A Bibliography of McClelland and Stewart Imprints, 1909–1985: A Publisher's Legacy by Carl Spadoni, Judy Donnelly (review)

224 LETTERS IN CANADA 1994 are not meant to draw attention away from what is an invaluable reference tool of very high quality. Perhaps the best test and recommendation of such a book is that it provides so much pleasure for those who just like to browse. Reading around in the volume feels like visiting an antique shop that has all sorts of interesting and valuable things hidden in every corner. The lively writing on what are often unpromising subjects, the ease of use, the recurring themes (the difficulties of organizing federalism, temperance, moral rectitude under fire, and so on), the surprise of a colourful character one has never heard of before are some of the delights of perusing this volume. We are reminded of the time, for example, that a forward pass was not allowed in the game of hockey and we are presented with the player who changed all of that. It goes without saying that scholars who use the volume will be found whispering grateful thanks in reference sections of libraries across the country. (JOHN ORANGE) Carl Spadoni and Judy Donnelly, compilers. A Bibliography of McClelland and Stewart Imprints, 1909-1985: A Publisher's Legacy ECW. 862. $75.00 cloth As early as 1918, eleven years after John McClelland, Sr and Frederick Goodchild first established their publishing company (then called McClelland and Goodchild), John McClelland claimed to specialize in Canadian writing, a pronouncement that would inform the activities of McClelland and Stewart from then on. From its early emphasis on Canadian books, which appealed to the growing nationalist sentiments in Canada following the First World War,to the establishment of the New Canadian Library Series in 1957, to Jack McClelland, Jr's declared aversion to American domination of Canadian business and his ultimate refusal, even under financial duress, to sell the company to a foreign buyer, M & S 'struck a responsive national chord' in Canada that would reverberate throughout the century. This retrospective bibliography of M & S imprints, in the absence of a house library of M & S publications, is a valuable and timely document in the wake of contemporary interrogations of the construction and dissemination of literary canons. The book outlines one firm's inauguration and cultivation of a literary rennaissance in twentieth-century Canada, documenting the company's gradual transition 'from agency publishing to a genuine commitment to the publication of books by Canadian authors.' The descriptive bibliography, listing more than 3,600 M & S publications , includes all editions published by the company from its first imprints in 1909, to 1985, when Jack McClelland sold the business. HUMANmES 225 Organized chronologically by year, and alphabetically by author within each year, the entries range from Lucy Maud Montgomery's The Watchman and Other Poems (1916), to Pierre Berton's Klondike (1958), to Peter Gzowski's The Morningside Papers (1985). Each entry provides the following information: author, title-page facsimile transcription, pagination, size, binding, printer, historical description, series, and a description and location of the copies examined. The bibliography is not limited to Canadian authors and includes books published by M & S's associated companies. However, since it contains only works that have been physically examined by the compilers, a list of 'Imprints Not Located' is appended as a supplement. The status of many of the pre-1950 items listed in this appendix is uncertain, for, regrettably, in the 1960s John McClelland disposed of most of the company's early records. For much of their information on the early years of the company, the compilers have relied on George Parker's 1969 Ph.D. dissertation, 'A History of a Canadian Publishing House,' which includes a checklist of M & S's publications up to 1964. Parker was able to examine the pre-1950 M & S archives before they were destroyed, and his dissertation provides one of the few surviving records of the early years of the firm. Otherwise, the editors have consulted the M & S collection in McMaster University Library'S William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections, first acquired from Jack McClelland in 1977 and augmented twice since. Together with the record of Macmillan's publications, this text forms McMaster's second bibliography of publishers' imprints. The volume includes an entertaining preface by Jack McClelland, a...