Alice Munro: An Annotated Bibliography of Works and Criticism (review)

Compiler Carol Mazur and editor Cathy Moulder proceeded with exemplary forethought and scholarly critical care in producing this exhaustive and rare (for Canadian literary studies) annotated bibliography of Alice Munro’s writings and the criticism thereof. They began with two earlier bibliographies, those of David Cook (1976) and Robert Thacker (1984, also annotated) and consulted with the leading figures in Munro studies to build as complete and useful a bibliography as will appear. Updates will be required, of course, as Munro is still writing, and it can safely be assumed that her work will garner future, and undoubtedly increased, scholarly critical attention, but it is inconceivable that this monumental bibliography will be superseded.

That Munro merits this devoted bibliographic scholarship should require no argument for readers of utq. She is the best short story writer – the best writer of fiction – that Canada has produced, and she is recognized as such throughout the English-speaking world, the world in which she is also one of the best short story writers, ever. Who is Alice Munro’s superior? I would not suggest anyone, as any such claim would be justified only by that bugbear of literary discussion: matters of personal taste. (That said, I can think of only one contemporary short story writer who compares with Munro for quality and quantity: William Trevor.) So bravo Mazur and Moulder and Scarecrow Press for publishing this bibliography, which immediately becomes an indispensable research tool and simultaneously a fitting tribute and act of scholarly critical devotion.

The contents are organized conventionally into two parts, comprising primary and secondary works. What was pleasantly surprising was to find in the primary works not just books and stories but separate listings for memoirs (two only), non-fiction, television and radio, films and videocassettes, sound recordings, interviews, and poems (the compiler’s/editor’s plural is misleading, as there is only a lonely one on its own big white page, published in the Canadian Forum in 1967 and titled ‘Poem [Untitled]’). Part 2 contains numerous similar surprises, with such subcategories as theses (including master’s) and dissertations, audiovisuals, articles and chapters in books about Munro (I checked for everything I could think of, and all was accounted for), and reference works. In a short space, it must serve as illustration of this bibliography’s daunting thoroughness to observe that even a letter from Tracy Ware to the Globe and Mail, 4 January 1997, is given in the extensive ‘articles and chapters in books’ section and pointedly annotated thus: ‘To gain literary power in Canada, Canadian writers must be internationally acclaimed. Ware cites as an example Munro’s international exposure after being published in The New Yorker.’ That’s more than just illustrative and interesting, because it is something of a throwaway document that surely would have been lost if not for the assiduity of Mazur and Moulder; Ware’s letter touches on a subject that subsequently will interest Munro biographer Thacker, literary historians such as James Doyle and Nick Mount, and cultural nationalists more generally.

As the preceding indicates, the annotations throughout are themselves neat works of compressed information (unfortunately, as in the Ware entry, the inking or printing sometimes goes off, and commas look like periods). It is truly impressive, even remarkable, that Mazur and Moulder have the kind of familiarity with everything Munro to provide accurate and readable paraphrases of so much secondary literature. And the various indexes (including a separate ‘Subject Index’), which apparently owe much to the work of Elizabeth Thompson and the advice of Lorraine York, themselves immediately become indispensable tools for Munro scholars and critics. I could go on itemizing the rewards of this annotated bibliography – the helpful listing of archives and collections, for example – but I haven’t the space.

It should go without saying that this bibliography is a must for every library in the English-speaking world, for anyone interested in Munro’s writings, and for those more...