The Publication of Maria Chapdelaine in English

Bruce WVhitemnan

The Lord give you patience, perseverance and ultirnate success in straightening out this tangle! W.H. Blake to Hugh Eayrs, February4, 1922'

FEW -IF ANY NOVELS WRITTEN IN CANADA IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY have been as successful and have provoked as much commentary as M/aria

Chapdelaine. No comprehensive bibliography of Hemon's work exists, but the checktlist included in a recent critical study lists fourteen editions in French, fifteen illustrated editions, eight serializations, and seventeen trans- lations of the novel.2 Though its original publication in 1916 went compara- tively unnoticed, its republication in 192I, coinciding with the virtually simultaneous appearance of two English translations, was the beginning of the book's ascent to an almost mythic status. The CanadianBookrnan said that Maria Chapdelaine'ranks beyond all question among the finest exam- ples of the novelistic art produced in Europe in this century,'3 and Williamr Arthur Deacon felt that the W.H. Blake translation 'marked the end of Cana- dian literature's early apprenticeship and heralded a new movement toward maturity.'' In France as well the book was extraordinarily successful. In the words of its first Paris publisher, Bernard Grasset, 'Maria Chapdelaine [est devenu] un v6ritable evenement littéraire." These words were written long before the time when, by one reckoning, well over a million copies were in print.6 TOday the tally would undoubtedly be in the scores of millions. The success and influence of the novel in Quebec and France has been amply documented. Deacon's view of the book's value is suggestive of its influence in English Canada as well. Its publication history is a complicated one, and given its importance to English-Canadian letters, it is a history worth exami- natIon . The history of the publication of Maria Chapdelaine in French has been told on several occasions, but as the background to its appearance in English, I shall summarize the story briefly. The novel first appeared serially in Le Ternps, in the issues from January 27 to February19, 1914. It was there that it caught the attention of Louvigny de Montigny. Montigny (1876-I95 5) was a 5 3 Whiteman: Maria Chapdelaine in English writer and professional translator, who was eventually named chief translator to the Senate. He was also the Canadian representative of Les Droits d'Auteur and was reputed to be 'probably the most energetic and best-informed advocate in Canada of correct intemational relations in matters of copyright.7 Montigny contacted Felix Hemon, Louis Hemon's father, who wrote in reply that he would be very pleased with any arrangements for Canadian publica- tion that could be made. Montigny then approached 'Dieu sait combien d'editeurs et d'imprimeurs,'s but by April 22, 1916, he was able t·o inform Hemon père that he had found 'un editeur de conflance, M.L. LeFebvre, qlui entreprendra l'6dition.' With the assistance of the Quebec govemment, who agreed to buy 200 copies, 3,000 copies of the first edition of Maria Chap- delaine were issued on December 2, 19I·6,at $I.00. The volume was illus- trated by Aurele de Foy Suzor-Cote and contained prefaces by Montigny and Emile Boutroux. A French issue of this first edition was prepared with the imprint of the Librairie Ch. Delagrave, but because of the war copies were never shipped to France." It is important to note that when Maria Chapdelaine was published, LeFebvre attempted to obtain copyright for it in both Canada and the United States. His application for copyright was received and acknowledged by the Library of Congress, but the registration application sent to the Copyright Branch of the Ministry of Agriculture in Ottawa was returned with a note to the effect that a copyright could not be issued to an agent. The book had already been printed, however, and the verso of the title-page contained the standard phrase 'Droits reserves, Canada.' Despite this, no official copyright for M~aria Chapdelaine in Canada was issued at this time. The first person to take an interest in translating Maria Chapdelaine into English was Sir Andrew Macphail (I864-I938), a physician, author, and from 1907 professor of the history of medicine at McGill University. He once described Hemon's work in a letter to Archibald MacMechan as 'the book that has interested me most in all my life.'io In a contractual letter dated October 30, 1920o,the publisher LeFebvre gave Macphail the right to translate the novel, the terms being that the English edition would not exceed 3,ooo copies, that 25% of the net profit was to be paid to him (LeFebvre), and that logl per copy was to be remitted to the estate of Louis Hemon.n In the meantime, Macphail had proposed to W.H. Blake, the lawyer and author of Brown Wa ters (I9I5), that they undertake the translation jointly. Blake described their agree- ment in a letter to Hugh Eayrs, the president of the Macmillan Company of Canada: M[acphail] made the proposal last October that we should collaborate. A little later letters were exchanged in which we agreed that I should do chap[ters] I-Ix and he the remainder - submitting results from time to time. I sent him my chapters one by one 54 P~apers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada xxI in the draft and afterwards typed. He offered little criticism but made a few sugges- tions and some of these l adopted. In this way there came into exis tence the half that I laid before you.12

When Macphail began to send his chapters to Blake, however, the latter was dissatisfied and soon 'came to the conclusion that as a joint bit of work [the translation] would fail.'" Blake travelled from Toronto to Montreal to dis- cuss the project, and at this meeting Macphail agreed that Blake should finish the translation by himself. He also formally transferred to Blake his permission to publish an English version on terms identical to those obtained by him from LeFebvre. With Macphail's blessing, Blake went on to finish the translation on his own. His book of fishing sketches, Brown Waters, had been published by Macmillan~ when Frank Wise was president, and M~aria Chapdelaine was therefore submitted to the same publisher. Hugh Eayrs had been appointed the new president on February 2, 192I, and he seems to have been enormously impressed by the novel and to have seen in it his first opportunity to publish a fine Canadian literary text.'4 Fromn the beginning,Eayrs must have been con- cerned that the matter of copyright be accurately established, for, though the files are incomplete at this juncture, on March 22 Macphail wrote to him and explained that ownership remained with the Hemon family. He himself had only 'permission to print,' but he had 'lost interest in the subject' and was glad that Blak~e should continue the work on his own. It was clearly Blake's impression also that he had the field to him;self, but apparently the forced leisure of an illness caused Macphail to return to Maria. On the I8th of April he wrote to Eayrs: 'During these weeks of confinement, I have translated the first part to my own taste and have made arrangements for printing without reference to formal publishers.' This statement appears curiously at odds with the volume's title-page, which sports the names of no less than three pub- lishers in addition to the Montreal book

NOTES I. The unpublished letters quoted in this article, unless otherwise indicated, are from the Macmillan Company of Canada Archive, now in the library of McMaster University. 2. Nicole Deschamps,Raymonde H6roux, et Normand Villeneuve, Le Mythe de MariaChapdelaine (Montr6al: Les Presses de l'Universit6 de Montréal, 1980), pp. [2I19-22. 3.· 'The Three Sisters Chapdelaine,' CanadianBookman 4 (December 192I): 7. 4. Clara Thomas and John Lennox, William Arthur Deacon: A CanadianLiterary Life (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982), p. 212. 5.·Bernard Grasset to Marie Hemon, letter of August 4, 192I, quoted by Raymonde H6roux, op. cit., p. 72- 6. Louvigny de Montigny, La Revanche de Maria Chapdelaine:essai d'initiationZz un chef-d'oeuvre inspirddu pays de Québec (Montre~al: Editions de 1'A. C.-F., 1937), P-96. 7. 'Need for Haste in Copyright,' CanadianBookman 4 (March 1922): [8 51- 8. Louvigny de Montigny, op. cit., p. 190. 9. This paragraph is based largely on transcripts of Montigny's correspondence in the Macmillan Archive. In a letter to Felix Hemon of October 19;, 1916, Montigny sets the figure of 541 copies for the French issue. In La Revanche de Maria Chapdelaine, however, the figure of 3oo is mentioned (pp. 192-3)- 10. Quoted by S.E.D. Shortt, The Searchfor an Ideal: Six CanadianIntellectuals and Their Convictionsin an Age of Transition,1 890-1 930 (Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1976), p. 29- I I. A transcript of this letter is in the Macmillan Archive. 12. W.H. Blake to Hugh Eayrs, letter of July 17, 1921- I3. Ibid. 14. The correspondence between Eayrs and Blake does not begin until May 6, so that there is no record of Eayrs' initial reaction to the manuscript. In the publisher's 59 Whiteman: Maria Chapdelainein English

note contained in the first edition of the Blake translation, Eayrs speaks of Maria Chapdelaineas 'indeed an immortelle flowering in the somewhat straggling garden of Canadian literature.' Louis Hemon, Maria Chapdelaine, trans. W.H. Blake (TToronto: Macmillan, 192I), p. [7]· 15. 'Nearly all of my edition is sold, and in any case I do not propose to print more until Mr. Blake's has had a chance of being cleared.' (Sir Andrew Macphail to Hugh Eayrs, letter of September 17, 192I.) Several reviews compared the two translations, to the disadvantage of the Macphail version. See, for example, 'The Three Sisters Chapdelaine,' pp. 7-r0, and a review in the CanadianForum 15 (December 1921): 470-I. 16. This paragraph is based on a file of letters and other material relating to Maria Chapdelainein Volume 3 of the papers of Sir Andrew Macphail in the Public Archives of Canada. I am grateful to Ms. Colleen Dempsey for supplying me with copies of these papers. 17.·Marie Hemon to Louvigny de Montigny, transcript of a letter of August 18, 1918. 18. Sir Frederick Macmillan to W.H. Blake, quoted in a letter of January 18, 1922, from Blake to Hugh Eayrs. 19. W.H. Blake to Hugh Eayrs, letters of February4, 7, and 14, 1922- 20. Louvigny de Montigny to Hugh Eayrs, letter of July 26, 1927- 21. Louvigny de Montigny to Hugh Eayrs, 1etter of July 23, 1929. 22. Florence A. Deeks of Toronto claimed that Wells had plagiarized her manuscript 'The Web' in writing The Outline of History.A writ was issued on October 14; 19 25, claiming $ 500,000 damages against the Macmillan branches in London, New York, and Toronto and asking that sales of the book be stopped. The case eventually went all the way to the Privy Council in London and was not settled finally until I933- The decision was against Miss Deeks. 23. Cassels, Brock & Kelly to Hugh Eayrs,1letter of November 4, 1929. 24. Louvigny de Montigny to F61ix Hémon, transcript of a letter of October 9, 19I6. 25. Hugh Eayrs to Macmillan (New York),1letter of February I3, 1922. 26. 'The "villain" of the piece, as I see it, is de Montigny. He has played one game with LeFebvre and another with Miss H6mon and that is why Miss Hemon and LeFebvre are at cross-purposes.' Hugh Eayrs to George P.Brett, letter of February 8, 1922- 27. Hugh Eayrs to Harold Latham, letter of September I, I92I. 28. Louvigny de Montigny's preface to the original French edition of Maria Chapdelaine(Montrial: J.-A. LeFebvre, 19I6), p. i.