Search: 1918-1980

Margaret Laurence (1926-87) was a well-known and critically praised Canadian novelist in 1976 when her novel The Diviners (1974) first came under fire. The book had won a Governor General’s Literary Award as had her earlier novel, A Jest of God, in 1966. Challenges by religious, conservative groups to The Diviners continue to the present day, but these disputes in turn galvanized groups and associations of authors, librarians, teachers, publishers, and booksellers to champion Laurence, and also led to the formation of Freedom to Read Week. In the annals of censorship in Canada, the attack on The Diviners is one of the most significant events of the twentieth century.*

Basil H. Johnston is today one of Canada’s most successful and widely read Aboriginal writers. Emerging in the 1970s, during what is now recognised as a time of Aboriginal cultural renaissance in this country, Johnston’s early books were not met with widespread enthusiasm in the publishing world. If not for the professional support of Jack McClelland, Anna Porter, and a handful of other editors, Johnston’s early classics, Ojibway Heritage (1976) and Moose Meat & Wild Rice (1978), may never have been published.

Dorothy Livesay’s works speak to the variety of periodicals and publishers that offer poetry to the Canadian public. Her documentary long poem, “Call My People Home,” is an excellent example of this diversity: it was published in both the poetry journal Contemporary Verse and as part of the Ryerson Poetry Chapbook series, and was also aired as a radio production by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). This study includes an audio recording of Livesay reading from "Call My People Home".

Though there has been recent interest in Chatelaine magazine’s role in second wave feminism in Canada, much work needs to be done on its place in Canadian women’s lives in the early years of its publication.

The translation process for both literary and non-literary texts in Canada includes a wide-ranging network of official, semi-official, academic, and creative roles that cover a spectrum of theoretical and practical occupations. Since the use of translation in the exploration and exploitation of North America during the seventeenth century and after, the necessity and act of translation in an officially multicultural society has since become a common occurrence for those participating in Canada’s social, political, and cultural experience. From a literary and publishing perspective, Canadians not only translate writers of diverse national and linguistic backgrounds, but are most often frequently engaged in translating their fellow Canadians.

The Copp Clark Company has a distinguished record as one of Canada’s longest surviving publishing companies. Established in 1841, it began as a modest proprietorship and grew into a partnership and subsequently into a corporation. It was a major educational publisher and Canadian agent for American and British publishers. Besides publishing books, the company formed lucrative partnerships in the production and marketing of games and other items.

As editor of Grip magazine, J.W. Bengough made a lasting contribution to Canadian publishing. A pioneer of the editorial cartoon, he demonstrated that such images could be serious while simultaneously exuding playfulness, irony, and satiric charm.

Brita Mickleburgh (d. 2008) was a trailblazer in teaching Canadian literature in Canadian high schools. Odd as it may seem now, before 1970 she and most of her colleagues “had been teaching English not as a second language, but for all practical purposes as a foreign language”, using texts from Great Britain, Ireland and the United States.

Canadian publishers underwent dramatic changes during the twentieth century, shifting their focus from the importation of foreign titles to the manufacture of Canadian books by Canadian authors, while continuing alliances with foreign firms. Navigating the difficult waters of the Second World War, ongoing financial challenges, and relentless competition from abroad, homegrown publishers have nurtured a Canadian voice and brought much-beloved literature in all genres to the world. In this case study, book history scholar George L. Parker, author of the seminal The Beginnings of the Book Trade in Canada (1985), provides an overview of the industry from 1918, with reference to transformational events of the last decade.

Riding on the nationalistic surge that engulfed post-Second World War Canada, publishers showcased the nation’s literary voices in new ways. McClelland & Stewart’s Indian File Series brought new poetry to Canadians, packaged in visually striking books that took advantage of developments in commercial design and evoked a strong Canadian sensibility.

The Ryerson Press, one of Canada’s most important book publishers during the twentieth century, was the general trade publishing arm of a much larger Toronto-based printing, bookselling, and publishing operation known in its entirety as the Methodist Book and Publishing House (MBPH). After the church union of 1925, which brought together the Methodist, Presbyterian, and Congregational Churches into the United Church of Canada, the overall operation was known as the United Church Publishing House. From 1919 to 1970, numerous educational, historical, and literary titles appeared under the Ryerson Press trade imprint, authored by such prominent Canadians as A.R.M. Lower, Earle Birney, A.M. Klein, and Alice Munro.

The Perilous Trade by Roy MacSkimming is the only general narrative on contemporary book publishing in English Canada. It appeared from McClelland & Stewart (M&S) in 2003 with the subtitle Publishing Canada’s Writers, becoming a finalist for that year’s National Business Book Award. Four years later M&S issued a revised and updated edition in paperback with the subtitle Book Publishing in Canada 1946-2006. Here MacSkimming reflects on his research for the book, particularly the process of interviewing his subjects. Excerpts of some of his audio interviews are included below with this study.