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Literary Manuscript Collection Acquires New FondsCatherine Hobbs, Research and Information Services The Literary Manuscript Collection at the National Library has recently acquired two interesting archival collections, the Cormorant Books fonds and the John Hulcoop fonds. The Cormorant Books fonds
The Cormorant Books fonds traces the work of the English-language small press formerly based at the Dunvegan, Ontario, home of publisher Jan Geddes. Cormorant is known for publishing poetry, literary fiction, and creative non-fiction as well as selected translations into English of Canadian French-language literature. In the tradition of small presses, Cormorant is also known for launching first-time authors. Some of the notable Cormorant authors include Bill Gaston, Elizabeth Hay, Carol Bruneau, M. Travis Lane, Ekbert Faas, Rita Donovan, Roy MacSkimming and Nino Ricci. In 1990, Cormorant Books published Ricci’s Lives of the Saints, which won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction and which has gone into more than 15 printings. The press was founded in 1986 by poet Gary Geddes and in its early days focussed on publishing poetry. In 1989, Jan Geddes took over as publisher and changed its emphasis to literary fiction and selected non-fiction. The fonds contains material predominantly from the time of the press’s inception up until 1996, when the press entered an affiliation with Stoddart Publishing (the press has since been acquired by Marc Coté and Sue Stewart). The archives now housed at the National Library contain author correspondence and manuscripts, galleys and printers’ proofs, layouts, illustrative material, and financial records. The Cormorant Books fonds will allow researchers to study the editorial, financial, administrative and promotional workings of a small press. In addition, it has complementary value when seen alongside the other small press fonds found at the National Library, such as those of Coach House Press, Oolichan Books, Éditions du Sentier and Anansi. Archival fonds of Canadian small-presses tell the tales of their struggles to cope with the ever-increasing complexity of the world of publishing and with diminished public funding. The fonds illustrate the coping strategies employed by the presses, such as affiliation agreements and participation in the Literary Press Group. The Cormorant Books fonds has direct links to individuals’ fonds held in the Literary Manuscript Collection: the Library has the fonds of poet and founder Gary Geddes and that of translator Sheila Fischman, a number of whose works of translation have been published by the press. The John Hulcoop fonds
The John Hulcoop fonds contains the documents of the Vancouver-based scholar, critic, editor, poet and University of British Columbia professor emeritus. As a scholar and critic, John Hulcoop studied the work of poet Phyllis Webb in depth. He edited and wrote the introduction to Selected Poems of Phyllis Webb, 1954-65 (Talonbooks, 1971), published Phyllis Webb and Her Works (ECW Press, 1990) and wrote an entry for Webb for the Dictionary of Literary Biography (Gale, 1986, vol. 53). John Hulcoop has also had a friendship with Phyllis Webb since the 1950s resulting in a lengthy correspondence. John Hulcoop was also a friend of Jane Rule, whom he met during his student days at University College London. As a critic, Hulcoop also pursued an interest in Timothy Findley and produced an early major critical essay on Findley’s work. As an editor and poet, he has come into contact with a number of Canadian writers and has produced two works of poetry, Three Ring Circus Songs (Talonbooks, 1968) and Untuning the Sky (Pamina Publishing, 2000). The Hulcoop fonds contains correspondence, handwritten drafts, typescripts and final typescripts for writing by his friends Jane Rule and Phyllis Webb, and for Hulcoop’s own works of poetry. Of particular interest are a number of early typescripts of Jane Rule’s short stories. The collection contains important groups of correspondence with writers, in particular Phyllis Webb and Jane Rule, but also with David Watmough and Timothy Findley, to name a few. The National Library holds the fonds of Phyllis Webb, and, to this collection, the John Hulcoop fonds adds information on the editing of many of her major works and on the interpretation of her role in Canadian literature. For more information on these and other fonds in the Literary Manuscript Collection at the National Library, contact: Monique Ostiguy, Literary Manuscript Archivist or Catherine Hobbs, Literary Manuscript Archivist |
