-born writer who moved to Toronto in 1973. Between 1978 and 1992 he self-published numerous works under his Charnel House Publishing imprint, featuring provocative titles such as Gainfully Employed in Limbo (1980), Lightning Struck My Dick: Short Stories With A Difference (1980), Simple Stories for Idiots (1986), Worst Canadian Stories (1987), and Junior Brain Tumours in Action (1990). Because Kilodney paid all publishing and distributing costs himself, his books were available in limited numbers only. Kilodney spent seventeen years selling his work on the streets of Toronto, making him a key figure for self-publishers and DIYers alike.
New Canadian Library Series. The Fisher is the repository of the Malcolm Ross Papers. Ross is perhaps best known as the founder of the New Canadian Library Series, an imprint of McClelland & Stewart. He founded it in 1957 as a vehicle to put more Canadian fiction in the hands of students. Its first published works are on shown here: Over Prairie Trails (1957) by Frederick Philip Grove and Morley Callaghan’s Such Is My Beloved(1957). It was a successful series, publishing around two hundred works, and it continues to this day.
Contact Press and Gwendolyn MacEwen. Founded in 1952 by Raymond Souter, Louis Dudek and Irving Layton, Contact Press became perhaps the most important small literary press in the country, publishing the first works of some of the writers that helped to establish something akin to a new CanLit “voice,” including Leonard Cohen, Margaret Atwood, and George Bowering. In other words, Contact Press was often the house to approach to put a poet on the Canadian literary map. Gwendolyn MacEwen was one such writer. Her archival collection, which the Fisher began to acquire in the mid-1960s, contains a letter from Souster, shown here, dated 1 July 1960, when MacEwen was eighteen years old, rejecting a manuscript that she had sent to Contact Press for publication consideration. MacEwen persevered, however, and Contact published her first major work, The Rising Fire (1963).
Robertson Davies. Robertson Davies’s best-known work, Fifth Business, was first published by Macmillan Canada in 1970, before Viking Press released a US edition. On display are long galley proofs of this US edition, with holograph and editorial notations by Davies, Moira Whalon (Davies’s secretary), and the house editor of Viking at the time. The first page of the proofs contain a correction for Davies’s name, which has been misspelled as “Robertson Davis.” He fought to maintain the Canadian words and phrases in the book. In some instances he asks the Viking Press house editor to change their style to accommodate some of the phrasing he assumes the protagonist Dunstan Ramsay would have used. For example, he preferred “an historian” over “a historian.” When the editor implies that 71 is old, Davies writes: “Dear Editor: 71 is not really old – especially to people over 50. How old are you? Under 30, I’ll bet. May God preserve you for another 60 years.”