ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

EVERY STAGE OF OUR WORK on the William Arthur Deacon Project we have had massive support from individuals, from the Thomas Fisher and the Robarts libraries at the University of " Toronto, from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and from York University. Mr Lloyd Haines, literary executor of the William Arthur Deacon estate, has been an enthusiastic and cordial supporter of the project from the beginning; to him, to Bill Deacon, William Arthur Deacon's son, and to Charity Haines and John Deacon, his grandchildren, we owe very special thanks. To Mrs Viola Pratt and Claire Pratt we owe, in no small measure, the instigation of this project, as well as the many warm reminiscences they have given us of their decades of friendship with William Arthur and Sally Deacon. Many other friends and associates of the Deacons have given us their time and encouragement: Mrs Isabel LeBourdais, Mrs Yvonne Housser, Ann Phelps, William French, Gordon Sinclair, Herman Voaden and William McMaster, George Nelson and Conn Smythe. Among our own friends and col- leagues, professors Francess Halpenny, Malcolm Ross, Northrop Frye, and Robert Cluett, Jean Jamieson, former Humanities Editor of the University of Toronto Press, and William Lennox gave us strong initial support and encouragement. Scores of Deacon's former friends and correspondents, and their descendants, have given us permission to quote from letters: Mrs Agnes Armstrong, John Aylen, Constance Beresford-Howe, Bruce Billings, Mrs Margerie Bonner, Victor Brooker, Mrs Ethel Brown, Mrs Mary Cates, Charles Comfort, Jane Edgar Conway, Susan Creighton, Dr Anne Dagg, Miss Laura Lee Davidson, Robertson Davies, Professor x Acknowledgments

Jean-Marcel Duciaume, Dorothy Dumbrille, James Eayrs, Lyman Flint, Louise Guevremont-Gentiletti, Mrs Imogen Givens, Mrs Clare Carten Grimes, Leonard Grove, George Hardy, Philip Harrold, Molly Costain Haycraft, John W. Holmes, Bruce Hutchison, Donald Innis, Hugh Innis, Father Martin Kenney, Isabel LeBourdais, Roger Lemelin, A.R.M. Lower, Brian Macfarlane, T.M. Macinnes, Mrs Grace Macinnis, Mrs Lewis Macisaac, Hugh MacLennan, Kenneth McNaught, Miss V. McPherson, George E. Nelson, Peter Newman, Ann Phelps, Mrs Allison Pickett, Mrs Viola Pratt, Thomas H . Raddall, Esmee de la Roche Rees, Leon M. Rhodenizer, Beth Pierce Robinson, Lady Joan Roberts, Malcolm Ross, Sinclair Ross, Gabrielle Roy, George Salverson, B.D. Sandwell, Dorothy Sisco, Conn Smythe, Mrs Dorothy Taylor, Don W. Thomson, Mrs Elizabeth Volz, Margaret Whitridge. Our research would not have been possible without the initial assistance and unfailing encouragement of Richard Landon, Chief Librarian of the Thomas Fisher Library, and of Rachel Grover, whose meticulous work on the Deacon Collection had brought a large part of it into manageable order before we began. To Robert Blackburn, Director of Library Services, University of Toronto Libraries, we owe a very special debt of gratitude: his co-operation in allotting us spacious quarters in the Robarts Library has not only made our work infinitely easier and more pleasurable, but has also been an outstanding manifestation of inter-university cooperation. York University and the SSHRCC have been major benefactors of this extensive project. To York we owe thanks for three minor research grants and a dean's stipend, enabling us at various times to help fund the assistance we needed; for the funding and expert preparation of our computerized index of the collection (Deakdex), completed in the fall of 1981, we thank Robert Drummond, Department of Political Science, Linda Crich, Edele Van Slyke and her staff at Computer Services, and John Tibert of the Institute for Behavioural Research, all at York University. Most important of all, to York University we owe the work of Doris Brillinger, Head of Secretarial Services, and her staff. Their work for us began in the fall of 1977 with the making of a complete card index for the 18,000 items of the collection and has continued, expertly and cheerfully, through the seemingly endless drafts that have finally resulted in this biography. To say that their aid has been invaluable is an understatement! For part-time research assistance we are indebted to Jeanette Seim, Sherri Posesorski, Helen Newell, Deborah Jepson, and Ruth Panof- sky. xi Acknowledgments

To the SSHRCc,John Lennox and Clara Thomas owe leave grants for 1978-9 and 1980-1 respectively, allowing them to work on the Deacon Project during sabbatical leaves. The SSHRCC also awarded Clara Thomas a research grant for the years 1979-80 and 1980- 1. Of all the magnificent support that we have received, that grant has been the most valuable, enabling us to hire a full-time research assistant for two years. Our editors at the University of Toronto Press, Gerald Hallowell and Jean Wilson, have provided constant encouragement and expert support. Without our assistant, Michele Lacombe, neither the biography nor our other two undertakings, a correspondence collection and a computerized index of the collection, could possibly have been completed. Her outstanding talent for research, her mastery of the contents of this large collection and of computer and indexing tech- niques, her management of our premises in the Robarts Library, and, above all, her unfailing commitment to and enthusiasm for all the work involved, have constantly supported us and spurred us on.

Clara Thomas and John Lennox York University, December 1981

Sarah Annie Davies and William Henry Deacon, about 1890 Great-uncle Thomas, one of a long line of Deacon lawyers

Grandmother Davies, about 1895

William Arthur Deacon, age ten, outside Grandfather Davies' home, Stanstead, Quebec Deacon in Stanstead College soccer team uniform Thomas Russell Deacon, President, Sarah Townsend Syme, about 1918 Manitoba Bridge and Iron Works, and Mayor of Winnipeg

H.G. Wade, W.T. Allison, Charles G.D. Roberts, Winnipeg, 1925 Judge Emily Murphy ('Janey Canuck') reviewing police, Edmonton, 1922 Hector Charlesworth, Editor, Saturday Night, 1926-32

Sally and Bill,jr, Fall 1923 THE RYERSON PRESS••PUBLISHERS TOR.ONTO•• •CAN AD A

F.H. Varley's drawing of 'Candide,' for frontispiece, Pens and Pirates Francis Dickie ('A Letter from Paris,' Saturday Night), at his home in Heriot Bay, BC, 1926, with his unpublished manuscripts Billy, Deirdre, and Mary at the cottage, about 1930

(left to right) Bliss Carman, Charles G.D. Roberts, Annie Charlotte Dalton, Lorne Pierce, A.M. Stephen (seated), Ernest Fewster Sarah Annie Deacon, W.A. Deacon's mother

E.J. Pratt, 1926 Arthur Phelps, about 1922 Bliss Carman on tour in the 1920s Mazo de la Roche Wilson MacDonald, 1926

Annie Charlotte Dalton, 1926 Laura Goodman Salverson, 1934 i ,I

Bertram Booker, by Charles Comfort, 1929 Frederick Philip Grove, by Charles Comfort, 1927 Grey Owl, about 1935 Harold Innis, 193 1

Wilson's Point, Lake Couchiching • '~B eyond eritieism •••'' 11agt1 Canft.!lian Literary Critic

WILLIAM AIITHUI\ DEACON, lwo.n l.b,rougboot Canada (o< bu graphic hook n.Tiew. and literary aiticilm, n,colleet1 Cb.ate & Sanbono•• eoa-.. u a child ••• Mr. Dueoo i1 atill eathueiaetic wbtu be aayt "Thoagh a aitk, I find Chua & 5aDbcm'■ Coffee beyond aiticl■m."

.-,JIASE II: SANBOl\."i'S Coll'.. lo Ley- ~ criUdam for it la ol•oaya &e.b ••• StaJena9 ••• tlatnc.. neotr allt ill th.le faYOrite eo.ft'eel Twice, a 'Wttk ddi,.,i.. bring you Chue II: Saaboni'1·Co8'ec freah 6-om the roa.t.n in ,tho.. New DATW.... tin , , , conclualvo p,oof of You drink the .,,,,,.., aplcy aa,cnce ot the - puoa'fflt _._bean ltMtr ••• You •m~ll the ricbneM ol cofl'cie beana Jun ground • • • Y oa lcnour from your fint alp ol Oaue a Sanborn'• that al lod you'M found the ,-,.. , co/fee. ••• There'll be no more c:.rldCMm of your cofl'ee when you ..,.. ClaMe & Sanboni'• in the DATW tin.

• Every time you ■ee Standard Brand, I.mi... · aew ~ ddinry trucb oa the •trNU of ,-oar' Qty, ttmffllhtt thil! Be.idf. de6Yeriag Fleiem•' mama'• Ye.et they are allO nu.biac ai.. "r S1oban'1 l're■h DATED Coa.., to,--• Buy it frab. from hbn. la out of towa di•tricu. Oiue & Saaban,'1 ftellt V ■cuam Packed Colee u ebippcd by rail, OGly la ...u qua.ntititt at a t.imc. dim iuariq: a ae- ....tly rr.■h ■upply,

TEA and CHASE & SANBORN'S COFFEE ------•

A critic's choice John Murray Gibbon, 1939 Pelham Edgar, 1933

Stephen Leacock, Old Brewery Bay, Orillia Hugh MacLennan, 1951

Gabrielle Roy, 1945 Gwethalyn Graham, about 1944 A relaxed moment Living room, 48 Killdeer Crescent, Toronto 'The Reviewer,' 1959 Sally Deacon, about 1955

OVERLEAF: The Literary Map of Canada (section), by William Arthur Deacon, 1936 ~-R.ED 11/JLL,011/3

Cartoon by Frank Newfeld for the retirement dinner program and menu, 1961