UVic Library 2015 Modernity book.qxp_UVic Library 2016 FOM book cover spread 2016-07-14 6:32 PM Page 1 F M NTS O OD CTIONS E O COLLE R R RY E UNIVERSIT N TU AT TH Y OF VI F N CTOR I CE IA L T - IBR TH AR 20 IES Y E TH E D I T E D B Y E W H T T H U C A U L M A J. K UVic Library 2015 Modernity book.qxp_UVic Library 2016 FOM book interior 2016-07-19 9:45 PM Page i UVic Library 2015 Modernity book.qxp_UVic Library 2016 FOM book interior 2016-07-19 9:45 PM Page ii UVic Library 2015 Modernity book.qxp_UVic Library 2016 FOM book interior 2016-07-19 9:45 PM Page iii UVic Library 2015 Modernity book.qxp_UVic Library 2016 FOM book interior 2016-07-19 9:45 PM Page iv © B@AD the University of Victoria Libraries Prepared for publication by Christine Walde and J. Matthew Huculak Printed and bound by University of Victoria Printing Services Cover printed on Royal Sundance felt cover A@@lb Design and layout by Clint Hutzulak at Rayola Creative Typeset in Joanna Nova, Joanna Nova Sans and Gill Nova Sans Produced in a limited edition of A@@@ copies The copyrights to “Poem, AFEA” and “Stopping By” are held by Robert Bringhurst. The poetry is reproduced with the permission of the author. Nicholas Bradley thanks Robert Bringhurst for his assistance with this matter and others. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication 20th century literature : fronts of modernity / edited by John Matthew Huculak. Includes bibliographical references. Issued in print and electronic formats. ISBN 978-1-55058-541-4 (pbk.).--ISBN 978-1-55058-542-1 (pdf) 1. Modernism (Literature). 2. English literature--20th century--History and criticism. 3. University of Victoria (B.C.). Library. Special Collections. I. Huculak, John Matthew, 1975-, editor II. Title: Twentieth century literature. PR478.M6T84 2015 820.9'112 C2015-902625-3 C2015-902626-1 All copyright in this work, excluding “Poem, AFEA” and “Stopping By” by Robert Bringhurst, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives C.@ International License. For more information see www.creativecommons.org To obtain permission for uses beyond those outlined in the Creative Commons license, please contact the University of Victoria Libraries. UVic Library 2015 Modernity book.qxp_UVic Library 2016 FOM book interior 2016-07-19 9:45 PM Page v Fronts oF Modernity THE ! TH-CENTURY COLLECTIONS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA LIBRARIES IX Setting the Path Z_^QcXQ^ RU^Wcb_^, d^YeUabYcg \YRaQaYQ^, deYS \YRaQaYUb XI Re:Defining Modernism XUQcXUa TUQ^, Qbb_SYQcU TYaUSc_a, b`USYQ\ S_\\UScY_^b, deYS \YRaQaYUb XV The 20th-Century Collections Z. ]QccXUf XdSd\Q[, `_bcT_Sc_aQ\ VU\\_f, deYS \YRaQaYUb Letter from Canada ^YSX_\Qb RaQT\Ug, W. [Y] R\Q^[, Z. ]QccXUf XdSd\Q[ Letter from Ireland Z. ]QccXUf XdSd\Q[ Letter from France Z. ]QccXUf XdSd\Q[ Letter from Egypt ZQ]Ub WYVV_aT Letter from England ]QccXUf b. QTQ]b, Z. ]QccXUf XdSd\Q[, U\YhQRUcX Wa_eU-fXYcU, bcU`XU^ a_bb, SXaYbcY^U fQ\TU Letter from America ]YSXQU\ ^_f\Y^, Z. ]QccXUf XdSd\Q[ Contributors Shakespeare & Co. Gisèle Freund About UVic Libraries’ Imprint (in foreground) photographing Acknowledgments James Joyce. [Gisèle Z. ]QccXUf XdSd\Q[ Freund Fonds, SC043] BACKGROUND PHOTO: Virginia & Leonard Woolf in the ELGDs. Photograph by Gisèle Freund. [Gisèle Freund Fonds, SC043] UVic Library 2015 Modernity book.qxp_UVic Library 2016 FOM book interior 2016-07-19 9:45 PM Page vi UVic Library 2015 Modernity book.qxp_UVic Library 2016 FOM book interior 2016-07-19 9:45 PM Page vii UVic Library 2015 Modernity book.qxp_UVic Library 2016 FOM book interior 2016-07-19 9:45 PM Page viii VIII FRONTS OF MODERNITY UVic Library 2015 Modernity book.qxp_UVic Library 2016 FOM book interior 2016-07-19 9:45 PM Page ix IX Setting the Path JONATHAN BENGTSON UNIVERSITY LIBRARIAN, UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA LIBRARIES The Modernist collections at UVic Libraries attract researchers from around the world for their breadth and depth. These materials have formed the bedrock of our special collections upon which much has been built over the past half century. John undergraduate, community member, graduate stu- Betjeman, Lawrence Durrell, T.S. Eliot, E.M. Forster, dent — would be adrift, floating in a void of nothing- Robert Graves, Aiden Higgins, Wyndham Lewis, ness. The special collections within libraries emanate Henry Miller, Sylvia Plath, Ezra Pound, John Cooper a gravitational force which grounds all researchers Powys, Kathleen Raine, Herbert Read, Laura Riding, and sets them on a creative path towards new knowl- Else Seel, Robin Skelton, Douglas Goldring, and many edge creation. ╬ others — it is an extraordinary and internationally known gathering of materials which the Libraries remain active in collecting. Collecting is one thing, creating is another. If the early strength of our Modernist collections set the Libraries on a path towards building our holdings of unique and scarce research materials, so too have they become, through initiatives such as the Modernist Versions Project, the catalyst for new and emerging forms of understanding how ideas are formed through complex networks of knowledge creation and dissemination. In this, one of the enduring strengths and values of the library is reflected and amplified. Librarians know that the collections we build will have a multi- “Storiella as she is plicity of uses and potentialities over time, without syung.” the which researchers — whether faculty, first year illuminated capital letter was painted by James Joyce’s daughter, Lucia. [PR6019 O9W63 1937] FACING PAGE: =><?@ ;. detail from Wyndham Lewis’ magazine. [PR6023 E97Z6129 no. 2] UVic Library 2015 Modernity book.qxp_UVic Library 2016 FOM book interior 2016-07-19 9:45 PM Page x X FRONTS OF MODERNITY UVic Library 2015 Modernity book.qxp_UVic Library 2016 FOM book interior 2016-07-19 9:45 PM Page xi XI Re:Defining Modernism HEATHER DEAN ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA LIBRARIES Libraries build collections primarily through three means: purchase, donation, and transfer from either within an institution or from another institution. It is through a combination of these three channels that the University of Victoria Libraries created, in researchers, as well as cultural property and privacy collaboration with the Department of English at the more broadly. University of Victoria, an impressive collection of That Special Collections at the University of Vic- modernist archives and printed material. Howard toria has strong holdings of modernist authors, and Gerwing of Special Collections, and Roger Bishop, specifically, archives of British modernist writers, is then former Chair of the Department of English, largely connected to the interests of faculty in the along with the support of faculty members Ann Sad- Department of English at the University of Victoria’s dlemyer and Robin Skelton, all played a crucial role in founding. In 1969, UVic, the University of British developing our holdings. Columbia, and Simon Fraser University agreed to Printed material is unlike archival material in that build complementary rather than competing collec- it is intended for an audience. Printed material gen- tions; this agreement formalized UVic Libraries’ focus erally exists in multiple copies: there are publisher on English and Anglo-Irish literatures, while UBC col- runs that comprise multiple issues and editions, lected Canadian literature, and SFU pursued American whereas archives are more often unique material that literature. The archives of British authors, including exists in the singular. Literary archives, such as the Poet Laureate John Betjeman, are among the high- fonds of Audrey Alexandra Brown, Lawrence Durrell, lights of Special Collections; an indication of the Robert Graves, and Herbert Read described in this colonial legacy of collection building in libraries and volume, are special because we have access to both in this region, which initially located cultural rele- their public printed material and their private vance outside rather than within Victoria and British thoughts through letters and diaries. Columbia’s literary community. It is a privilege — not a right — that we have access In 1979, Philip Larkin, then serving as University to these documents. Unlike printed material, which Librarian at the University of Hull, was among the assumes a public audience no matter how small, and first in England to decry the loss of literary archives government records, to which citizens legally have a to the Americas.1 At that time, UVic Libraries had right to consult in order to ensure the accountability already established a robust collection of archives of and transparency of their government, private British authors and was well on its way to purchasing records, such as the archives of writers and artists, medieval manuscripts and the multitudes of books arrive at an archive because an author or their literary that were pouring onto the market from the private executors are willing to open their life and their cre- libraries of British country houses.2 Our conception FACING PAGE: ative process to posterity rather than consigning them of what belongs where is complicated by the reality Robert Graves. to a bonfire or dumpster or benign neglect. The fact that authors themselves are mobile and not necessar- A letter from that authors’ archives are private, and not published ily rooted in one place; ultimately, authors and their Aemilia Laracuen or public, has implications for what and how such literary executors have final say as to where their to robert Graves. documents are acquired and made available to archives rest. [SC050] UVic Library 2015 Modernity book.qxp_UVic Library 2016 FOM book interior 2016-07-19 9:45 PM Page xii XII FRONTS OF MODERNITY Special Collections acquired the archives of Ameri- In the mid-1970s, funds for Special Collections can and British authors primarily because faculty and dwindled as did support within the Department of librarians at the time deemed these authors worth col- English for modernist authors.