Canadian Literature and Poetry in English

A memoir by Anna Porter, owner of Key Porter Books.

Analyzes the historical context of the New Canadian Library series, edited by Malcolm Ross and published by McClelland and Stewart, beginning in 1958.

Also examines the simultaneous development of Canadian literary studies as a legitimate area of research and teaching in academe and acknowledges the NCL as a milestone in Canadian publishing history.

Z483 .M33 F75 2007
Stacks

Investigates how Canada’s premiere national publisher, McClelland and Stewart, was eventually sold to Random House, a division of Bertelsmann, a German media giant.

Sorted chronologically, the letters between the preeminent publisher and leading Canadian authors of the fifties, sixties and seventies offer an inside view of the personalities that contributed to Canada’s position in the international publishing market.

Includes correspondence from Margaret Atwood, Pierre Berton, Earle Birney, Leonard Cohen, Margaret Laurence, Irving Layton, Farley Mowat, Peter C. Newman, Mordecai Richler, Gabrielle Roy, Michael Ondaatje, and Al Purdy.

In this collection of annotated letters, readers gain rare insight into the private side of these literary icons. Their correspondence reveals a professional relationship that evolved into deep friendship over a period of enormous cultural change. Both were committed to the idea of Canadian writing.

Analyzes the career of Claire Pratt (1921–1995), who served as the senior editor at McClelland and Stewart between 1956 and 1965 within the context of book history and history of publishing in Canada. Developing and expanding the New Canadian Library (NCL) series was one of Pratt’s major editorial achievements.

NCL continues to be recognized as a “prestige imprint on paperback editions of Canadian works.” Pratt also worked closely with Malcolm Ross, Peter C. Newman, Margaret Laurence, Irving Layton and other promient authors. The article is an important contribution to the study of women in the publishing sector.