New Canadian Library: The Ross-McClelland Years 1952 – 1978 (review)

I read the correspondence between Malcolm Ross and Jack McClelland when preparing an edition of the publisher’s letters. Recalling the controversy surrounding the 1978 Calgary Conference (the hundred most ‘significant’ Canadian novels) and Robert Lecker’s jaundiced view in Making It New of McClelland’s role in the formation of the Canadian canon, I was surprised to discover how often the professor and the publisher were flying by the seat of their pants during the two decades of their very fruitful partnership. There was no hidden agenda and there was no body of ideological assumptions about what would and would not go into the New Canadian Library. Much less was there any prior agreement about Canadian ‘classics’ and the ‘canon,’ even if Ross’s 1952 letter to McClelland that set the series in motion asks, ‘What about a series of low-priced paper cover Canadian classics? Would do wonders for the teaching of Canadian literature.’ By ‘classics’ Ross means the historically and aesthetically most interesting or significant or even popular works that had appeared. ‘Low-priced’ indicates that he’s aware of McClelland’s priorities: the series must sell.

Janet Friskney’s comprehensive history of Canadian publishing’s most important venture will be indispensable to anyone seriously interested in the history of Canadian publishing; the development of Canadian criticism; the relationship between the classroom, literary criticism (the ncl introductions), and the market; the resurrection by the ncl of a large body of out-of-print and neglected works; and the history of the book in Canada. It’s rare to read an academic book – other than a biography – with a compelling story, several ‘plots,’ and two strong-willed characters. And Friskney does justice to them. Of her six chapters, the only one that plods is the fifth, which deals with ‘the Matter of the Source Text.’ The issue here is the use by the ncl of abridged and/or non-scholarly editions; one can understand the concern, but given that M&S earned only a maximum of $100 on each of the works of the fifties and sixties, it’s hopelessly unrealistic to expect that McClelland would worry about scholarship or the abridgement of very long works such as Roughing It in the Bush.

Friskney’s study is particularly good when she argues that the selection of texts was a communal effort. The usual procedure was for Ross to propose each year’s selection after having consulted not only McClelland but also the suggestions – seven hundred overall – that were sent to him by other academics. Friskney lists the titles that were proposed but not included: almost all of Ralph Connor, Willa Cather’s Shadows on the Rock, several volumes by Ethel Wilson, Illia Kiriak’s Sons of the Soil, five works by Edward McCourt, and so on. It’s worth noting that Ross often approved works by writers that he himself didn’t admire. Grove is a case in point: eight of his books – all out of print – made it into the series.

The two most dramatic events in the ncl history were the tense 1968 disagreement between Ross and McClelland over whether to include Cohen’s Beautiful Losers and the 1978 Calgary Conference, which may have been a public relations triumph for the publisher but was regarded as a personal catastrophe by the professor. Ross’s letter explaining his rejection of Cohen’s then-controversial novel is one of his most sustained pieces of negative criticism. When I telephoned him, requesting permission to reprint it in Imagining Canadian Literature: The Letters of Jack McClelland (1998), he politely declined. Friskney’s excerpt from it makes it clear just how strong his objections were – ‘It is a very, very, sick book’ – and his awareness of how serious the disagreement was: ‘We haven’t had such a difference of opinion before.’ Friskney’s account of the Calgary Conference is balanced and informative; it also reminds me of how much more heat than light was...