Showing posts with label Scott (F.R.). Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scott (F.R.). Show all posts

29 October 2021

The Scotts of Quebec City


Having praised Quebec City and its plaques bleu on Wednesday, I now condemn.

And with good reason. 

As one may divine, the above – 755, rue Saint-Jean – was built as a church. Dedicated to St Matthew, patron saint of tax collectors and accountants, its history dates to 1772. The grounds surrounding hold centuries-old bones of the Anglican faithful.

St Matthew's most notable rector was Frederick George Scott (1861-1944). A charismatic Anglo-Catholic, his views on religion fit well – as well as might be hoped – in a predominantly Catholic city. Outside the Church, Scott is best known as the Poet of the Laurentians. He produced thirteen volumes of verse in his 82 years. The favourite in my collection is a signed copy of Selected Poems, which was published in 1933 by Emile Robitaille, 30 Garneau Street, Quebec City.

In 1980, the Anglican Church of Canada gave St Matthew's to the Ville du Quebec. It was remade and remodelled as a library. In 2017, it was named after novelist and memoirist Claire Martin (1914-2014).

I'm a great admirer of Martin, and have sung her praises here and here.  She deserves greater recognition in English-speaking Canada. I wonder how she's remembered in French-speaking Canada? In the very same hour I took these photos, I purchased three signed Martin first editions at between six and eight dollars apiece.

I digress.

La bibliothèque Claire-Martin features a very attractive entrance detailing the author's life and work.

This is supplemented with a half-dozen displays lining the library's centre aisle.

Much as I was happy to see them, I was bothered that there was no recognition whatsoever of F.G. Scott. Not only that, there was no recognition of the reverend's third son, Francis Reginald Scott (1899-1985), who was born in the manse overlooking the aforementioned cemetery.

F.G. Scott was one of the most celebrated Canadian poets of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Son F.R. Scott was a founder of both the CCF and the NDP, was Dean of the McGill Law Faculty, fought dictatorial Quebec premier Maurice Duplessis, and defeated the censors in Canada's own Lady Chatterley's Lover trial. F.R. Scott's bibliography consists of over a dozen books, including the Governors General's Award-winning Essays on the Constitution: Aspects of Canadian Law and Politics (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1977) and The Collected Poems of F. R. Scott (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1981). He is recognized as a pioneer in the translation and promotion of Québecois literature.

La bibliotheque Claire-Martin has no books by either man. In fact, there are no books by F.G. Scott in the entire Quebec City public library system. La bibliothèque de Québec has one – one – volume by F.R. Scott, Dialogue sur la traduction, (Montreal: Éditions HMH, 1970). I can't help but think this has everything to do with it having been co-written by Anne Hébert.

My copy, inscribed by Scott to Hugo McPherson, purchased thirty years ago at the Montreal Antiquarian Book Fair.
This is not to suggest that the Scott family is unrecognized. Sharp-eyed visitors will spot this century-old plaque dedicated to members of the St Matthew's Anglican Church congregation who fell during the Great War.


The second column bears the name of Henry Hutton Scott, F.G. Scott's son, F.R. Scott's brother, who was killed during the capture of Regina Trench. A chaplain in the First Canadian Division, Reverend Scott shares a moving account of the search for son's body in The Great War as I Saw It (Toronto: Goodchild, 1922). For those who haven't read it, this short piece from the 1 December 1916 edition of the Toronto Daily Star gives some idea of what to expect.


All this is to recognize the absence of recognition. La bibliotheque Claire-Martin has no plaques bleu dedicated to F.G. Scott and F.R. Scott. La bibliotheque Claire-Martin has no books by F.G. Scott and F.R. Scott.  

To borrow a phrase used by Jacques Parizeau, it's a bloody disgrace.

15 January 2014

Senator Linda Frum's McGill University Magazine (with a bit about The McGill Fortnightly Review)



In November 1926, F.R. Scott was called to the offices of McGill University principal Sir Arthur Currie. The man behind the great victory at Vimy Ridge had been shaken by the student's new McGill Fortnightly Review. Currie worried that the publication might harm the university's "esprit de corps", that it might adopt "dangerous doctrines", that it might descend into things "Bolsheviki". The principal suggested that the publication would benefit from a board of advisors, but Scott stood his ground. Such a body, he said, would send a message to students that they could not be trusted.


I wonder whether Linda Frum experienced anything similar after running afoul of the university three decades ago. Was then-principal David Johnson at all concerned about the politics espoused by her McGill University Magazine? Perhaps not, but administration did take dim view of Ms Frum's appropriation of the institution's name.

A very good account of the meeting between Scott and Currie is found in The Politics of the Imagination, Sandra Djwa's biography of the poet, lawyer, essayist, civil rights champion and Dean of McGill University Faculty of Law. Whether there was ever a meeting between Frum, now a Senator thanks to Stephen Harper, and Principal Johnson, now Governor General thanks to Stephen Harper, I cannot say. There is no biography of Linda Frum.

And why not?

It's been more than four years since the prime minister recognized her talents as a fundraiser for the Canadian Alliance and Conservative Party. Those of us with a literary bent see greater accomplishment in Linda Frum's Guide to Canadian Universities (1987, rev 1990), a work that might be considered alongside Scott's Social Reconstruction and the B.N.A. Act (1934), Civil Liberties and Canadian Federalism (1959), and Essays on the Constitution: Aspects of Canadian Law and Politics (1977).

In 1970, Scott declined the offer of a Senate appointment.


It goes without saying that we all look forward to Senator Frum's next book. Until then, we must be satisfied with rereading past work… which brings me, at long last, to the January/February 1984 edition of McGill University Magazine pictured above. Published four months after the first, we see signs of growth and great change. Where once were just two names – editor Linda Frum and publisher David Martin – the masthead now features fourteen, including graphic director "Jacques N. Gilles".

Never let it be said that the Magazine didn't attract francophones, or that it had no sense of humour*:


All kidding aside, what are we to make of David Martin's absence and the fact that the position of Publisher has been eliminated? Just who's in charge here? Where does the American Institute of Educational Affairs buck stop? How it is that fourteen contributors managed no more than six pieces over a two-month period?

Seems awfully unfair to Editor Frum, who is forced to carry much of the issue. She should not be blamed for botching her interviews with Allan Gotlieb and United States Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Canada James Medas. When reading the silly review of Uncommon Valor, the movie set in "Vietman", please remember that she had pages to fill. Signs of overwork are everywhere, even in the first sentences of her editorial:
Canada and Poland are both nations of about 25 million people**. They both neighbour one of the super-powers. Russia was invaded from Poland in 1812*** and 1941****; America was invaded from Canada in 1777***** and 1813******.
But for my self-imposed asterisk limit, I would quote more. Frum's point, which she does reach eventually, is that we Canadians are better off than the Poles. We should be less critical of Ronald Reagan, more critical of Pierre Trudeau, thank the Americans for our freedoms and… I don't know, apologize for returning fire in 1777 and 1813?

As I say, overwork.

She's in the Senate now.

She's earned her rest.


Related posts:

* The words quoted, belonging to Linda Frum, reference Ronald Reagan's Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Lawrence Eagleburger, who in 1983 at a private gathering compared the prime minister's efforts to broker peace between East and West to "pot-induced behaviour by an erratic leftist.'' Not really the same thing, of course. Again, overwork.
** In 1984, the population of Canada was 25.6 million. The population of Poland at 36.9 million.
*** By France.
**** By Germany.
***** Countering an invasion by the Continental Army.
****** Countering an invasion by the American Army and various Militia.

12 October 2013

The Foster Poetry Conference at Fifty


Irving Layton, Milton Wilson, Leonard Cohen, Eli Mandel and Aviva Layton,
Foster Poetry Conference,, October 1963
Off to the Eastern Townships this morning to celebrate the publication of The Heart Accepts It All: Selected Letters of John Glassco:
Brome Lake Books

265 E Knowlton Rd

Knowlton, QC 
12 October 2013, 2:00 pm
And what better day than today? 'Twas fifty years ago – 12 October 1963 – that Glassco's Foster Poetry Conference opened at the Glen Mountain Ski Chalet. With Glassco, F.R. Scott, A.J.M. Smith, Irving Layton, Louis Dudek, Ralph Gustafson, Eldon Grier, D. G. Jones, Leonard Cohen, Leonard Angel, Kenneth Hetrz, Henry Moscowitz and Seymour Mayne, it remains the greatest gathering of Quebec's English-language poets.

Three days of poetry, comradeship and drink, even the most subdued reports paint it as a great success. Scott was so fired by the experience that he pressured Glassco to edit the proceedings for McGill University Press.  


Glassco agreed to take on the project, but soon came to recognize that the contents failed to capture anything of the exuberant nature of the conference. The late night conversations, the raw exchanges, the drinking – almost all that had been informal, spontaneous, and dynamic had been left unrecorded. What's more he found work on the book a "horrible bore." On 4 May 1964, he wrote Jean Le Moyne: "I shall never be an editor again: this is the work for professionals who have secretaries, electric typewriters, photocopy machines, the co-ordinative faculty and endless patience: but the book is now ready for press."


When the galleys arrived Glassco found the quality so poor that the November 1964 publication date had to be scratched. For months the anthology hung over his head as he awaited, with dread, the reset galleys. What arrived was much improved and he moved quickly to clear the sheets from his desk. Then, just when his work appeared to be finished, Glassco discovered that he'd been saddled with the task of distributing payments to the twenty contributors. The irritation was only compounded by the small sums. Leonard Cohen received three dollars, barely enough to purchase a copy of the book.

My work in editing Glassco's letters was much more pleasurable.


01 April 2013

The Heart Accepts It All – John Glassco



The first day of National Poetry Month seems a good time to mention my forthcoming book The Heart Accepts It All: Selected Letters of John Glassco. I've never been much good when it comes to  salesmanship, so will leave the task to publisher Véhicule Press.

From their catalogue:
A brilliant and enigmatic literary figure.
Decades after his death, John Glassco (1909-1981) remains Canada’s most enigmatic literary figure. The Heart Accepts It All: Selected Letters of John Glassco draws back the curtain on this self-described ‘great practitioner of deceit.’ We see the delight he took in revealing his many literary hoaxes to friends, and the scorn he had for literary fashion. The letters reflect his convictions about literature, other writers and his own talent, while documenting struggles with publishers, pirates and censors. 
    Born into one of Montreal’s wealthiest families, Glassco turned his back on privilege for a life in letters. At age eighteen, having been published in Paris, his voice suddenly went silent. His unexpected return to the literary scene in 1957 coincided with the great flowering of Canadian literature. In the years that followed, he produced a unique body of work that encompasses poetry, memoir, translation, and several bestselling books of pornography. 
    Collected here are the few surviving letters from his youthful adventures in France and three previously unpublished poems. Amongst his correspondents were Maurice Girodias, F.R. Scott, A.J.M. Smith, Ralph Gustafson, Leon Edel and Margaret Atwood.
It's an honour to again find myself associated with this great talent.

Cross-posted at A Gentleman of Pleasure.

03 December 2012

Faith, Philanthropies and Verse for Air Raid Victims



Montreal in Verse:
     An Anthology of English Poetry by Montreal Poets
[Leo Cox, ed]
[Montreal]: Writers of the Poetry Group of the Canadian Authors Association, Montreal Branch, [1942]

A fundraiser in aid of the Queen's Canadian Fund for Air-raid Victims in Britain, this little chapbook of was published sixty years ago this month. Just in time for Christmas.


The Second World War looms large in these pages, but is dwarfed by Mount Royal.

(cliquez pour agrandir)
Thirty-two poets contribute thirty-two poems, and the hill that gives Montreal its name features in nearly half. I think the explanation may be found in the contributors' addresses. You won't find A.J.M. Smith, A.M. Klein or Leo Kennedy in these 48 pages, with few exceptions this is the verse of the city's privileged. And of this group, no one enjoyed greater status and comfort than Amy Redpath Roddick, whose family names kick off poetess Mildred Low's contribution, "Children of the McGill Campus":
Roddick and Redpath and old McGill,
Who, being dead, are living still,
How does it meet your kind intent
The way your benefice is spent?
Lady Roddick herself can't avoid same:


Six decades on, it's impossible to read this verse without thinking of F.R. Scott's "The Canadian Authors Meet" and the poets "measured for their faith and philanthropics". The good folks at Poetry Quebec have made a similar observation. That said, I'm not about to throw Montreal in Verse on the scrap heap. If anything, it reminds me of how much there is to explore of our literary past. Contributors Stella M. Bainbridge, Lily E.F. Barry, Warwick Chipman, Leo Cox, Lorraine Noel Finley, John Murray Gibbon, Christine L. Henderson, A. Beatrice Hickson, W.J King, Alice M.S. Lighthall, William D. Lighthall, Mildred Low, Margaret Furness MacLeod, Martha Martin, Dorothy Sproule, Jean Percival Waddell, Robert Stanley Weir and Margaret Ross Woods all had titles to their names, but I've yet to pick up even one of them.

Researching these names I discover that John Murray Gibbon once wrote a universally praised, yet entirely forgotten novel entitled Pagan Love (1922). Then there's R. Henry Mainer, whose Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road (1908) centres on a hard-as-nails widowed Upper Canadian tavern owner.


The most intriguing is A. Beatrice Hickson, whom Canada's Early Women Writers tells us not only founded and ran a school for "misdirected and wayward" girls, but "painted figurines which were unique in design and costume and whose popularity outran her ability to produce them."

In language and theme, Miss Hickson – she never married – stands apart from her polite and proper fellow poets:


Before reading this slim volume of verse I'd never heard of Leo Cox, who wrote these charitable lines in his Editor's Note:
As in all anthologies, quality and style vary considerably, but all the pieces possess in common a strong love of Montreal, of her history and infinite charm. These verses are a loving tribute from sensitive citizens.
Apparently Macmillan published a collection of Cox's verse in 1941. Must track it down. I'll pass on his  Story of the Mount Stephen Club.


Object: A nicely produced, staple-bound chapbook in red paper wraps, this copy comes to me from my father. The pencilled correction to Amy Redpath Roddick's poem is in an unknown hand. Dare I hope that it is the work of Lady Roddick herself?

The 1 May 1943 edition of the Gazette reports that nearly one thousand copies of Montreal in Verse had been sold, contributing $200 to the Queen's Canadian Fund. The selling price was 25¢.

Access: Not found in even one of our public libraries – those wishing to borrow a copy should look to our universities. Two copies are currently listed for sale online, the most expensive of which ($45) is dedicated and signed by contributor Jean Percival Waddell.

28 May 2012

Conversing with a Literary Tourist about Montreal



Audio of my recent conversation with Nigel Beale has just been posted here at the Literary Tourist.

Mordecai Richler, A.J.M. Smith, F.R. Scott, the Writers' Chapel, the Seville Theatre and Les Mas des Oliviers figure... as does Fiddler's Green Irish Pub, the establishment that has taken up residence in John Glassco's old Bishop Street pied-à-terre.


Related post: Blue Plaque Special

Cross-posted at A Gentleman of Pleasure

20 February 2012

On Lovingly Hand-Selected Recommendations



That they pretend to know me irritates. I write here of Alibris, the self-described "premier online marketplace for independent sellers of new and used books". For four years now they've pestered, prodded, poked and pushed, peppering my inbox with books they know I'll want. "We've lovingly hand-selected the following recommendations just for you", I'm told (emphasis theirs).


Here's one of their most recent picks:


Here's another that was chosen with me in mind:

Alibris add insult, describing this classic as a book I thought I'd never find:

And finally, there's this "book", which is actually a DVD:
Now, to be fair, the folks at Alibris have very little to go on. Our only contact took place back in 2008 when I purchased The Authentic Confessions of Harriet Marwood, an English Governess through their site. Faux-Victorian erotica penned by Montreal poet John Glassco, it says a great deal about Alibris that not a single Canadian title has figured in their four years of lovingly hand-selected recommendations. No poetry or porn, either.

Photo by Mary Elam

All this brings me to the Word Bookstore in Montreal, which launched its own website just last week. I've been a patron for nearly thirty years, first darkening the doorway as a fresh-faced university student.

These are just four of the many books owner Adrian King-Edwards has put in my hands over the years:

Memoirs of Montparnasse
John Glassco
Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1970

Inscribed and annotated by the author. Ex-libris Frank and Marian Scott.


Œuvres Illustrées de Balzac, volume 3
Honoré de Balzac
Paris: Michel Lévy Frères, 1867

Ex-libris John Glassco



The Beautiful and Damned
F. Scott Fitzgerald
London: Grey Walls, 1950







The Watching Cat
Pamela Fry
London: Davies, 1960

Inscribed by the author.





Every one purchased. The only times I've ever passed on a recommendation – a rare event – was when I already owned a copy of the book in question.

The good souls at the Word know me; they don't insult, they don't waste my time... and they're very generous with bookmarks.

07 October 2011

F.R. Scott Memorial Plaque



This coming Thursday, 13 October, will see the dedication of a plaque in memory of F.R. Scott at the chapel of Montreal's St James the Apostle Anglican Church. Scott's will be the third in a cortege of writers' plaques that began two years ago when a small group gathered to remember John Glassco. A plaque to A.J.M. Smith followed, installed on the eve of the thirtieth anniversary of his passing.

This year's service, which will see formal recognition of 'The Writers' Chapel', will include two speakers from McGill university, the institution forever tied to Scott: Desmond Morton (Hiram Mills Emeritus Professor) and Roderick A. Macdonald (F.R. Scott Professor of Constitutional and Public Law).

All are welcome.

Thursday, 13 October 2011
Evensong, 6 p.m.
Church of St James the Apostle
1439 St Catherine Street West, Montreal

A reception with wine and cheese will follow.

Crossposted at A Gentleman of Pleasure.

11 January 2011

The Solid Walls of St James the Apostle



A very fine column by Mike Boone on St James the Apostle's Writers' Chapel from yesterday's Gazette:

City's Great Writers Honoured in Historic Church

"Montreal is a city of great writers. And it's fitting that distinguished men and women of letters be commemorated in one of the city's great places of worship", he writes.

How true.

08 March 2010

The Conservative Authors Meet



The air is heavy with "Canadian" topics,
And Smith, Harper, Gingrich, Vitter, Beck,
Are measured for their faith in Reaganomics,
Their zeal for self and God, their unglued dreck.


With apologies to F.R. Scott
A few final thoughts on writer Sarah Palin's visit to Calgary. Organizers tinePublic Inc billed the event as the former governor's first talk outside the United States. This wasn't at all true – just last September she delivered an 80-minute speech at the CLSA Asia Pacific Markets Forum in Hong Kong. Nor was it right to advertise that Pamela Wallin would serve as the "moderator" of a "Q&A session". The senator was the only person accorded the privilege of asking questions. In short, she was an interviewer, not a moderator... and the "Q&A session" was what we sticklers refer to as an "interview".

Their little chat took place after Palin had delivered a rambling speech in which she'd played up the "special bond" between Alaskans and Canadians, including our shared "love of good hunting and good fishing". On a more personal note, she revealed that two great-grandfathers had been born in Canada and expressed heartfelt thanks to Calgary-based TransCanada for bidding on the Alaska Pipeline Project. In this effort to ingratiate, Palin stumbled only once, asking the audience of 1200 for a show of hands by "those of you who have helped secure this continent and served your country so honorably in uniform". Not one was raised. Never mind, this revelation did not prevent Palin from expressing her appreciation of Canada:
My first five years of life we spent in Skagway, Alaska, right there by Whitehorse. Believe it or not – this was in the 'sixties – we used to hustle on over the border for health care that we would receive in Whitehorse. I remember my brother, he burned his ankle in some little kid accident thing and my parents had to put him on a train and rush him over to Whitehorse and I think, isn’t that kind of ironic now. Zooming over the border, getting health care from Canada.
Palin's only reference to health care, it caught the attention of a number of journalists, but not the seasoned Pamela Wallin, who never thought to ask how the story fit in with the former governor's harsh dismissal of Canada's medical care. But then the senator is no longer a journalist; her role was to lob easy questions as Stockwell Day, Rob Anders and Lee Richardson looked on.

She has adapted well.

Update: Calgary Herald reporter Jason Markusoff has found a contradictory account of accident-prone brother Chuck Heath, Jr's treatment; this one involving a slow ferry to Juneau.

22 February 2010

Freedom for Fanny




Yesterday marked the beginning of Freedom to Read Week; I spent much of it stripping wallpaper. Truth be told, I don't much feel like joining the charge led by the Book and Periodical Council and their Freedom of Expression Committee. Their slapdash "Challenged Books and Magazines List" hasn't changed in over a year – still nothing about Rodolphe Girard, Jean-Charles Harvey, the 1961 RCMP raid on the Vancouver Public Library or the temporary embargo placed on The Satanic Verses. Not even the committee's error-ridden work on Lady Chatterley's Lover has been added. A bit of a surprise, really, since the organization saw fit to spread this misinformation by email last August. An "important legal victory", their researcher noted at the time, adding that it is "poorly documented by the historians of literary freedom in Canada".

Not only poorly documented, but entirely ignored in material being distributed by the council and its committee.

It goes without saying that F.R. Scott's defence of Lady Chatte in Brody, Dansky, Rubin v. The Queen is one most important cases in the fight against censorship in this country... and nearly 48 years after the man emerged triumphant from the Supreme Court we're still waiting for the story to be told. When it is written, I think a chapter should be devoted to the coup de grâce delivered two years later by Fanny Hill.


The Globe and Mail, 2 March 1964

John Cleland's "woman of pleasure" received something of a delayed reception in Canada. She was ignored for two centuries, until November 1963 when local police moved in on a Richmond Hill Coles seizing eight copies. Not to be outdone, two months later Toronto police raided two Yonge Street branches, rounding up a couple of thousand more. It was all laughable; even the staid Globe and Mail thought the raids ridiculous, dismissing the police in a 28 January 1964 editorial as a group of "merry men".

During subsequent court proceedings Robertson Davies testified that Fanny Hill was "a Jolly sort of book". Saturday Night editor Arnold Edinborough joined in, praising Cleland's work as "funny, gay and light-hearted." Oh, but then there was the morality squad's Detective-Sergeant William Quennell, who declared that he'd read the book and had found it to be obscene. On 17 February, Judge Everett L. Weaver sided with critic Quennell: "Jollity in its presentation does not purge it of its pornographic taint." Ontarians who have a copy of Cleland's classic need not worry, that December the decision was overturned by the province's Court of Appeal, securing Fanny Hill a place on the bestseller lists.


Chief Justice Dana Porter, father of Julian, father-in-law of Anna.

So, during a week in which the Book and Periodical Council would have me fret over the anonymous Toronto Public Library patron who in 2003 complained about violence in a Richard North Patterson novel, I'll be watching for real threats... and thinking about the words of Chief Justice Dana Porter in rendering the ultimate decision over Fanny Hill:

The freedom to write books, and thus to disseminate ideas, opinions and concepts of the imagination – the freedom to treat with complete candor an aspect of human life and the activities, aspirations and failings of human beings – these are fundamental to progress in a free society.

24 August 2009

Going to Bat for Lady Chatte



Six months ago, I criticized the Book and Periodical Council's Freedom of Expression Committee for, amongst other things, its failure to recognize F.R. Scott's defence of Lady Chatterley's Lover. Today, a friend forwards an email, issued on behalf of the Committee last Friday. "Fifty years ago," it begins, "the distinguished lawyer F.R. Scott successfully defended Lady Chatterley's Lover (a novel by D.H. Lawrence) in a Canadian court against a charge of sexual obscenity. Thanks to Scott, Canadians may read this classic of modern literature without suffering any interference from the Canadian state."

Very good.

If only it were true.

Fifty years ago, the event that sparked the court case – the 5 November 1959 police seizure of the novel from Montreal newsstands – had not yet taken place. What's more, the resulting trial, held at the Quebec Superior Court on 12 April 1960, resulted in defeat. Scott's successful appeal "in a Canadian court" – known as the Supreme Court of Canada – took place two years later.

The email's author, a researcher for the Freedom of Expression Committee, ends with these words: "this important legal victory is poorly documented by the historians of literary freedom in Canada. I can't find a decent book about it anywhere. And, to the best of my knowledge, no one has noticed the fiftieth anniversary either."

I share in the frustration. The case demands a good book, perhaps something along the lines of C.H. Rolph's The Trial of Lady Chatterley, which documented Britain's battle over the novel. As for recognizing the fiftieth, I'll open a bottle and toast Scott and his good work on 15 March 2012.

The Committee's email is obviously the result of a botched job, and would hardly be worth mention were it not typical of the inaccurate and incomplete information the body distributes each year in its "Challenged Books and Magazines List". Here's hoping it does further research into Scott and Lady Chatte before next Freedom to Read Week.

23 June 2009

(Probably Not) The David Lewis Centenary

Youngsters David Lewis and A. M. Klein
Recognition today of David Lewis, né Losz, born sometime around one hundred years ago in Svisloch, Russia. The Canadian Encyclopedia has Lewis' date of birth as 23 June 1909, but family biographer Cameron Smith tells us that the happy event likely took place a little over three months later. In his Unfinished Journey: The Lewis Family, Smith writes that 23 June was 'the first date that popped into David's twelve-year-old head' when confronted by a Halifax immigration officer. The Parliament of Canada website provides the same date, without comment, and muddies the water by placing Svisloch in Poland. In fact, the town has been Russian since 1795.
While Lewis isn't thought of as literary figure, he did count a number of writers among his friends. A. M. Klein was a pal from his days at Montreal's Baron Byng High School. Lewis' first book, Make this Your Canada, was co-authored by F. R. Scott. There followed another couple of titles: A Socialist Takes Stock and Louder Voices – the latter introducing the term 'corporate welfare bums', for which he is, perhaps, best remembered. Lewis was working on his biography when he died. What he did manage was published posthumously as The Good Fight: Political Memoirs 1909-1958.