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<store that looked after the printing; but these companies (Oxford University Press in Toronto and John Lane in New York and London) acted as distributors rather than as actual publishers of the book. The Macphail translation was issued no later than mid-July 192I, at which time Blake acknowledged th e gift of a copy from E ayrs. Macph ail had had the authority to print 3,ooo copies, but the first impression, somewhat cautiously perhaps, consisted of only I,000 copies. It was issued in wrappers at $1.00 and the bulk of the impression was exhausted by mid-September."j By June of 1924 a second impression of I,ooo copies and a third impression of 5,000 copies had been printed. A.T. Chapman of Chapman's bookstore on Peel Street in Montreal was acting as Macphail's publisher. (He was also, I presume, supplying copies to the Toronto, New York, and London publishers listed on the title-page.) In September of the following year, however, Chap- 5 5 Whiteman: Maria Chapdelaine in English man went into bankruptcy, Macphail lost some of the royalties due him, and the stock of Maria Chapdelaine,consisting of 3,278 copies, was taken over by Gordon & Gotch (Canada) Ltd. of Toronto. Because of small sales, Macphail by 193I was forced to agree to a cash settlement on the sale of the balance of the edition, which was sold as a lot to the Musson Book Company, who re-issued the book in light green cloth with their imprint on the spine. In 194I, three years after Macphail's death, Musson contracted with his heirs for a new edition of the translation, but this seems never to have been published.16 It was the Blake translation, however, that became established as the stand- ard English version of Maria Chapdelaine, and its publication history is a more involved one. Hugh Eayrs proceeded with the production of the book on the assumption that LeFebvre was legally entitled to assign the translation rights to him. Wh~at he did not know was that LeFebvre had not paid any royalties to the Hemon estate sin-e the original edition in French was pub- lished in I9I6, to the increasing unhappiness of Marie Hemon, the heir to her brother's estate (and the copyright) after the death of their father in the same year.