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HUMANITIES 461 groups into one has been 'partly to save space, but more importantly, to bring together creative works in different forms by individual authors or on particular topics.' There are obvious advantages and disadvantages in either plan. I suppose this index was produced at least partly by some computer process. Time is saved, possibly, but at the expense of space. For instance, on pages 49-50 there are about 60 repetitions, one after the other, of 'in Davey, F. From there to here: listing alphabetically the essays in Frank Davey's book. For all but one of these, the traditional term 'ibid' would have sufficed and would have saved a good deal of space. But a machine apparently does not know how to shift from a title to 'ibid.' In reviewing the 1973 volume last year Isuggested that, if a book being indexed is a reprint or a later edition, the date of the original edition should be provided. Also, for periodicals, a commencement date would be very useful. Perhaps the compilers may yet adopt these suggestions. Another which I would also like to offer is that the introductory essays to New Canadian Library and other paperback reprints be listed in the 'Essay' section. These introductions are often major contributions to writings about the authors concerned - quite as important surely as essays in periodicals. Like the 1973 volume, this one seems also remarkably free of the slips and errors that bedevil compilations. My spot checks have caught only one typographical error - 'Foreward' for 'Foreword' on page 95, line 16, and one misclassification, on page 309, where Hugh Hood's unusual short story 'Whos paying for this call' is classified as '(poem).' The two compilers are to be congratulated for producing this annual series. It has already become valuable to students of Canada's life, literature, and culture, and will steadily become more valuable with each passing year. (R.E. WATTERS) Literary History of Canada. Second edition. General editor, Carl F. Klinck. 3 volumes. University of Toronto Press. xiii, 550; 410; xiii, 391. Volumes 1 and 2, $25 .00 each, volume 3, $20.00, cloth; boxed set, $35.00, paper; student edition $8.95 each, paper The Literary History ofCanada first appeared in 1965 and is now revised in three volumes, the first two involving a reprint (with additions and revisions) of the original text, the third comprising new chapters written to bring the record up to 1973. On its initial appearance, A.j.M. Smith contributed a brilliant review to the present journal (October 1965, pp 107-16) - a discussion that deserves to become a locus classicus of 462 LETTERS IN CANADA 1976 Canadian criticism -and I can do no better than take up some of his leads in examining the new material. Any useful critique of the principles involved in the whole enterprise must start from a much-quoted statement by Northrop Frye in his 'Conclusion ' to what is now the second volume: 'Its authors have completely outgrown the view that evaluation is the end of criticism, instead of its incidental by-product. Had evaluation been their guiding principle, this book would, if written at all, have been only a huge debunking project, leaVing Canadian literature a poor naked alouelte plucked of every feather of decency and dignity' (II, 333). Smith registered a fervent protest against both sentences quoted here, but I am more concerned at the moment with the matter of evaluation. 'I have always believed: Smith wrote, 'that evaluation is the end, purpose, and raison d'etre of criticism and that criticism without evaluation would be, if it could be called criticism, the least rewarding of the pastimes available to the dwellers in an ivory tower.' I had better state that all my own principles, instincts, and prejudices align me with Smith, but, even after making allowances for this, I am convinced that, in the eleven years between the two editions, Smith's position has worn much better than Frye's. Evaluation, while primarily concerned with quality, arises inevitably as a response to quantity. George Woodcock opens his discussion of poetry in the new volume with the following statistics: 'In '959, 24 books of English verse...

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