ESC: English Studies in Canada

controlled reading of Peggy Sanderson as an ambiguous character who elic­ its ambivalent feelings (in both readers and other characters) is especially instructive. But again, on the issue of methodology, Orange is strangely wedded to outmoded theories and stale practices. His ritualistic invocation of Frye’s modes of irony and romance, for example, offers very little that is revelational ; his image-counting (“hats are mentioned at least forty times” [65]) provides nothing that can enlarge our theoretical or critical understanding of Callaghan. Similarly, his new critical pursuit of organic unity (74-75) seems quixotic at best, as is his disturbing habit of offering personal gener­ alizations as universal truths: i.e., “it is human nature for men not to trust each other” (86). These reservations aside, Orpheus in Winter is a “care­ ful” book, one that provides students with a well-researched context and an intelligent handling of Callaghan’s linguistic play. Neither of these books is a dismal failure. On the contrary, as introduc­ tory texts, they provide relatively thorough surveys of Callaghan’s critical reception and detailed analyses (more so in the case of Orange) of two of Callaghan’s important novels. But these critical works seem oddly caught in an unreflective (and ultimately solipsistic) time warp, one divorced from the theoretical developments of the past quarter century. Woodcock and Or­ ange thus offer a very old kind of “new critical” approach, one that Morley Callaghan himself might describe as having an “ancient lineage.” gary boire / Wilfrid Laurier University Carl Spadoni and Judy Donnelly, A Bibliography of McClelland and Stewart Imprints, 1909-1985: A Publisher’s Legacy (Toronto: ECW Press, 1994). 862. Illustr. $75.00 cloth. In 1977 McMaster University Library “acquired the first accession of the Canadian publishing house, McClelland and Stewart” (7). Since then, as part of its “commitment ... to preserving the archives of publishers,” the Library has continued to receive material from M&S and from “other major twentieth-century Canadian publishers” (7). The Library has also under­ taken to prepare bibliographies of the imprints of these Canadian publishers, a program that, given the virtual demise of the scholar-librarian, is truly re­ markable. A Bibliography of McClelland and Stewart Imprints, 1909-1985: A Publisher’s Legacy, compiled by Carl Spadoni and Judy Donnelly, is one of these bibliographies carried out “as a project within” the William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections at McMaster (7). 249 Over 800 pages in length, this bibliography “attempts to record and to describe all editions published by M&S, its predecessors and associated companies, from the founding of the firm in 1906 to the end of Jack Mc­ Clelland’s active involvement in the company and his selling of it in 1985” (54). The entries that form the list of M&S imprints and the three appen­ dices that supplement it, “Imprints Not Located,” “Series,” and “Archival Resources,” comprise almost 700 pages. The other sections are a “Foreword” by the McMaster University Librarian, Graham R. Hill, a “Preface” by Jack McClelland, “Acknowledgements,” a “Chronology” of and an “Historical Introduction” about the publishing firm, a statement of “Bibliographical Methods and Principles,” a “List of Works Cited,” “Location Symbols,” “Il­ lustrations,” a “Name Index,” and a “Title Index.” This volume, then, is a huge compilation that represents both an enormous amount of effort by Spadoni and Donnelly and an impressive example of cooperation by book­ sellers, librarians, researchers, and others interested in the book trade in Canada and abroad. Even so, as the compilers readily admit, there are “omissions, mistakes, and other deficiencies” (11). In the years before his death in 1968 at the age of 91, John McClelland, Jack’s father and a founder of the firm, systemati­ cally disposed of most of “the pre-1950 M&S archives (contracts, copyright certificates, sales records, house library, etc.)” (13). Although the notes that George L. Parker made in the 1960s on some of this material survive, they do not compensate for John McClelland’s destruction of the actual data, which constituted the history not only of an important Canadian publishing house but also of a significant segment of Canadiana. Partly as a result of the loss of these archives, over 1300 titles appear in “Imprints Not Located.” Even...